As a long-term volunteer at Mile 20 of the New York City Marathon, I have seen many things that runners will do, or put themselves through, to get their bodies through that distance en route to the 26 miles and some odd yards of a marathon. Blisters, cramps, and bleeding are part and parcel for the course. So are dehydration, overhydration, and electrolyte depletion. At Mile 20, most runners visiting the medical station want a quick massage or some Vaseline® before heading back out on the course. While a few runners do drop out, most of those are able to wait for the "sweep bus" to carry them back to the finish line. Exceedingly few runners who require medical aid this far along the course need to be ambulanced out.

  (READ MORE)

In today's environment of cheap-to-the-patient pills that can cure almost anything from a hangnail to cancer, it's sometimes difficult to make significant and often-difficult lifestyle changes on account of a disease or a medical condition. Rarely is this more evident than in the public appearance of Type 2 diabetes.

  (READ MORE)

There's something to be said against being seen as a poseur -- a wannabe who goes completely overboard kitting out, a dilettante who poses as an expert, a newbie who buys every last doodad before even learning the activity he's trying out... If you've seen the golfing episode of The Honeymooners ("Helloooo, ball!") or Tintin's Inspectors Dupont and Dupond (in the ceremonial costumes of each country they travel to), you have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Now, I have been known to Take Myself Too Seriously. Preparing dinner can be an exercise in complex seasonings and more sinks-full of of dishes than Julia Child. Exercise involves a heart rate monitor and a Web-based log. Even the costumes I make for my teddy bears start with period undergarments. In short, I often do things to the hilt -- or at least, pretty close to it.

  (READ MORE)

With capital-I Independence Day weekend upon us, I figure it's worth a look at how small-i independence plays into our diabetes management.

For those of us who were diagnosed as children, and for the parents of children with diabetes, there is the independence of a child learning to care for himself -- from finger pricks to injections to calculating insulin doses to doing pump corrections. Zita writes of her son's first self-administered injection here.

  (READ MORE)

Three topics that come up on any diabetes blog or forum, as certain as death and taxes, are blood glucose levels, hemoglobin A1c levels, and guilt. The usual dialog goes like this:

"No matter what I do, I can't get my blood glucose levels to stay within 'normal' non-diabetic levels. This is going to really screw up my A1c, which means more medications, getting yelled at by my doctor and my spouse and my family, not being safe to get pregnant, and all the 'Diabetes Police' coming down on me. If only I had avoided that one jelly donut three weeks ago...!"

  (READ MORE)

As people with diabetes living in the 21st century, numbers rule our lives. The first number that comes to mind (other than weight, which for me should be my morning fasting weight -- and which should be much lower than it is) is blood glucose level. My morning reading tells me what I should have for breakfast: if it's high, I look for something with fewer carbs; if it's low, I start running for the fruit bowl. (Which might be the exact opposite of what I should be doing, considering that if I've been running high for several hours, a serving of fruit may hike me further in the short term, but will bring me back to normal by the end of the two-hour postprandial period. Then again, my diabetes is diet-controlled; food choice is critical.) If you're on insulin, that blood glucose check might tell you either to grab some sugar quickly, or to administer a correction bolus.

  (READ MORE)