On March 1, 2018 I will have lived well with type 1 diabetes for 52 years. After receiving my 50-year Joslin Medal in 2016, I was enrolled in a closed social network of other medalists. I read a post by a fellow medalist asking the group what our group had in common. What allowed us to survive so long with type 1 diabetes? What helped us to live over a half century with a disease which was expected to dramatically shorten the quality and quantity of our lives? After all, Joslin Medalists are of different genders, live across the globe, practice different religions, come from different economic groups and cultures. After a short pause, someone posted “we had good families”. The group unanimou
Dr. Matthew Stephen is one my endocrine practice partners. Matt has lived well with type 1 diabetes for 33 years. He has used Fiasp and wrote this summary of his thoughts. Not surprisingly, the Fiasp® FlexTouch pen looks and feels much like the Tresiba® FlexTouch. In my limited experience so far with Fiasp, I have appreciated its rapid absorption and action. Pre-meal dosing should be done with caution especially if pre-meal glucose is low or low-normal as it is absorbed and acts noticeably more rapid than other bolus insulins. I am not in the habit of eating a lot of simple carbohydrate meals or snacks; however, I did find it helpful in staying ahead of glucose rises with both cereal and do
When I presented a Sugar Surfing™ Workshop in Houston on February 3rd 2018, a young mother approached me. In her arms she held her lovely 3 month old daughter. Her name is Emily Vocke. She related a story to me which literally brought me to tears. I asked if she would share her journey and allow me to share it with you. It speaks to the power of Dynamic Diabetes Management to benefit new moms and their unborn children. I remember it like it was yesterday. My heart was filled with two things- the first was this incredible desire to be a mother and the second was fear. Fear that I would never be able to get my A1C below 6.5%, much less to the 6.0% target my PA said should really be my goal. I
The story below is by Susan Surovik, MOD extraordinaire. Susan's son Caleb has been surfing almost all his diabetes life. She recently shared with me how their dynamic approach to diabetes allows her to see diabetes self care in a radically different way compared to the static approaches she was initially taught. Read her compelling story: I had another day etched in my memory with type 1 diabetes, a very joyful one. The journey we have walked with our son, Caleb, has been long and hard and good. Full of ups and downs fueled by fear and gratitude, finger pricks, high and low numbers and many discussions of how many units, number of carbs and what physical activity Caleb might or might not pa
When diabetes first invades our lives, we fight back. How we fight back changes over time. I don’t mean the tools or knowledge we possess, but the reasons WHY we apply them in our daily lives. Our first diabetes motivator is usually fear. It’s handed to us on a silver platter when we’re diagnosed. Free advice rains down upon us like a monsoon. It’s a constant bombardment of cautionary tales from friends, family, co-workers, and of course the medical profession. When I was diagnosed, we like most others were utterly ignorant about diabetes. The public’s perception of the differences between diabetes types was in its infancy when I was diagnosed. People generalized about what would happen to
“Z MINUS 10,000 METERS” Nerd alert! This post contains some really old sci-fi references This is one of my favorite diabetes teaching posts. In the 1980’s Star Trek film “The Wrath of Khan”, the iconic Captain Kirk engages in a final “cat and mouse” battle with his nemesis Khan deep with a murky interstellar nebula. Midway through the action sequence, Mr. Spock makes an insightful comment to his Captain: “He (Khan) is intelligent, but not experienced...His pattern indicates TWO-dimensional thinking”. That observation ultimately seals Khan’s fate as Kirk moves the Enterprise along another axis (" z minus 10,000 meters) to launch a crippling photon torpedo and phaser attack on Khan’s starship
"The Quiver" Our Newsletter This is our inaugural Dynamic Diabetes Management Inc, monthly newsletter. It’s intended to keep Sugar Surfers and Friends of Surfers up to speed with what is going on with Dynamic Diabetes Management Inc, (Sugar Surfing™). And what about that name, “The Quiver”? It’s a real ocean surfing slang term which means ‘a surfer’s surfboard collection’. This newsletter will discuss the collection of projects and programs which are completed or in development or consideration. Business Matters On January 17th 2018 we received our formal letter from the IRS designating Dynamic Diabetes Management as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit public educational charity. DDM was incor
This is an overused phrase. It's overheard when people discuss theirs or their child’s diabetes. It’s classically said in reference to a static insulin dose, insulin basal rate setting, or insulin/carb dosing algorithm. ‘Fine tuning’ is a metaphor referring to the act of adjusting an analog radio channel to the best possible frequency to receive the clearest audio signal from a particular station. I used to be an amateur radio operator and recall many hours adjusting the tuning on my receiver to catch a radio signal from the other side of the world. In my opinion, fine tuning is an incomplete metaphor for managing diabetes in a dynamic world. Why? Radio stations transmit their signals on
