Yesterday, I responded to the question about "things you wish your doctors knew about diabetes and the daily task of living [with it] by mentioning that many healthcare providers' knowledge of diabetes is incomplete and/or out of date. Rather than be a part of the problem, I've proposed a first-draft solution — some things I would put into a Continuing Medical Education (CME) syllabus to fill in some of those gaps. I'm sure I'm missing rather a chunk of stuff, but then again, this is a first draft.

If I were to develop a syllabus to fill in the gaps in professional diabetes education, as I perceive they exist today, these are some of the things I would consider:

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From time to time, a heated discussion will erupt around the terms and phrases "prediabetes", "borderline diabetes", and "beating diabetes". The basic gist of the debate goes like this:

Someone will post that he was told he has "borderline diabetes" or "prediabetes", or that he had type 2 diabetes, but since he changed his diet, got off his diabetes medications, and has normal lab results, he has reversed or cured his diabetes.

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I have to take issue with something my new, wonderful treatment team seems to think. Dr. A said, "It really doesn't matter what type of diabetes you have as long as you have an effective treatment method." While I mostly agree with him, I have to say that a lot of people with diabetes want the distinction; we want to know the label. Because even though the treatment method may be the same, it’s still different.

Despite me rattling off a list of drugs meant for people with Type 2 that I tried and that didn't work, and telling him my c-peptide result (<0.1), Dr. A still said, "I think you are Type 2."

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So last winter, I decided that since I was committed to MDI, I may as well be on the pump. I knew it would offer me superior management.

I called my insurance company to find out what kind of coverage we had so that I could decide which pump company to call. I understood nothing the rep told me, so I emailed HR to get a translation. Turns out we were changing insurance companies in January 2008 and unless it was urgent, I was encouraged to wait until January.

I started to obsess about going on the pump. Couldn't get the darn thing off my mind and I didn't even have it yet. I would look nearly every day at various pump web sites, compare products online and think about how much easier things would be if I just had the pump already!

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