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Personalize Your Diabetes Management With Myabetic

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just before I started second grade, back in 1986.  I played with Barbie dolls, colored countless coloring books with my box of Crayola 96 (sharpener in the back), and sported a messy ponytail as often as my mom would allow.  

But my life also included dozens of plastic bags filled with orange-capped syringes.  And black meter cases that zipped up the side and held my glucose meter.  And small vials of bandaid-scented insulin.  My childhood was colorful and fun and just like every other kids’, but there were some dreary bits of diabetes management as a running thread.

I wish there had been things like this to hold my meter in when I was growing up with type 1 – because these meter cases are awesome:

This meter case was created by Kyrra Richards, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2007.  I think it is GORGEOUS.  After her diagnosis, Kyrra created Myabetic – a specialty store stocked with playful and cool glucose meter cases.  She sent me a few of her meter cases to review here on SUM, and she also offered to share a little bit of her story. Read more »

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

Taking A Shower With An Insulin Pump

I love “free shower” – which, if you’re diabetic and using an insulin pump or a CGM, you know that means “the shower when you’re changing sites and you don’t have any hubs connected to you.”

It’s nice to lather up and not worry about catching on an infusion set or a sensor edge.  Thing is, this is what’s waiting for me when I’m done getting all cleaned up:

Oh I love me some free shower.
The potlock o’ diabetes crap

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

Audio Interview: What You Need To Know About Thyroid Disease

thyroidimageJanuary is thyroid disease awareness month, and since an estimated 25 million people in the U.S. have various thyroid problems, I thought it would be a good idea to get an expert update on this often over-looked gland.

Victor Bernet, FACP, is Director of the National Capitol Consortium Endocrinology Fellowship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and the author of MKSAP 15’s chapter on disorders of the thyroid gland. I interviewed him about why thyroid disorders go undiagnosed, what alternative treatments are available, and how primary care physicians and specialists can work together to manage thyroid disease. Please listen to the audio of our conversation or check out the written summary below.

[audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/burnetthyroid.mp3]

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A Health Insurance Coding Error Exasperates Patient

I believe this is what's holding them back from making progress with our bills.Yesterday, the mail arrived.  There were catalogs for clothes (mmmm, can’t wait until May!), letters from friends, the crappy bills that keep arriving even though we didn’t forward them to our new address, and oh yeah, that one bill from my mail order pharmacy.

For a thousand dollars.

Dated January 30, 2009.

So, being the rational and patient woman that I always am, I ripped up the envelope it came in, cursing under my breath like my temperamental buddy, Yosemite Sam.  Punctuated each tear of the paper with “fricka-frakin’ insurance bill dagnabit …”

And then I called the mail order pharmacy company.

“Thank you for calling Byram Health Care.  Your call is important to us.” Read more »

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

Fighting With Grape Juice In The Wee Hours

BEEEEEEEEEP!

Reaching for the alarm, but it’s not the clock.  Check the cell phone, but it’s not a text message.  Grope for the cat, but she’s not beeping, either.

BEEEEEEEEEP!

Oh yeah, how could I forget?

52 mg/dl.  Not too low, but apparently I’ve over-corrected with those basal changes I made two days ago, and I need to retweak just a little bit.

Wandered out to the kitchen, leaving the BEEEEEEP!ing behind in the bedroom, and also leaving the tube of glucose tabs resting on the bedside table untouched.  Make a beeline for the bottle of grape juice that sat, unopened, in the fridge. 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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