Diabetes Expert Dr. Bill Quick shares Diabetes management news and commentary at MyDiabetesCentral.com. The HealthCentral Network, Inc. (www.HealthCentral.com) is one of the top health destinations on the Web, with more than 35 condition-specific, wellness and general health Web properties. http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110 en-us 15 120 19 http://www.healthcentral.com/images/hc_logo_sm.gif http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/ http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/32375/checklist-diabetes Sun Jun 29 17:09:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick A checklist can help eliminate mistakes. Seems like common sense, and everyone's aware that airplane pilots have been using pre-flight checklists for years. In hindsight, it's amazing, but surgeons have not been using pre-op checklists routinely. But WHO (the World Health Organization) recently announced that using a checklist helps make surgery safer (New checklist to help make surgery safer). They report that "preliminary results from a... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/32375/checklist-diabetes http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31765/ps-day-7 Mon Jun 23 15:38:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick Last week, I started using an insulin pump (see I'm pumped). And this morning, "PS-Day plus 7" (Pump-Start Day plus 7),  I got the obvious question, from my wife Steph, at the breakfast table: "How do you like it?" A short question, but I'll give a long answer. 1) It nags me to spend money poking holes in my fingers: "Check blood glucose. It has been 2 hours since your last bolus..." I've clearly spent more time and... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31765/ps-day-7 http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31164/diabetes-treatment Tue Jun 17 16:45:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick For most patients with diabetes, treatment is something you do not just every day, but multiple times daily: you have to think about the effects on your blood sugar of every meal you eat, it's recommended to check blood glucose tests several times daily, and most folks with diabetes take pills or shots once or more daily. So the possibility of a once-a-week medication for type 2 diabetes is intriguing. And it's just possible that it will... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31164/diabetes-treatment http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31060/pumped Mon Jun 16 17:52:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick As long-time readers know, I've been equivocating about getting an insulin pump ever since my diagnosis about two years ago. I finally decided in May (see Time for a pump!), and contacted a pump company, and filled out all the paperwork.Amazingly, everything went smoothly as far as the paperwork, and the big box containing the pump and a whole bunch of supplies arrived in early June. I scanned through the reams of papers, instructions, warnings,... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/31060/pumped http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/30452/accord-advance Tue Jun 10 09:36:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick Several months ago, I wrote about two diabetes trials: ACCORD and ADVANCE. Both studies involved people who have both type 2 diabetes and high risk of cardiovascular disease, but they came to opposite conclusions about whether tight control of blood glucose was harmful in these patients.ACCORD surprised experts when it was announced that patients in the tight-control part of the study (aiming for A1C below 6.0) had more deaths than patients in... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/30452/accord-advance http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28639/prevent-diabetes Thu May 22 19:10:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick There's a medication called salsalate, which is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, and has been used for many years to treat arthritis. It is chemically related to aspirin, but unlike aspirin, it hasn't been recommended for prevention of heart attack and stroke.In a recent publication, Use of Salsalate to Target Inflammation in the Treatment of Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes, the authors report on three preliminary studies that... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28639/prevent-diabetes http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28406/hypertension Tue May 20 14:38:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick A newly published study, The Role of Clinical Uncertainty in Treatment Decisions for Diabetic Patients with Uncontrolled Blood Pressure, points out that people with diabetes and hypertension (AKA high blood pressure or HBP) often see their physicians, have high BP readings, yet don't have their HBP treatment adjusted.   The authors give examples of why physicians procrastinate, ranging from the obvious (the patient showed up at the... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28406/hypertension http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28196/diabetes-supplies Sun May 18 16:15:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick Some suggestions about flying with diabetes supplies:   1. I pack my insulin in its original factory-supplied cardbox box (which has the pharmacy-applied label on it), inside a clear Ziploc-type bag, and inside a larger Ziploc bag that includes a freezer pack. I keep one of my business cards inside the insulin bag.      I put both clear plastic bags on top of my coat or shoes in one of those grey TSA bins, and... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/28196/diabetes-supplies http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/27342/worth-pile-beans Thu May 08 11:44:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick The American Academy of Pediatrics' journal, Pediatrics, recently published a review of adverse events reported in teens (ages 12-21 years) using insulin pumps (Adolescent Use of Insulin and Patient-Controlled Analgesia Pump Technology: A 10-Year Food and Drug Administration Retrospective Study of Adverse Events). The media picked it up, and announced Insulin pumps linked to injuries, deaths in teens. But the publication simply isn't worth a... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/27342/worth-pile-beans http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/27267/lantus-continued Wed May 07 15:32:00 -0400 2008 Dr. Bill Quick Gretchen Becker wrote a while back about "Lantus Lows."   I recently received an e-mail from another patient describing what is to me a classic example of this extremely frightening phenomenon:   "I use Lantus and Humalog but I suspect that Lantus is the source of my severe lows. I have "crashed" a couple of times within less than an hour of injecting my 18 units of Lantus, dropping from a blood sugar of 135 to 35 in a 50... http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/110/27267/lantus-continued