Are you having to split your meds?

Are you testing less because of the cost of strips?

Are your eating habits changing because the bad food is cheaper?

In this supposed depression (I don’t believe it, but that is for another post), are you allowing your diabetes care to slip?

The above video mentions assistance from the drug or meter companies, so I went and checked out Abbott, the maker of the Free Style Flash I use.   I could find nothing on their website that gave any information on how I could receive one, or obtain assistance in getting strips.  This does not mean the help isn’t there, I just couldn’t find it available on the website.

As for my insulin, Lantus, again their website had no information if they have a program for users having difficulties paying for their medication.  This doesn’t mean there isn’t a program available, you may need to simply ask.

I’m sure you’ve also seen the ads by Montel Williams about Free Medication.  I checked out the list of medications on the website and found Lantus and other diabetic medications (that I’m familiar with) are listed there.

I would suggest the best option is to talk to your physician.  The may know of other programs out there and with companies for those experiencing difficulties. 

This financial situation will end so don’t let your health suffer while it is going on.  Tell your doctor about the issues you’re having.  If you don’t open your mouth, he can’t help you.

…

inTouch•diabetes combines patient-centered decision-making with state-of-the-art health information technology. This FDA-cleared system offers patients a network of support and customized education and information while providing healthcare professionals with objective biometric data for more specific and personalized patient/healthcare professional interaction. ~Source

Network of support?  From who?

Customized education and information?  From who?

Providing healthcare professionals with objective(?) biometric data (from where?) for more specific (or cheaper?) and personalized patient/healthcare professional (the government?) interaction.

Okay folks – this sounds like another way for the government to use your medical information to determine if you are following government required guidelines for treatment of diabetes.

This makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Obama already runs a car manufacturer, wants his Treasury Secretary to set employee salaries down to the mail-clerk, what makes you think his Healthcare system isn’t going to be run by another government bureaucrat that has about as much medical training as my dog?

Don’t fall into the Obama Statist trap that will ultimately be total government control of how your medical condition(s) are treated.  If your treatment costs to much for the government, watch for certain drugs not to be prescribe, causing you to slowly deteriorate and eventually die – to no longer be a burden on society.

InTouch™diabetes is  a start.

…

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have suggested a direct link between increased food consumption and foods with fructose. The combination of sedentary lifestyles and eating high-energy foods, laden with fructose, may be directly linked to the obesity epidemic and prevalence of type 2 diabetes. ~ Fructose Metabolism In Brain Increases Food Intake

I’m not a fan of fructose.  Especially the High Fructose Corn Syrup.  This study showed the brain metabolized fructose faster in the brain, increasing the want for more food.  If you look at the packages of a lot of processed foods you can buy today, fructose or high fructose corn syrup is used a lot to sweeten the food.  The shelf life of foods made with this ingredient is longer.  Yet, it could be part and parcel to what is causing major health problems, especially in children.

This next article is interesting in the fact I have been using this type of eating to help maintain my sugar, and when I want to cheat a bit, I protein load to counteract the sugar in the food.

People lose weight when they cut calories, but a diet with some extra protein may be especially effective at trimming body fat and improving blood fats, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that over one year, a moderate-protein diet was better than a standard high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet at helping overweight adults shed body fat. What’s more, it had greater benefits when it came to boosting “good” HDL cholesterol and lowering triglycerides, a type of blood fat that contributes to clogged arteries. ~ Moderate-protein diet may beat high-carb diet

I’m still working out, even though weight-loss is no longer the goal. Good health as best as I can get it is. Have a great day everyone. Start looking at the labels of the junk-food you’re eating and replace it with an apple instead if the fructose is very high.

…

I’m still going to the gym, but alas, still no weight or inch loss.  BUT – I know that it is good for me even if I can’t see any results, so will stick with it.  A couple people on the forums at diabetes.about.com told me its probably the Lantus holding onto the fat.  So as long as I don’t add, I’m okay.

Do you take any over the counter (OTC) supplements for your diabetes?  I don’t – but I know some do take different things that may help them.  We should not get sucked into supposed things that can assist us outside what we already know from the medical community.  No, I do not believe there is anything wrong in trying something, just don’t stop your prescribed medication for it.  I take Omega 3, Alpha Lipic Acid, Grape Seed extra, and other supplements, but never to replace what my doctor has given me.

Shamir Benji  has an article titled, “Treating Type 2 Diabetes with Dietary Supplements” that basically says the same thing.  A short but good read.

I don’t subscribe to Diabetes Forecast anymore.  Not really up on the liberal thinking of how the Diabetes Association wants stuff done in Washington reference healthcare.  BUT, I do browse the articles online.  Randy Jackson (of American Idol fame) has a an article in the February 2009 issue.  Read here about his stuggles and successes with diabetes.

Now some news articles of interest for you reading pleasure.

Type 2 Drug Improves Glucose Metabolization by 41% in Clinical Trial - The results of preclinical testing, announced in early 2008, revealed that DM-99 allowed healthy lab animals to metabolize 41 percent more glucose within an hour of receiving the drug than animals not receiving it. 

 The disease that’s stalking my children, by BBC newsman Justin Webb - No injections. That’s what I promised. This was to be a routine doctor’s visit on a routine day just before last Christmas.

Have a Wonderful day!

Photo Info: ghost-gym; Originally uploaded to Flickr by milkshakepants

Part of the “stimulus” bill was a portion about health care and how records are maintained.  Pelosi & Reid put in a section for the maintenance of medical records being done electronically.  Now that is something I can get my head around and agree with.  What I can’t support is the part the U.S. Government will be the record keeper.  They have no business managing my records, and frankly I don’t trust them.   Just ask any military family how badly the US Government manages their medical records and you’ll understand what I mean.  They would never give me my records until I had a doctors appointment and then half the time they couldn’t find them.  Okay, they weren’t on computer yet and that is another point toward having them on electrons.  BUT – do you really want to hand over your private information to a Government that can’t even figure out that when you loan $750 million to banks you need to have some rules attached to it?  

Another part of the bill has people on both sides understanding it differently.  There are sections that read “national standards of treatment“, to reduce cost.  To me that reads, “if your treatment is not standard for the rest of the country, and too expensive, you’re not getting it.”  Doctors will be subjected to heavy fines if they don’t “cooperate” with the government and we could lose access to doctors who care about us.   Each patient, no matter that condition, has to have their medical treatment tailored to them, not to the masses.  Government intervention in my treatment smacks of government control, ala Hitler era.  

The biggest fear a lot of us have is once we get a certain age or come down with a condition  deemed too expense to treat, what happens then?  Are you just sent home to die?   (BTW, this part of the bill has nothing to do with job creation).

Fortunately, the part of the bill where the government takes over your treatment from the doctor probably won’t start taking effect until around 2014.  Hopefully by that time the country will have come to its senses and ousted the liberals in congress in 2010 and we can get the wrong stuff in this bill reversed.

• Would you get a tattoo that monitors your blood sugar?
• Lilly diabetes drug Byetta losing steam. Eli Lilly faces concerns that efforts to reboot slumping diabetes drug won’t make a difference.
• How Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protect Against Liver Damage And Insulin Resistance

Have a great day everyone.  Switch out a greasy cheeseburger today for a salad. 

…

China halts use of diabetes drug after deaths

China’s Ministry of Health has ordered doctors around the country to stop prescribing a diabetes drug after a fake batch of the medicine was linked to the deaths of two patients.

The patients died in China’s far western region of Xinjiang after taking counterfeit medication that carried the brand of Guangxi Pingnan Pharmaceutical Co but had not been produced by that company, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

It called on medical institutions to submit their stocks of the drug to local authorities for quality testing.

Granted only two people died and it does appear the government has taken steps to prevent further deaths, but any loss for whatever reason is too much. China has a serious issues with all their products.

… and from the DUH file…

Low-carb Diet Improves Type 2 Diabetes Control

A low-carbohydrate diet such as the familiar Atkins diet improves control of blood sugar levels in obese individuals with type 2 diabetes, researchers have shown.

In fact, the diet allows some patients to reduce or eliminate their medication, according to the report in the medical journal Nutrition and Metabolism.

Carbohydrate restriction is at the heart of a diabetic diet. A very low carb diet causes the body to use protein to provide energy, which produces ketones, and it is therefore called a ketogenic diet. Another dietary approach is to use foods with a low glycemic index, ie, that don’t cause a rapid rise in blood sugar, and to cut back on calories.

I have found that if I eat too many “bad” carbs, my sugar gets out of control.  Of course there are good carbs, so you just have to watch what you reach for and how much.   I found that if I want some desert at supper, if I load up on protein, the effects of the bad carbs aren’t as harmful on my glucose levels.

As a diabetic, what have you found out spikes your sugar in the “bad” carb department?

…

Medicare / HCPCS code = A5500 Diabetic shoe

I was sold right there.  So they came in Thursday and I hit the treadmill with them on Saturday.  Yes, my little toes numbed a bit, but I slowed down my speed and within a minute the numbness went away.   I was able to complete a good 30 minute walk (and 2 minutes on the elliptical) and am so happy.   So, my advice – research!  (major duh)

It was (and is) very important to me to get in the exercise to help manage my diabetes, get in better shape, and work on getting off the high BP and cholesterol meds.  But there is another reason that good glucose control is necessary.

Elevated blood sugars can affect memory
Study reveals diabetes takes toll on brain, too

Spikes in blood sugar can take a toll on memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories, a new study reports.

Researchers say the effects can be seen even when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, are only moderately elevated, a finding that may help to explain normal age-related cognitive decline because glucose regulation worsens with age.
[...]
In the study, researchers used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging to map brain regions in 240 elderly subjects. They found a correlation between elevated blood glucose levels and reduced cerebral blood volume, or blood flow, in the dentate gyrus, an indication of reduced metabolic activity and function in that region of the brain.

Additional Reading:

• Low carb best for diabetics When you have a disease that, by definition, consists of the inability to properly regular your body’s blood sugar level and/or insulin levels, it makes perfect sense to eat foods that do not cause havoc with blood sugar and insulin.
• Diabetes testing kits stolen from drug store (WTF?) A man walked into the Walgreen’s Pharmacy empty-handed, but left carrying a white plastic grocery store bag containing three diabetes test kits valued at $240, police said.

 Have a great day everyone!

…

Onto the diabetic news …

Several news links I found in my Google Reader yesterday screamed the headline, “Big Bottoms Could Prevent Diabetes”.  (snort)  I have a big bottom and hips and I’m a diabetic.  Just where do these people get their headlines from?   Here is the first paragraph from the one article I pulled up from the Telegraph in the UK:

Researchers believe the type of fat that accumulates around the hips and buttocks, rather than around your stomach, may offer some protection against developing the disease.

The action words to grab onto in this paragraph are “believe” and “may”.  There is not valid proof that big bottoms, ie: fat butts, prevents Type 2 diabetics.  We know that abdominal fat is bad for everyone, as …

• Belly fat appears to boost inflammation.
• Belly fat is linked to worse atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which makes heart attacks more likely.  (WebMD)

We all need fat – our bodies collect it for energy and warmth – but I’m really leery of news reports siting doctors who say that big bottoms and hips “may” or they “believe” could prevent diabetes. These are misleading headlines and reports and some people, not all, won’t get the “believe” or “may” and think their big backsides are just fine and will protect them.
 

…

Both these drugs cause side effects that are harmful to diabetics, even those they are suppose to help.  Weight gain, heart attacks, etc.  Yes, that which is suppose to help hurts.  We’ve all seen those TV ads that have longer warnings for the drug than the actual benefits it purports?  Yup, that’s Actos and Avandia.

I got off Actos when I started insulin.  Thank god because that drug was putting the weight on me faster than I could keep it off. But now, good ol’ mother nature may be the answer.

Garlic Chemical Tablet Treats Diabetes I And II, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2008)** — A drug based on a chemical found in garlic can treat diabetes types I and II when taken as a tablet, a study in the new Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics says.

When Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues from the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, gave the drug orally to type I diabetic mice, they found it reduced blood glucose levels.

The drug is based on vanadium and allixin, a compound found in garlic, and its action described in an Advance Article from Metallomics available free online from today. The first issue of the new journal will be published in 2009.

**Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) (2008, November 19). Garlic Chemical Tablet Treats Diabetes I And II, Study Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 23, 2008, from Science Daily

Getting off of man-made drugs and more based on mother nature’s way of doing things sounds like a bonus all the way around for me.

Now – I wonder if I just ate a garlic clove once a day if that wouldn’t help too?

Well it would at least keep the vampires at work away from me

So here we go.

Formerly forbidden snack that takes down diabetes
As evidenced by snake charmers and “Survivor” contestants, the world has all kinds of nuts. And they (meaning the kind you eat) can do far more than satisfy a midafternoon snack attack. Large studies have shown that an ounce of nuts a day decreases the incidence of heart disease by 20 percent to 60 percent. And newer research has found that eating a handful of nuts or a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter five times a week can lower your risk of Type 2 diabetes. That’s huge, because more than 24 million people have diabetes right now, and the numbers keep going up.

But nuts have their own hierarchy (and we’re not talking about who gets voted off the island first). You want them to be raw, fresh and unsalted. That’s because nuts lose up to 15 percent of their healthy oils when they’re roasted (roasting at high temps may also cause the formation of chemicals that promote aging).

I love nuts! No cashews please, but for the most part any type of nut is fine by me. But they are so expensive! And just what do they do to them before they go in the little blue can? Fresh is the best, if you click on the link and read the whole article.

New Target For Obesity-Related Insulin Resistance, Type 2 Diabetes
Building on mounting evidence that implicates infection-fighting cells found in obese fat tissue in the growing problem of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have identified a particular subset of cells that are linked to obesity-associated insulin resistance, and that offer a promising new target for the treatment of diabetes. They showed that depletion of these cells, called CD11c-positive, in obese mice resulted in a reversal of obesity-associated insulin resistance.

Okay, that’s great … but what about us diabetics that weren’t obese to begin with? Not all obese people are diabetics.

Have a great day everyone!