This is the first in a series of interviews with change leaders in diabetes. Dr. Steven V. Edelman, founder of Taking Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD), a not-for-profit organization with the mission of education, motivation and self advocacy for people with diabetes, impacts thousands of patients across the U.S. whom the health care...

When I first formulated my plan for trying out Amylin Pharmaceutical‘s amylin agonist, Symlin, I figured the hardest supply to acquire would be a pH meter. Now, granted, I haven’t tried for the pH meter yet, so it still may prove difficult– but getting my hands on Symlin itself has certainly been an unexpected hassle. I...

Every person I have met who has diabetes has a diagnosis story.  And every person I have met who has diabetes has vivid memories of this incident.  Since I was recently diagnosed and am just entering the diabetes community, I feel as though I’ve told my diagnosis story more often than any other story I’ve told in my life.  The...

On Monday, August 9th, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a ten-year study of over ten-thousand individuals that showed that waist circumference, even independent of body mass index (BMI), is directly correlated with higher rates of death. Now, this is hardly new news, but the study, covered as it was by the Washington Post,...

I return from the annual conference of our nation’s diabetes educators with a sobering message: Not only are diabetes educators tasked with the care of America’s 24 million people with diabetes, but they are now tasked with preventing type 2 diabetes. The U.S. health care reform bill comes with a provision to establish a...

In my last post, I noted that it was up to me to start living my life in Seattle.  I am proud to report that I have been doing just that and that things are starting to fall into place.  I moved to Seattle in mid-May to participate in the Protégé Encore study and settled in for 14 days of infusions, which took me to the end of May. ...

'Pregnant graffiti' (photo by Petteri Sulonen) she wrote her poem on his wrists love transcribed in code a double-backed polynucleotide beast sealing the air between his lungs and his wrists on his wrists she wrote her love son son I a Silverstein tree give you all all that I have that I know that I am son son but son not that not that...

As my trip around the world continues, I’m learning more and more about the challenges of taking diabetes with you on the road. This recently became apparent when, for reasons I still don’t quite understand, I decided to try to get a Hemoglobin A1c test performed in Tallinn Estonia — at 7 in the evening. My thought process,...

Traveling with diabetes is always tough. You’ve got a different schedule, different exercise patterns and, above all, different food. I’m in Klaipeda, Lithuania right now, just starting week two of a three-week bicycle trip through the Baltics — and let me tell you: there’s nothing like Lithuanian cuisine to make...

I know what you’re thinking. Please, for the love of God, stop coughing. I know you’re thinking it because I’m thinking it too. And maybe the fact that I assume you’re thinking that says more about me and my self-centric view of the world or my projection or my fears or something, but maybe I don’t care. I...