Those who live with type 2 diabetes, and those who have lived with diabetes since before rapid-acting insulins and home glucose monitoring, are familiar with lists of dietary restrictions. If we are diagnosed early enough in life, and our families adopt our diets, there may be little difference between our feelings about "forbidden" foods and those of someone whose diet is mandated by religious observance. For those who are diagnosed later on, the adjustment can be a bit more difficult -- especially if the diet is imposed with a heavy hand and a sharp whip, and if the foods we must now eschew are not replaced by foods which are equally sensorily fulfilling.

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My friend Scott, who has spent enough time on insulin to make my head spin, just vented his frustrations regarding the carb count for a meal of soup and crackers. While I've not had to become quite as precise on carb-counting as those of you on insulin, having to completely rewrite my doctor's office's 1000 mg sodium/day diet (following the flyer they gave me would have had me consuming closer to 2000 mg sodium/day) made me much more sensitive to calculating serving size than the average person with diabetes -- or the average person with hypertension, for that matter.

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Too often, we look at the 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day trends on our blood glucose monitors, see numbers that look great (or horrid), and rather than seeing an A1c that confirms those readings, we get a number that would appear to have come completely out of left field. (Or Mars. Or the Andromeda Galaxy. It's hard to say exactly where.) We can either scratch our heads and wonder why the numbers aren't correlating, or we can take out our manual readings logs, our meter downloads, our CGM downloads, and our personal journals and try to figure "what we are doing wrong".

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Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Every one of us with diabetes hears that clock ticking away.

Glucose, insulin, ketones, tests.
The endless cycle never rests.
Fail once to heed the daily strife
And that day you may lose your life.

Alarmists are everywhere. Family, friends, strangers, all with the best of intentions. (READ MORE)

If anything can make having diabetes "fun", it's the cool toys I get to play with. While I don't consider myself within the normal confines of geekiness, I'm one of those folk who feel lost without multiple computers and a broadband Internet connection to-hand, and the ability to capture and analyze data up the wing-wah. (Whether or not I actually use that ability, or use it consistently, is another story.)

Managing diabetes falls right into the obsessions of a data wonk.

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Many of us have been a-twitter about World Diabetes Day, bringing attention to the epidemic proportions of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and the Big Blue Test. Seattle had a bike ride as did Victoria, BC. Philadelphia had an event at the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine. Those of us in the New York City area celebrated with a huge D-Meetup and pizza party. The indefatiguable Allison set things up in a Midtown office building. At its peak, over 20 Type 1s, Type 2s, and Type 3s gathered to enjoy each other's company and take part in the Big Blue Test.