The other day, I had a lengthy conversation with my dad, about me and my diabetes when I was a kid.  You see, I’ve become friends with some mom’s who have type 1 diabetic children, and when they post stories of the struggles both they, and their kids go through, it makes me think of my childhood.  When I look back on my own childhood, I don’t remember the kind of nightmare’s that these poor kids are going through as type 1 diabetic children.  I see their mom’s post stories all to frequently of their kid’s blood sugars being over 400 or 500 that won’t come down, resulting in lengthy hospital stays.  I also recently saw another diabetic advocate post about numerous children that had passed away from their diabetes, all in a short time.  Then I saw a video about something called “dead in bed” syndrome.  OMG!  That video was horrifying, and it’s something that they say is becoming all to frequent with diabetic children?!  What is going on?!!!  My childhood wasn’t like this!!  We didn’t live in fear of my diabetes like this?!!

So I asked my dad what he remembered with my diabetes as a kid.  I asked him specifically if he lived in fear of me dying as a child.  He said no.  Yes, there were some sleeping seizures from serious hypo’s, but they were few and far between.  2 or 3 times a year maybe.  Very few hospitalizations in all of my youth years from diabetes, and never for very long.  He said that he and my mom had to learn timing of my meals and snacks because back then we didn’t have fast acting insulin, or blood sugar testing, so they only used urine strips and NPH insulin, and NPH would leave me hypo at certain times of day, so they just knew that at certain times, I needed to eat a snack.  I talked to my mom about this a couple months ago too, and she pretty much told me the same thing.  1 shot a day, timing of meals, check urine sugar.  That was it.  That’s all there was to juvenille diabetes control back then, and I did fine as a kid.  It wasn’t until my adulthood that my diabetes got totally out of control, when I started taking multiple shots a day, using fast acting insulin, and checking my blood sugar frequently.  It was after years of doing this, that I suffered a complication of my diabetes.  That I suffered cardiac arrest at age 34. (As you can see, I survived it.)

Now I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have a rather radical thought.  WHAT IF . . . diabetes control is to tight in this day an age?  WHAT IF . . . blood sugar monitoring, insulin pumps, and A1C’s under 7.0, are the cause of these problems in juvenile diabetic children now days?  I know, I know.  Calm down.  Hey, . . . it’s just a thought.  How long have I lived with type 1 diabetes?  42 years?  Hmmmmm?  Of course, I’m not saying you should stop your current treatment and jump back 35 years in treatment methods.  DON’T EVEN THINK OF DOING THAT!  Follow your doctors prescribed treatment method.  I’m just saying it’s an awfully interesting set of coincidences that line up here, and it just makes me wonder.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The post Diabetes Control – Then and Now appeared first on Rich the Diabetic.

You’ve probably noticed my tagline on one of my profiles, or here on my blog.  It says “Don’t die like I did . . . ”  Why would I use such a strong tagline?  Well, because it gets your attention for one thing, but more importantly, I don’t want you to suffer my fate.  I didn’t take care of myself when I was younger, and the consequences of that is that I suffered cardiac arrest on 13 Aug 2003, from undiagnosed heart disease caused by poor diet, no exercise, and lack of diabetes control.  I got lucky.  You may not?  If you don’t take care of yourself now, you might leave this world before your time.  I don’t want that.  I want you see my story, to learn from my mistakes, so that you don’t suffer my fate in a worse way than I did.  I want you to take care of yourself.  Live a vibrant, healthy, diabetic life.  I want you to thrive with your diabetes.  Don’t be stupid like I was.  This is why I’m a diabetes advocate.  To keep you from suffering my fate.

Every once in a while, I’ll start to wonder if what I’m doing is helping people, and it never fails that when I start to wonder that, I’ll get a comment somewhere in my social network that lets me know I “am” helping people.  I got one last night that just simply made my heart melt.  It was a comment left on the picture above when I posted it on my FB profile.  I want to share it with you now.  It comes from a brave mom of a type 1 diabetic son that’s only 4 years old.

Looking very serious there Richard;-) Thank u for all ur support from across the world. My son sits on my lap at times when I’m on FB and the other day ur picture popped up. I told him that u are a T1D too, he said that he wanted to be just like u when he was big. He said that ur strong;-) Funny the things that come out of a 4yr old. He must sense something about u. In my eyes, all those who live with T1D are superheros. Hugs and glad that ur feeling better.

That just made my heart smile when I read it.  That a child looks up to me and wants to be like me when he grows up.  Kids are suppose to want to be firemen and astronauts, . . . not diabetics!  *grin*  I know that his hopes of being strong like me with soon turn into being a diabetic fireman or a diabetic astronaut, but it still made me smile.  Even now as I’m writing this, I can feel the joy that I’m inspiring a brave young boy to be strong, and not let diabetes stand in his way.  What that little boy doesn’t realize is that now I’m even more motivated to be the best advocate I can be, so I don’t let him down.

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The post Why Am I A Diabetes Advocate? appeared first on Rich the Diabetic.

This is my 6 month Dexcom review of the G4 continuous glucose monitor (CGM).  To get straight to the point, I think every diabetic should have a Dexcom G4 CGM.  One thing that we’re told when we get any CGM device, is that we still need to check our blood sugars normally by blood draw to calibrate, and I understand that, but when I had my Medtronic Guardian, I couldn’t trust that thing at all.  It made me check my blood sugar more often because I never trusted it.  With my Dexcom, I trust it, even when I haven’t calibrated it for 24 hours!  (Don’t do that BTW!)  Most importantly, is that with my Guardian CGM, it was the worst when my blood sugar was rising or crashing, but I trust my Dexcom to be accurate even when I’m rising or falling, which is when a diabetic needs their CGM to be accurate.

A couple days ago was the first nice, sunny, warm day we’ve had here in Iowa this spring.  Actually, it was earth day too I think?  Anyway, I decided to go throw some disc golf.  (If you haven’t noticed yet, I love to play disc golf.)  Normally I wear a fanny pack on the course with me, that has all my supplies in it.  Actually I go everywhere with it.  It’s been referred to by my friends as my diabetic man purse.  So I’m prepping my disc golf bag, and I realize this is the first time I will have gone disc golfing with my Dexcom because I got it in November.  So I decide to leave the fanny pack in the car, and just throw some glucose tabs in my bag, and my Dex in my pocket.  I played a round with no problems, secure in that my Dex was accurate, and I didn’t need to check my blood sugar while playing.  What freedom!

Today I did a foolish thing.  I left for work without my diabetic man purse.  When I realized I forgot it, I was to far from home to go get it and get to work on time.  I have a job where if you’re late for work, you can get fired, so I didn’t go home because I knew my Dex was in my front pocket.  However, I hadn’t calibrated it since I went to bed the night before.  I ate and bolused for breakfast and lunch, using my Dex as my guide for my blood sugar.  I checked it throughout the day, and was floating around 150, which I was happy with.  I got home and checked my blood sugar at about 8PM.  My Dex said it was 156, and my One Touch said it was 184.  I’ll take it!!!  Remember, this is nearly 24 hours since it’s last calibration!  (#winning)  Now of course I don’t recommend leaving your diabetic supplies at home, but when you happen to forget them like I did, you can trust your Dex to keep giving you accurate results for hours and hours.  If you tried that with the Medtronic, it would turn off the sensor when you didn’t calibrate it at the first warning alarm.  (#diafail)

To conclude, if you’re currently evaluating the Dexcom G4, I recommend you just call up Dexcom, tell them you want it, let them deal with your insurance, and wait to hear from them.  I don’t think you can lose.  Ever diabetic should have one of these.  Sound off if you agree!!!  (That means please leave a comment!)

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********** Now ya know, and knowing is half the battle.  Go Joe!!! **********

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The post Dexcom Review: Trusting the Dexcom G4 appeared first on Rich the Diabetic.

Yes, the new Samsung Galaxy S4 will have an app called “S Health” that includes blood glucose software for monitoring your blood sugars, and get this, it will import those readings from select blood glucose meters!  I can’t even convey how excited I am about this!!!  I never really talk about what I do for a living on my blog, but I’m going to tell you now.  I work in an android call center for a major cell phone company.  When you’re android phone doesn’t work and you call your cell phone provider for help, you could end up talking to me.  I’ve actually talked to a few diabetic cell phone customers, about our diabetes, while troubleshooting their bill or their phone.  So I’m surrounded by cell phone news and information all the time.  I already have the Galaxy S3, and this S Health app is suppose to already be released “internationally”.  Bad for me, good for you! That is if you’re one of my international readers.  Once the Galaxy S4 drops, I’m sure they’ll release it for the Galaxy S3 here in the United States.  

So that’s not the only thing this S Health app will do.  It also includes a food tracker, a fitness tracker, a built in pedometer, can sync to a special weight scale, blood pressure monitor, and heart rate monitor that Samsung makes, and it even measures the temperature and humidity of the room you’re in to rate the “comfort level” for you.  Oh!  It also somehow has some sort of sleep monitor.

Now, take a moment . . . . . think about how freaking cool it would be, to have your food diary, your fitness diary, your blood sugar diary, a pedometer, your blood pressure, your heart rate, all in a single device.  A device that you always have with you.  How freakin’ cool is that going to be?!  Are you as stoked as I am?!!!  Below you’ll find a CNET video describing the Galaxy S4, as well as the Samsung press release for it to get you started with your research.

http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/2013/03/14/Samsung-Introduces-the-GALAXY-S-4—-A-Life-Companion-for-a-richer,-simpler-and-fuller-life

The post Samsung Galaxy S4 Blood Glucose Software?! appeared first on Rich the Diabetic.

I wanted to share a video review of why I like the Dexcom G4 and it’s insertion, over the Medtronic Guardian.  The basic reason I like the Dexcom insertion over the Medtronic is because the Medtronic has such a huge freaking needle!  It HURTS.  The Dexcom needle is so tiny and thin that I don’t even feel it.  I only know 2 people that use the Guardian now days, and 1 of them hates it because it hurts so much, the other girl I know is just used to it.

Of course, there are many other reasons I like the G4 over the Guardian, the most important is the accuracy of the sensor.  Accuracy doesn’t seem to exist with the Guardian, and I count on the accuracy of the G4, even when I’m rising or falling.  There’s a lot of talk these days about the new Enlite sensor from Medtronic.  My diabetes educator says that the Enlite is still not going to be as accurate as the G4, and she’s even sticking with her G4.  She’s been type 1 diabetic most of her life, so she “get’s it”, and BTW, I have the best diabetes educator ever.  She’s awesome, and I trust everything she tells me.  :)  I wish everyone had an educator like mine.

The post Video: Benefits of Dexcom G4 Insertion vs. Medtronic Guardian appeared first on Rich the Diabetic.