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Researchers Explore New Methods Of Testing Blood Sugar

My fingers hate diabetes. Several times a day they get poked with a sharp, needle-like lancet. The drops of blood they give up tell me how my blood sugar roller coaster is doing. That’s really important information I need to determine whether to eat, exercise, or give myself some insulin.

It would be such a treat to check my blood sugar (glucose) without pricking a finger, squeezing out a drop of blood, and placing it on a small test strip attached to a meter. Help may be on the way—though I’m not expecting any big breakthroughs for another few years—as researchers across the country explore prick-free ways to measure blood sugar.

Here are three interesting approaches. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

Expert Offers Tips For Preventing Diabetic Neuropathy

[Editor’s note: In recognition of American Diabetes Month, Harvard Health Publications is collaborating with MSN.com on its Stop Diabetes initiative. Today’s post, published on World Diabetes Day, is the first of several focusing on this all-too-common disorder.]

People tend to think of diabetes as a silent, painless condition. Don’t tell that to the millions of folks with diabetes-induced tingling toes or painful feet. This problem, called diabetic neuropathy, can range from merely aggravating to disabling or even life threatening. It’s something I have first-hand (or, more appropriately, first-foot) knowledge about.

High blood sugar, the hallmark of diabetes, injures nerves and blood vessels throughout the body. The first nerves to be affected tend to be the smallest ones furthest from the spinal cord—those that stretch to the toes and feet.

Diabetic neuropathy affects different people in different ways. I feel it as Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

Managing Diabetes: Dealing With The Lows

For a good, long time, I ran higher than usual on purpose because of my focus on the baby and my fear of low blood sugars while I was responsible for her care.  In the last few months, I’ve started to lower my blood sugar goals to reclaim a little more control and tighten up that freaking standard deviation.

Which also means that my sensitivity to low blood sugars is tossed out the window once again, along with any whisper of a symptom.  (“Pssssst.  You’re low.”)

So these lows are starting to creep back into rotation.  For a few weeks, it was Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Diabetic Deals With Temporary Visual Impairment

Normally, my vision is better than 20/20.  (20/15 is mine, which always prompts my eye doctor to say “Oh, you should be a pilot!” and then I laugh my face off because, really, do you know me, lady?)  I’m lucky not to wear glasses or contacts at this point in my life, especially considering that everyone else in my family needs a little visual help at this point.

I’m grateful that my vision is excellent most of the time, despite a few diabetic retinopathy issues.  But for the last 48 hours, it’s been a little dodgy, and managing diabetes while my eyesight is impaired has been challenging.  Yesterday was the worst day for this latest relapse of the ol’ corneal abrasion, so my vision was very limited in the affected eye (and the other eye was swollen in a lovely, compassionate response to its friend’s injury, so basically I look like I’d been tagged in the face with a baseball – twice.).

My Dexcom graph was next-to-impossible to read. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Diabetic Considers All She’s Learned In The Last 25 Years With The Disease

What I’ve learned in the last twenty-five years with type 1 diabetes:

  • Some of what “they” said is wrong.  It just is.
  • There are times when “they” make a good point, and it’s up to us as patients to figure out what information we react to.
  • The needles don’t hurt as much now as they did then.  Lancets have become smaller and sharper, syringes can make the same claim.  Insulin pump sites, once they’re in, usually go without being noticed.  Same goes for Dexcom sensors.  (But “painfree” is a misnomer and so subjective that medical device advertisers had best just steer clear of that word entirely.  All needles pinch at least a little bit.)
  • Progress isn’t always shown in tangible technological examples.  Sometimes progress is being able to look at a blood sugar number without feeling judged by it. Or to look in the mirror without wishing you were different.
  • There is life after diagnosis.
  • Diabetes is sometimes funny.  It has to be. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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