I know I haven’t posted in quite a while, I have a had a ton of changes going on with job changes and some other events that kept me pretty busy. Since all of the changes, I decided I was going to add one more thing to that mix. I changed the injection site for my pump from my leg, back to my abdomen.

It was quite a surprise taking a needle in the gut again after not having done so in 6 or 7 months. Especially being I use the “quick-serter” device. This was only the beginning of 4 day mess that was about to send me spinning into a downward spiral! Hours after I changed my pump, my friend came up to my apartment with some Club Flyers and wanted to go out to one of these places for some drinks. He had just been at the NC State football game all day and judging by the smell that was starting to fill my apartment, he had been doing some drinking already. So we picked a place we hadn’t been to in a while and hopped in the car. Before I even walked into the bar I checked my sugar and it was up over 300, I immediately took about 15 units with my pump and then went inside. I had one beer while talking with some other friends that we met there and we paid our tab and left. Total time since last reading was about 1 hour and 30 minutes, as we are heading to the next bar I check it again and its about 280. Lower, but something is wrong, this is not normal! I thought maybe it was air in the lines that I missed or something. I continued to check it about every hour if I could and probably went through close to 50 units just to get it down to a normal level. After 2 more days of similar readings I realized that I was just not absorbing it well and changed it immediately. Things seem to be back to normal now but in the meantime I spoke to my Dr about a continuous glucose monitor. There are times where something similar to this will happen and hours go by with me not knowing because it’s getting high for another reason other than what I am eating or bolusing.

Continuous Glucose Monitor

I have to track my numbers for the next 30 days and then submit them to a representative that will try to work with my insurance company in trying to get approved for it. They really only care about lows and if your 30-day stretch does include a lot of lows, they probably wont approve me. At least this is what the rep said. I have started an excel file for the rep and will keep everyone posted on what the final outcome is.

I think it will be great for when I am out and about for long periods of time and especially when I am changing my site and there is a possibility for air or me hitting a bad spot in my abdomen that isn’t absorbing insulin well.

One of the hardest things to get a young child with diabetes to learn is how important it is to check your sugar levels on a regular basis. Some parents don’t even realize how important it is and how it will effect their child’s body over time if their sugar is always high and never monitored correctly. So if the parents aren’t aware, the kids are less likely to be on top of the disease causing complications later on.

Bayer has recently released a product to change all of this for kids and parents. It’s called “The Didget” and it is a glucometer that plugs directly into the child’s Nintendo DS and DS lite systems. “The DIDGET meter is designed to help kids manage this lifelong condition by rewarding them for building consistent blood glucose testing habits and meeting personalized glucose target ranges.” Right now this is only available in the UK but should soon make it’s way to the US.

The Didget should really push children with diabetes and their parents to stay consistent with testing and learning about the importance of monitoring blood sugar.

I am a little annoyed that this wasn’t out when I was younger, maybe this would have been my calling. I am horrible at every video game I play on any system – except for maybe Tiger Woods Golf on PS3. I think I could have been a Didget champ! Then again there are probably a bunch of little nerdy diabetic kids with codes to this game that allow them to get rewarded by hitting some crazy sequence of buttons. Something like back, forward, back, back, A, B. Hopefully I didn’t just give anyone any ideas…

At the end of the day it is ideas like this that may make us obsess over testing our sugar and keeping it in that perfect range. The more obsessed the better, lets just hope you have good insurance because I can see these kids going through a lot of test strips! Doctors will be like “Johnny you were using 5 test strips a day before why are you now using 30 a day?” Johnny will reply with “Well Doc, there is this sweet new game out for the Nintendo DS and I am about 3 levels away from beating it.”

I will be on the look out for when this comes to the U.S. – I can’t wait to see it in action!

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center have analyzed data from nearly 58,000 patients included in the Bariatric Outcomes Longitudinal Database (BOLD), the largest repository of medical information on people who’ve undergone the weight-loss surgery.

Only about 10 percent had complications, according to the study, which was to be presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, in Grapevine, Texas.
One of the most common complaints found was nausea or vomiting, though researchers said they had not yet completed their analysis. Total mortality was less than 1 percent.

“This is further evidence, using the world’s largest collection of information about bariatric surgery, to support that it is a safe and valuable treatment option for patients who suffer from morbid obesity,” said lead study author Dr. Eric J. DeMaria, vice chair of the department of surgery at Duke.

There were two other studies also to be presented Wednesday found that weight-loss surgery can lead to the long-term remission of diabetes.

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University examined 177 morbidly obese patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent gastric bypass surgery, the most common weight-loss procedure, between 1993 and 2003.

Almost 90 percent of the patients experienced a return to normal blood sugar levels within the first year. And about 60 percent were still diabetes-free five to 16 years later, according to the study.

Those most likely to have their diabetes return were those who were insulin dependent at the time of the surgery, meaning their disease was more severe.

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes may soon get a very different treatment approach: A drug that helps control blood sugar via the brain — an idea sparked, surprisingly, by the metabolism of migrating birds.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Cycloset, maker VeroScience Inc announced. It’s a new version of an old drug called bromocriptine, used in higher doses to treat Parkinson’s disease and a few other conditions. But unlike its older parent, Cycloset is formulated to require a low, quick-acting dose taken just in the morning — not any other time of day.

That timing provides a increase in a brain chemical that seems to reset a body clock that in turn helps control metabolism in Type 2 diabetes said VeroScience’s Anthony Cincotta, who led the drug’s development.

Several company studies suggest that one morning dose helped lower the usual post-meal blood sugar rise at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Over six months, 35 percent of Cycloset users reached recommended average blood sugar levels, compared with 10 percent of diabetics given a dummy drug, Cincotta said.

You may be wondering where the birds come into the picture…  Years ago, Louisiana State University researchers were studying how migrating birds arrived at their destinations without being emaciated. They develop seasonal insulin resistance, the very condition that in people leads to Type 2 diabetes.

Patients with Type 2 diabetes don’t have those seasonal variations but the theory is the dopamine plays a role anyway.

The researchers discovered a biological clock — in the brain’s hypothalamus — that controlled when the metabolism change kicked in for the birds, and also in hibernating mammals. Different concentrations of certain brain chemicals, including dopamine, at different times of day dictated whether the bird metabolized like a fall bird or a summer bird, said Cincotta.

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Two studies conducted in March at the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England, the University of Brighton and the Department of Pathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary provide evidence that common viruses may cause childhood Diabetes, paving the way for potential vaccines against the the disease, researchers said.

One team showed that enteroviruses — which normally cause colds, vomiting or diarrhea — were found frequently in the pancreases of young people who had recently died from type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes, but not in healthy samples. This was a detailed study of a unique collection of pancreases from 72 young people who died less than a year after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.

This suggests a virus could trigger the disease in children genetically predisposed to the condition, which affects an estimated 440,000 people worldwide, said Alan Foulis of the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, who worked on one of the studies.

Type 1 diabetes usually starts in young children and results from the destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Patients who develop type 1 diabetes have to take several daily injections of insulin for the rest of their lives. The condition affects around 300,000 people in the UK , including 20,000 children under the age of 15. There are a further estimated 440,000 cases of type 1 diabetes in children worldwide, with more than a fifth living in Europe.

It is thought that children who develop type 1 diabetes inherit a genetic susceptibility to the disease, but studies of identical twins have shown that when one twin has the disease, the other twin will only have approximately a 40 percent chance of developing diabetes – suggesting that other factors are involved.

By contrast, the researchers hardly ever saw infected beta cells in tissue samples taken from 50 children without diabetes, they reported in the journal Diabetologia.

The researchers also found a large proportion of these infected cells in adults with the more common type 2 diabetes, suggesting that viruses may also trigger this form of the disease in some people as well.

A second study from Cambridge University researchers found that rare genetic mutations in a gene involved with the body’s response to viruses reduce the risk of juvenile diabetes.

They looked at 480 young people with type 1 diabetes and another 480 healthy people to identify the gene and the variants involved.

“We have pinpointed a specific gene, which acts as a warning report for virus infection,” John Todd, a Cambridge University researcher, who worked on a study published in the journal Science. “Not only have we found a specific gene but this gene also has an intriguing function in dealing with virus infection.”

While Todd stated that many environmental factors besides viruses could be contributing to type 1 diabetes, Foulis and his team said they wanted to whittle down the some 100 enteroviruses to find which ones played the main roles.

Doing this, and better understanding of how cells respond to viral infection, are steps toward a vaccine that could one day protect children against diabetes, Foulis said.

“The aim would be for a vaccine that would prevent many cases of type 1 diabetes,” he added.

Today at Apple’s iPhone event in Cupertino, Lifescan announced it will be releasing an iPhone app for diabetices, allowing them to send their meters results via bluetooth or a docking cable directly to their iPhone. From there the results can be sent to parents, doctors or nutrionists. Below is from today’s event:

“By far the most manipulative pitch of the afternoon, LifeScan shows how new Bluetooth connection capabilities and accessory functions can help a young girl manage her diabetes. Above is a week-long chart of her glucose levels, which are good to know if you have diabetes and don’t want to die. LifeScan can pull these from a test unit via Bluetooth or cable.”

“The app then lets users send their readings and a message about how they’re feeling to caregivers like their parents, children or physician. The glucose reader app also includes a meal builder and insulin schedule for easy tracking by tagging readings as pre- or post-meals. The iPhone app can even estimate, based on diet, how much insulin is needed after each meal. The app also shows glucose levels in a chart form and lists each previous reading.”

This is a big step for diabetics and I am sure we will see a lot more now with Apple’s release of their 3.0 OS for the iPhone this summer. The possibilities are endless with the platform Apple has built. It would be nice to see a finger pricker that plugs directly into the iPhone and saves the results in your phone but also backs them up in the cloud using MobileMe. I personally am a huge fan of Apple and I am also a Type 1 Diabetic. I am excited about advancements of all kinds and especially when they involve the iPhone!