“When I see new diabetes technology, I ask myself, ‘Where does it shine?’” said Jennifer Okemah, MS, RD, BCADM, CDCES, CSSD, from Salute Nutrition near Seattle, WA.

She admits she was skeptical of the CeQur Simplicity insulin patch at first.

“I quickly realized the shine of this insulin patch technology is how basic it is,” said Okemah.

Worn on your abdomen for up to three days, this ultra-thin patch requires just an easy squeeze of two small buttons to deliver insulin in 2-unit increments.

“When I show this insulin patch to my patients, their first reaction is usually, ‘Really? All I have to do is squeeze the buttons to take my insulin? That’s it?’” Okemah explained.

“It’s about simplicity. There are so many high-tech diabetes options out there, but the simplicity of this insulin patch is exactly what many people want.”

IF YOU TEND TO SKIP YOUR MEALTIME INSULIN

For people with any type of diabetes who don’t like taking injections in public, the discretion of squeezing buttons to dose insulin can be a true game-changer. You can even squeeze those buttons through the fabric of your shirt. With its super thin profile, this patch is probably the most discreet insulin-delivery system on the market.

Okemah said she realized that this patch technology could serve a remarkable number of her patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes who were missing mealtime insulin doses via injection.

Reasons you might miss mealtime insulin doses include:

  • Not comfortable taking injections in public
  • Aren’t able to easily keep an insulin pen with you
  • Don’t like having to carry an insulin pen with you
  • Have a hard time remembering to take your insulin

“If you need help taking your mealtime insulin for whatever reason, CeQur could work for you,” said Okemah.

 

Read more>>

1. The reason your blood sugar is high in the morning is because of what you ate for dinner the previous night.

There are many reasons why blood sugar can be elevated in the morning and food is only one reason. During the night or during long periods of not eating, your liver makes glucose for your body so it has consistent fuel available. This is true for everyone, whether they have diabetes or not. As your blood sugar rises, the pancreas matches it with trickles of insulin to keep levels steady. But this changes in pre-diabetes and then throughout the progression of diabetes. Rather than producing steady levels of insulin, the cells in the pancreas that make insulin slowly die out (type 2 diabetes). This progression can be evident by slowly rising blood sugars in the morning.

2. I can’t eat carbs.

The human body will make glucose out of any food you eat if it has to. But to produce energy, it prefers using carbohydrates. Eating smaller amounts of high-quality carbs helps provide the right fuel for the body thereby allowing the protein to repair tissue and fat to transport molecules such as vitamins and hormones. On the flip side, eating zero carbs is not sustainable or even possible. Remember – it’s best to eat high-quality carbs like whole-wheat pasta or bread, brown rice, green vegetables, flaxseed, beans, lentils, etc., and not processed carbs like sugar and processed packaged foods.

3. My metformin stopped working.

Metformin is oftentimes one of the first medications used after and in conjunction with education and nutrition therapy for diabetes management. Metformin targets the liver to help it make less glucose so that fasting blood sugars are more manageable, but it does not work on elevated blood sugar related to food. Because Type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease Metformin may work for years. And then it may seem like it’s not doing its job. That’s because as diabetes progresses, which it will, your HbA1C will elevate and when it does, it’s time to come up with a new plan and try other drugs.

4. It’s better to have real sodas like Coke than diet sodas.

The truth is that the human body does not need ANY soda in any form whether regular or diet. There is nothing healthy about any soda option. Pure sugar that’s found in soda directly raises blood sugar and repetitively challenges the pancreas to make extra insulin that the body doesn’t need. The rise of insulin causes the body to store calories. Diet sodas don’t do this because artificial sweeteners don’t raise blood sugar, but they are not a healthy choice for other reasons. Caffeine, found in most of these drinks, can raise blood sugar too. Bottom line? Humans need water, not Coke Zero.

5. Adults with diabetes have type 2. Children with diabetes have type 1. 

 Adults and children both can get type 1diabetes. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease in which the person’s immune system has attacked and killed all of the beta cells in the pancreas. These are the cells responsible for making insulin. Humans need insulin just like they need oxygen. So they have to inject it to create energy from food. Likewise, adults and even teenagers and younger can get type 2 diabetes, which is not an autoimmune disease. In type 2, the body overproduces insulin from the same beta cells on the pancreas which affects type 1. However, the process is slow and difficult to catch. Whereas type 1 is sudden and definitive to diagnose. One disease does not turn into the other because they are separate and different.

WRITTEN BY: GINGER VIEIRA

Skipping routine A1c tests because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and telehealth appointments have left many people with diabetes with rising blood sugars and too little support.

The sharp drop in A1c testing over the last year during the ongoing pandemic and a rocky transition to virtual healthcare has left many people with diabetes with rising blood sugars and too little support.

OBSTACLES TO GETTING YOUR ROUTINE A1C TEST
Depending on the resources where you live, getting an A1c test prior to a telehealth appointment with your doctor came with many potential obstacles such as:

The labs in your area were closed.
Open labs are not within reasonable distance from your home.
Your healthcare team had no system in place to order labs under these circumstances.
Doctors working from home had no way to send referrals from home computers.
Doctors working from home were unable to access their usual appointment process.
You were afraid to go get blood work done due to the pandemic.
You didn’t want to sit in your car and wait to be called into the lab.
You were reluctant to go somewhere new for lab work.
You were given a referral to get blood work done but decided not to go.

“75 percent of our patients are still choosing telehealth appointments,” says Jennifer Okemah, MS, RD, BCADM, CDCES, CSSD, from Salute Nutrition near Seattle, WA. Okemah and her team work with people with diabetes from all over Washington state.

Fortunately, Okemah and her team were well-prepared for virtual healthcare, because it had been part of their clinic prior to the pandemic with clients spread across the state and only 4 physical offices.

However, the patient referrals Okemah normally receives from other primary care and endocrinology offices revealed just how significant the lack of A1c testing was for patients in other clinics, and the inability to send referrals at all during stay-at-home orders.

Read more at – https://beyondtype2.org/pandemic-a1c-testing-drop-telehealth/

WRITTEN BY: GINGER VIEIRA

Editor’s Note: This article is about Ginger’s personal experience using Afrezza, and what has worked for her may not work for everyone. Please consult your healthcare team before making any changes to your diabetes care regimen. Beyond Type 1 has an active partnership with MannKind, makers of Afrezza. This article was not produced as part of that partnership, and the company had no input into its creation.

I’ve lived with type 1 diabetes for over 23 years. Using long-acting and rapid-acting insulins (and one decade on an insulin pump), I’ve taken approximately 45,000 injections. After years of hearing friends in the diabetes community talk about using inhaled insulin, I finally gave it my full attention over the last month.

Here, I share as much detail as possible about my experience using Afrezza inhaled insulin for my mealtime and correction doses of insulin.

SPOILER ALERT: I AM LOVING AFREZZA!
It’s wicked fast — faster than I thought possible. I never dose until I’m done eating.
It makes preventing lows around exercise so much easier.
Once you learn how to dose it, the mild lows nearly correct themselves because it clears your system so quickly.
When correcting mild-to-severely high blood sugars, you’re in your goal range within 30 to 60 minutes because it’s so fast.
You don’t get the food cravings that come with injected rapid-acting insulin!
It’s amazingly fun to take insulin without stabbing my body multiple times a day with a syringe!

For more details visit – https://beyondtype1.org/inhaled-insulin-type-1-diabetes/

Image Source – https://beyondtype1.org/inhaled-insulin-type-1-diabetes/