The Doctors

Anyone ever watch the T.V. show The Doctors? It's kind of new. The Doctors is just what it sounds like - it's a pannel of doctors that give information on various topics. Sometimes they even debate their views on different subjects. For more information, check out their page on CBS. I refuse to post a direct link, and below I will tell why.

It seems that on Spetember 29th, 2008 one of the doctors decided to tell a bunch of children that "they would get diabetes if they ate too much sugar". That is a total myth, and several parents at the Children with Diabetes forums were outraged. What did the parents over at CWD do? What they usually do.... They banded together, and wrote emails to the staff. No one got a reply, though....

The next step was to post to the blog over at The Doctors website. The posts were deleted...

The Doctors have messed up, but they are not letting their mistake become known to their fans, nor are they correcting their mistake. Will that be yet another mistake? I sure hope so.

Here's my plan. I say we find a media outlet, and get attention on the mistake from a source that The Doctors cannot delete, nor ignore. By doing this The Doctors cannot delete it, and they can no longer hide that they gave out misinformation to a bunch of elemenrty school students, and they will not get away with spreading the Myths that the parents of children with diabetes loath so much.

Stem Cell Research Immoral?

Stem cell research is a debate that often explodes in any circle. These debates also happen in the diabetic community, even though stem cell research has a high potential to cure diabetes.

Of course, there are many things that go further than diabetes that will affect one's views on the subject, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I of course, am one of those liberal nuts who is pro choice, and also for stem cell research. Especially in the case of stem cells that will be discarded, because for whatever reason their owners no longer want or need them. I believe that it is a waste to discard those stem cells, rather then use them to save, or drastically improve a life. In fact, I believe it is immoral to not use them for this purpose.

During my absence I started attending college classes through the University of Phoenix's online extension program, Axia College. This week we had to answer some questions about the topic we had chosen for our final project that is due at the end of the term. For this class we have to write an essay. I thought about doing type 1 as my topic, however I chose against it. I think I am too emotionally involved in the topic of type 1 to write a truly non biased essay, which is part of the deal, non bias that is.....
This assignment is one that we will post for the whole class to see (some of our assignments are part of class discussion, others are private between student and teacher) and then the class will discuss each other's work by agreeing, disagreeing, or asking further questions.
Anyhow, I was reading through other peoples posts. It's required that I respond to 2 of these posts, 3 separate days of the week. Guess what I found? Another parent of a CWD....
Of course I am now watching that discussion with great interest.... We had the grandfather story come up as a response with the remark about how amazing it is that diet can affect us in so many ways.... Yeah, you all know the one I am speaking about. I took deep breaths.... I counted down from 10, then 100. I paced back and fourth. I went into CWD chat and goofed off with other parents. It was approaching 11, and I needed to get this done before midnight, or it would not count for that day, and I needed it to count. I browsed other topics, thinking I could post to one of them instead, but the diabetes one was still on my mind. I had to write a post to these people, or the comments would continue to be about somebody's grandfather, another person's aunt, ect... This is what I posted.... I am just hoping I was diplomatic enough....

Unfortunately, (name removed for confidentiality) son, and my daughter will have to take insulin either through an injection, or a catheter that is placed under their skin, several times per day for the rest of their lives, or until another treatment, or a cure is found. Pills that currently exist are not an option, because they do not produce the right results to treat our children.
While we still have to pay attention to their diet, it isn't quite as easy as cutting out the junk. You would be amazed at what healthy foods effect a person's blood glucose levels in a bad way, and what kinds of junk foods are easier to manage in terms of keeping one's blood glucose levels in a normal range. Since carbohydrates are needed for a child to have normal growth and development, a child with diabetes presents many special challenges with regards to diet.
Almost everything our children do will effect their blood glucose levels, whether it be eating, exercising, or even the unforeseen such as; hormones, stress, and illness.

For more information on the differences between the two types the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has a brochure on the subject that can be found here: http://www.jdrf.org.au/publications/factsheets/differences_between_type_1_and_type_2.pdf

Last post for a while

Due to some issues I am having this will be my last post for a while.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you that read the crap I write on here and have given me so much support.
Love to all, Jamie

Way to go Texas A&M

Texas A&M is working on a new type of bg sensor.

I am not a fan of the current tech for CGMS. Though I am not sure how ready I would be to implant beads under Julia's skin either. I'm glad people are looking in other directions then the traditional "insert probe into skin" rather then continuing to try and improve that technology. Of course we have plenty of companies doing just that. That's not a bad thing, however I don't see how we are supposed to get better results when we know the issue with current CGMS is that results are delayed because the glucose concentration in the interstitial fluid is behind the current amount of blood glucose in the blood by 5-20 minutes.

We probably didn't give dex a fair shake when we tried it. It was only for a week, but the dang thing was never on target, or even within 20%. I'm glad we tried it before buying one because before that I really wanted CGMS. Julia also didn't like it, so I would never push for another go at it.

So even though there is at least 5 years to go minimum if the project that Texas A&M works, I am sooo hoping it pans out, and very glad that we have someone looking into another way.

Oh my....

Part of being a parent of a cwd is that we are responsible for the life, health, and happiness of our child. Diabetes doesn't take a break. More often then not parents check during the night. Most children will not wake for low bg. Parents typically know when they need to based on their own child's needs and trends.

A few weeks ago though I had an adult type 1 try to tell me not to check overnight unless I absolutely had to. Sleep disturbance and emotional reasons were her motives. She was trying to look out for our kids. However she then suggested that all of the parents waiting for the night check read a book about diabetes burn out. I will not name the book here, because as a parent that has read it, I don't think it is a good read for most parents simply because we take each poke, each bg number that is out of range to heart.

We don't enjoy poking our kids, in fact diabetes care is an oxymoron for most of us parents. Care implies tenderness, and there is not much if anything about diabetes that you do tenderly. Where we used to peek in on our children and see our sleeping little angels, we now peek in and hope to not disturb their sleep, and our biggest hope at the moment is the number displayed will be dead on so that no further action is needed and we can be assured of our little darlings safety.

Some days that number is anywhere but dead on. That becomes frustrating. It can turn completely rational people with wonderful sense into babbling idiots... It can cause the most confident people to doubt them selves; the most intelligent to feel about as smart as a rock. It really does a number on one's mental state. New people are often plagued by the pain they inflict on their sweet child many times a day.

To imply that the parent of a CWD has no clue the pain they inflict is a large, rather wrong statement to make. Most of the parents I know would take their child's diabetes from them if they could, pain and all. Why? Because it would hurt less to practice diabetes care on ourselves....... It's as simple as that.

Banging my head against the wall

Do you ever wish that you'd gone to medical school and became a endo, and maybe a GI doc, too? I sure do some days. I try hard not to micro manage, and when the problem isn't obvious I try to just adjust and move on. It doesn't always work that way though.

Julia's bg has been erratic lately. We will see days with mostly lows, adjust with the temp basal until we have it right on for a few days, then change over to new basal rates. Then the next week we see highs for a few days only to stabilize again and back and fourth it goes. I am about to pull my hair out. I wish I could find the culprit so that I could remove it from the situation, or head it off, or at least know how long this will last.

For a while I thought it might be the cold weather, or maybe we were going to far with the 10 minutes pre meal exercise that we use to help with after meal spikes. I've taken both out of the equation with no different results then I had before.

I really feel like I need to find a stress reducer other then banging my head against the wall. I've said it before, and I will say it again. Someone needs to make an emoticon of a smiley guy banging it's head against the wall, just for us D parents. Maybe it would save us all a few brain cells.