Today’s Topic:  Today let’s talk about changes, in one or two ways.  Either tell us what you’d most like to see changed about diabetes, in any way.  This can be management tools, devices, medications, people’s perceptions, your own feelings – anything at all that you feel could use changing.  OR reflect back on some changes you or your loved one have seen or been through since being diagnosed with diabetes.  Were they expected or did they surprise you? To read all of the other posts in this category, click here.

Having been diagnosed with diabetes in 1976, I have experienced a huge number of changes. Some, such as the advent of home blood glucose meters, were so long ago that I don’t remember the effect on me or my diabetes care. Others, such as my insulin pump, greatly increased my quality of life but didn’t improve my A1c.

By far the biggest improvement in my diabetes care as tracked by the change in my A1c and maybe in the stability of my blood sugars was the addition of Lantus to my diabetes regimen. Those of you who were diagnosed after the days of NPH missed out on the rollercoaster peaks and valleys of this “Not Particularly Helpful” insulin. There were definite benefits to NPH such as rarely needing a shot for lunch and getting to eat bolus-free candy bars at 4:30 PM in order to make it to dinner without a paramedic visit. But it was an intermediate-acting insulin that was slow to start working and then hit with a vengeance 6-9 hours after injection. The most difficult thing about NPH was its unpredictable variability from day to day.

Lantus was introduced in the United States in May 2001. At that point I was seeing an endocrinologist whom I liked a lot and was/still is quite renown in the world of diabetes. I remember one of my last appointments with him. He looked at my A1c and BG records (using a regimen of NPH, Regular, and Humalog insulins) and said something like: “You’re doing great and seem to be able to get anything to work. Keep doing what you’re doing and let’s not make any changes.” Soon after this appointment I left this endo’s practice for insurance reasons and switched to an internal medicine doctor as required for an endocrinology referral in my new network. At my first appointment with the new doctor, he looked at my medications and said something like: “Why in the world are you still on NPH and not taking Lantus?” I was far from a proactive patient in those days and probably had never heard of Lantus.

I started on Lantus immediately and four months later, my A1c had dropped 1.7 points from my test 5 months earlier. Even more amazingly, my A1c was 2.5 points lower than the test of 9 months previous. I had also lost the ten pounds that I had gained in my perimenopause 40’s. So much for an endocrinologist versus an internal medicine doctor…. I got some of my best diabetes care ever from this internal medicine doctor and did not return to an endocrinologist until several years later when I chose to begin using an insulin pump.

Lantus is not perfect by any means and these days many Type 1’s take two to three injections a day rather than the 2001 “promised land” of one injection a day. I am a very happy pumper in 2015 but know that if I had to go back to a regimen of Lantus/Levemir and Novolog/Humalog/Apidra, I would be totally fine. The major change would be that I would have to become comfortable injecting mealtime insulin in front of other people and probably take several injections of Lantus/Levemir per day.

I have decided to negotiate with Medicare who will be my insurer in 23 months. If Medicare will fund my Dexcom CGM, I promise to go back to injections and probably save the insurer money. Unfortunately under current regulations, that idea is a pipe dream and I will continue to pump and save my pennies to personally fund my Dexcom.

One thing that I will not do is to go back to NPH. Unless that is my only choice….