April 23, 2008

From The News Wire: Dumbass Headlines

Anyone who looks at diabetes news is seeing a lot of headlines like:

No evidence for diabetes self-monitoring

Blood glucose self-monitoring not cost-effective, report says

Self-monitoring kits could cause 'harm' to diabetics

Oh Joy!

Yeah it is about type II. Everyone should get ready to answer whisper down the lane comments, from marginally informed, well meaning folks, who glance at a head line and try to help. Seriously they are not trying to stress us out.

It just works that way.

My dad and sister are both type II. My dad is bearing down on his 90th birthday. He doesn’t test and doesn’t have a clue what his A1C is and that seems to be working just fine for him. My sister tests occasionally and does know her A1C. It’s fairly good. That seems to be working just fine for her.

We use more test strips in a day, for one kid, than they combined use in a year. YDMV.

Media literacy includes understanding that the media, as often as not, doesn’t know what it talking about. We need to hold that truth to be self evident. It shouldn’t be grounds for intramural grudges between types of diabetics.

Now I still think T1 and T2 should have different names but no body is making me king so what I think - don’t count. But for a chuckle go read this and let this latest dumbass reporting roll off your back.


3 comments :

  1. As soon as I saw that post title what you'd be talking about.

    I really hate those kind of articles because they paint things with such a broad brush.

    For type 2's like me, the testing is NOT the problem. The lack of information about how to improve your numbers is the problem. Testing often, getting horrible numbers, and feeling like you can't fix them in any way is going to cause depression and not improve your numbers.

    Testing often, being given techniques to improve them [like, if eating carbs raises your sugar levels, eat less carbs], is empowering and useful.

    I've already given one or two rants about those studies, and I'll bet more are to come.

    I understand that not everyone with T2 needs/chooses to test as often as I do, but these reports are scary because it puts those of us who do use testing in a defensive position.

    For a type 1 or anyone insulin dependent - it's not even a question. Ya gotta test as often as you need to stay healthy. How can you manage your blood sugar levels if you don't know what they are?

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  2. There are several issues involved with testing for T2, which I've mentioned elsewhere. The studies that are making the news are undersized, do not follow the patients for long enough periods of time, and are deliberately skewed against home testing.

    The bottom line with any patient self-monitoring program is how willing the patient is to comply, and -- in the case of T2 diabetes -- how aggressively he is willing to manage the condition.

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  3. So tmana is what you are saying that YDMV hold true for T2 testing too?

    LOL

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