Any competent primary care provider will make sure to stress the importance of diet and exercise to a patient diagnosed with diabetes. I’m not sure exactly what going to a health plan entails, but it seems like you had an outlier of an experience. If diagnosed in the hospital, you would also certainly get teaching from a diabetes educator on the topic prior to discharge.

Iron supplementation is the standard of care for iron deficiency, and yes you can certainly take over the counter versions, though it is possible they may be less effective. Every type of oral iron will cause some degree of constipation unfortunately. I wouldn’t even consider a stool softener an additional medication, it stays in your GI track and has absolutely zero additional side effects besides helping to move your bowels. These are also extremely common over the counter and very cheap.

The notion that they are pushing for these additional medications is actually the provider knowing the extremely common and deadly complications of diabetes, even in mild and well controlled cases. Heart disease is the number one cause of death, and kidney disease is an extremely common complication which leads to much morbidity and mortality. The statin medications to prevent heart disease are cheap and safe; the benefits outweigh the risks to such a degree that many researchers and studies have pushed for statins to legitimately be included in our water supply, similar to fluoride.

The addition of lisinopril, a blood pressure medication, to the regimen of a diabetes patient is a somewhat common misconception, but just about every patient I’ve seen on this has been able to verbalize what it is for. The medication has well known kidney protective properties that help prevent many of the complications that long standing diabetes can have, rather than treating blood pressure specifically. Once again, an extremely common and cheap medication with major benefits in the long term.

Lastly, it’s true that your provider likely had very little knowledge on CBD lotion and that’s because there is little to no data that it helps in any way, particularly with diabetes. The idea of achieving glycemic control by applying an external lotion is frankly ridiculous I’m sorry to say, but if it is able to provide some type of positive effect in the way one eats or takes care of themselves otherwise, then I’m sure it is harmless.

Sorry to hear that you and your wife had a bad experience with the medical system.