Jane K. Dickinson, RN, PhD, CDCES

People Helping People

Posted on November 14, 2017 by janekdickinson

Today is World Diabetes Day. It’s the anniversary of Fred Banting’s birthday. It’s Tuesday. Today we wear blue, display blue circles, and talk about diabetes – funding, research, new technologies, new devices, new treatments, a cure.

Last week I worked with two kids who are brand new to diabetes. For the first time I found myself unable to say that they’d have diabetes for the rest of their lives. I’m confident they’ll benefit from the artificial pancreas and it’s likely they’ll be alive when a cure is found.

Holy cow! Did I actually think that?

I am grateful to the individuals, groups, and organizations who are dedicated to making life better for those of us with diabetes. Thank you to those who are working on ending this thing once and for all.

In the meantime, I will continue to work on making the world a better place for people with diabetes right now, today. And I will be cheering for those who are working on making it a world without diabetes tomorrow.

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National Commission on Diabetes

Posted on November 7, 2017 by janekdickinson

Did you see that Trump signed a bill to establish a “national commission of health care experts” on diabetes? I’m actually very excited about this! And what better time to do it than during National Diabetes Educator Week?

My hope is that this national commission will look at a variety of challenges in the world of diabetes:

risk reduction
technology
access to care
access to technology
aka coverage
healthy food availability
healthy food pricing
medication pricing
language and stigma
hypoglycemia
education
support, trust

There are so many areas we need to address and fix in diabetes; I’m not quite sure where this commission will start. My hope is they will start by getting the right people in the room. Then they can dig into the discussion, come with ideas, and make change happen. If they don’t ask me to be on this commission, I hope they will at least ask for input (smiley face).

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Official Candy Taster

Posted on October 30, 2017 by janekdickinson

I once owned a t-shirt that said “Official Candy Taster.” I loved that t-shirt, and every October I wonder what happened to it. The other day the parents of a child with diabetes asked me for suggestions on how to deal with Halloween candy. This is a common question this time of year and there are many different ways to deal with it.

When I was young my neighbors would give me chips instead of candy. One year my mom gave me a new purse (the understanding at Halloween was that I turned my candy over to my parents and siblings. That year I got something in exchange).

When I was a teen-ager and trick-or-treating for what was probably the last time, I went low while walking all over the neighborhood and treated it with something out of my bag. Candy was just not a big part of my childhood. It wasn’t really around our house much and it wasn’t something I remember craving (that changed in young adulthood).

Here are some more ways to deal with Halloween candy (several have been used on my own kids):

send it to the soldiers
leave it for the “Halloween Fairy” in exchange for a toy, movie, or in my daughter’s case, bag of mini pumpkins
buy it back from your kids (be careful with your pricing!!) then discard, take it to work, or send to soldiers
put one piece of candy in their lunch every day until it’s gone (or until you decide to get rid of it)
have them eat it all in one sitting, get sick and swear off candy forever
ask your child how they’d like to deal with all the candy

Have lots of conversations with your children and adolescents around candy, healthy food choices, healthy eating, healthy living – all the time and not just at Halloween! They will learn and take these messages with them for life.

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Engagement Stories

Posted on October 10, 2017 by janekdickinson

I went through a phase where I was fascinated by couples’ engagement stories. I had several friends and family members who had especially cute or romantic ones. Now engagement has a different twist for me. It still means a connection or a commitment, of sorts. Instead of two people in a relationship; however, I now think of engagement as connecting with diabetes management – a commitment to take care of ourselves.

These days we often hear the phrase “patient engagement.” This, too, has different meanings. Health administrators may think of it as engaging with the system: making appointments or looking up lab results online, for instance. I think of patient engagement as healthy relationships between patients and providers. And between patients and their health.

When did you get engaged in your diabetes management? When did you take an interest and start learning and doing more? Maybe it hasn’t happened yet…

For me it was in 1994 when I started getting engaged. It became solidified when I started working in diabetes. Being a role model really helped me take my diabetes management seriously. Once taking care of myself became a habit I stopped thinking about it and just did it.

While there are certainly moments when I’m less engaged, in general, I’m pretty married to my health. My health is like my life partner: I pay attention to it (most of the time), I take care of it, and I’m aware of it. Because I want my health to continue to be a positive thing in my life, I put in the effort required to maintain it. Being engaged in my health definitely takes work; so far I’d say it’s worth it.

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Health Alert

Posted on October 3, 2017 by janekdickinson

Remember cigarettes? My kids tell me no one smokes anymore (they vape, etc.). Yet, inactivity has more recently been equated with smoking in terms of the health effects.

If sitting is the new smoking, then I’m a chain smoker. I sit all day in front of a computer. I love my work – it’s fulfilling, challenging, stimulating. But it’s not active.

I wear a Fitbit, which tells me from time to time to get up and do some steps. I mostly ignore those notices because I’m in the middle of something. I do try to hit 10,000 steps a day by exercising each morning and walking the dog twice a day, but mostly I sit.

I have learned the hard way the toll sitting takes on a middle-aged body. My plan is to get in the habit of moving every hour during my work day. I already pace when I’m on (most) phone calls. Another idea is a treadmill or standing desk, but I haven’t made it to that point yet.

At any rate, I often think about quitting smoking. And by quitting smoking I mean sitting less and moving more.

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The eXercise Factor

Posted on September 25, 2017 by janekdickinson

Yes, that’s my treadmill in the garage!!

Exercise means different things to different people:

dreaded
addictive
fun
boring
enjoyable
tedious
social

For those of us with diabetes, exercise is an important part of managing blood glucose. It’s not easy and it’s not always consistent. Whether you ride competitively for Team Novo Nordisk or go for walks around your neighborhood, exercise can be challenging to incorporate into your daily diabetes routine.

Some people avoid exercise altogether because they were never taught how to make it work with diabetes, or because they are afraid of what might happen, or they’ve had a bad experience.

I have found, after years of practice, the following works best for me:

exercise at about the same time every day (I like morning)
exercise after eating (and after having taken insulin for the meal)
take less insulin before aerobic (cardio) workouts
take more insulin before anaerobic (strength-training) workouts
carry blood glucose monitoring and low treatment supplies with me when working out away from home
eat extra carb before exercising if it’s an unplanned activity and insulin is already on board

From time to time I see recommendations for exercise and diabetes that say to eat more carbohydrate, take less insulin, or exercise before taking insulin. This is simply not what works for me. I have practiced enough to know that if I exercise before taking insulin I will go high and if I take less insulin before a strength-training workout I will go high.

The bottom line is that exercise is good and each of us has to figure out what works. Recommendations are certainly a wonderful place to start. If they work – fantastic! If not, we have to do some careful experimenting until we find the solution. Even then, there will be times when what usually works doesn’t work. That’s life with diabetes!

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John Denver and Diabetes

Posted on September 11, 2017 by janekdickinson

Listening to John Denver while walking on the treadmill, I really heard the words to Rocky Mountain High, particularly the very first line:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year; coming home to a place he’d never been before.

Since just about everything reminds me in some way of diabetes, I started thinking about people who are diagnosed with diabetes and how different that experience would be at different ages. When younger children are diagnosed with diabetes, it really becomes their parents’ disease, at least for a while. It’s also easy to forget life before diabetes when you were diagnosed at a young age.

But what about young adults and adults? They have actually established a life and a lifestyle. They know what they like and what they’re used to doing. I sometimes wonder if there’s a better or even best time to get diagnosed, and I always say no, there isn’t.

The day someone finds out they have diabetes their life is changed forever. Even if they don’t have to make all that many changes, say, eating or activity-wise. Checking blood glucose, taking medications, and simply being aware of the effect every morsel of food has on our bodies is life-changing. Of course, that’s not even mentioning health care provider visits, cost, worry, etc.

John Denver was simply singing about finding a new place – Colorado – which changed his life forever. In many ways, having diabetes is like climbing the Rocky Mountains. And we certainly can experience that Rocky Mountain High (blood glucose), which I’m guessing is not quite as fun as the one JD was referring to.

We can take a lesson from that quintessential singer-man, though, and revel in every moment of this life we have. Manage the highs and lows and come out on top!

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