Search Results

Right before I turned off my computer monitor last night I read an article about diabetes and amputations. The article is startling.

One statistic, “Currently 40,000 legs are amputated in India each year” really freaked me out.

Losing my feet is a major fear of mine. It is the reason I quit smoking. It is what kept me up all night last night.

I tossed and turned for hours on end. Every movement made me aware of my feet and how numb they always are. Neuropathy has taken its toll on my feet and it terrifies me.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

I have not been compliant with my diabetes protocol for several months.  I haven't been testing, I haven't been watching what I eat or exercising.  I've even been eating straight carb snacks - when I'm supposed to "never eat carbs alone! "

I can "get away" with this once in a while because I'm early in Type 2.  But today I read a story that  pulled me up short. 

People with diabetes are 15 times more likely to have a lower limb amputation than those without the disease.  Yes, FIFTEEN times more likely.  And then, 70% of the people who have amputations are dead within 5 years.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

The old fable of Androcles and the Lion -- or in some versions, the Mouse and the Lion -- highlights an unusual amity between two beings who are usually considered predator and prey. In the story, the lion has been crippled by a thorn stuck in his paw which he could not reach, see, or remove. The prey, whether mouse or man, sees the problem, overcomes his fear of the predator, and offers to remove the thorn. The wound heals, and the lion is ever thankful to his unlikely physician.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (1)

I don't know a lot about the Canadian universal health care. What I have learned has been in dribs and drabs, culled from friends and from the few Canadian posters to the Children With Diabetes parents email list. I knew it varied from province to province but assumed that most diabetes supplies were covered.

And then I read this post by Andrea, over at A Garden of Na Mmoy. She has type 1 diabetes, although she doesn't post about it very often. She has a few other posts about diabetes and she's an eloquent writer no matter what the subject - you should check her out regardless. But that post really opened my eyes to the limits that any insurance, universal or private, puts on our health.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (1)

Much buzz has been going around the diabetes community about the recent announcement of the JDRF/Animas partnership to develop a "first generation artificial pancreas", and rightly so. The ability to eat like a "normal person", to not have to worry about debilitating highs and lows, to be able to sleep without fear of not waking up again... these are things which are, quoth Hamlet, "devoutly to be wish'd". That the road between here and there is not so simple a passage as we might hope, is well-known, and much littered with papers sporting words like "cure", "encapsulation", "transplant", "gene therapy", and -- of course -- "artificial pancreas". (READ MORE)

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)

I received this news article by email a few weeks ago. I was actually sitting in the middle of the Mediterranean as I read it. I turned to my mom and said "Oh great, something else to worry about."

Diabetes complications are not news to me. My parents and doctors shielded me for many years thankfully. But when I hit the appropriate age, words like DCCT and kidney transplants became part of the diabetes lingo. Slowly, they infiltrated my diabetes lifestyle. The risks, the fears, it all slowly built up over the years.

Rating (0) 0

Email this Comments (0)