Letter From The Editor

For years they said there would be a “cure” for diabetes. There was INGAP therapy, beta cell transplants, Dr. Denise Faustman, and many other promising developments that were supposed to be the next big thing in diabetes. However, it seems that now we are looking to manage diabetes rather than …

One of the biggest methods of improving glucose levels and weight that we recommend is exercise. It seems like a simple solution: be more active, burn more calories, burn more glucose — lose weight and improve A1c’s. However, many of our patients have other complications, and often programs that work for …

It seems that the do-all, fix-all, be-all for kidney problems is either an ARB or ACE-I. We start patients on these medications at the first sign of elevated glucose levels regardless of their blood pressure levels, as they “protect” the kidneys. This is definitely true, but what do we do …

Most of the time when we speak about patients who are not diagnosed with diabetes and who develop complications, we are usually referring to vision changes or things like neuropathy. However, it now appears that there are a good number of these undiagnosed who die from ketoacidosis. This week, our …

There are a lot of great things we can do for our patients to make their lives healthier and more livable. The problem is they all take time to accomplish and our current healthcare system does not allow prescribers enough time to even try to help. That is why nurses, …

Sometimes you learn things from your interns that you never forget. About eight years ago, I was working with a diabetes patient in a physician’s office. The patient was on three times the normal dose of potassium, but their levels were still low. One of my interns looked at the …

I recently had a conversation with one of my riding buddies about his A1c. His doctor had recommended he go on metformin because his A1c was 5.9. This guy sometimes rides 700 miles in a week and is thin as a rail. Our conversation got a response from three other …

For the first time in many years, the ADA has updated their guidelines on retinopathy. These new guidelines take into account the improvements that have been made in diagnosis and both medical and physical treatments. Most of our colleagues at other medical news outlets either paraphrased the guidelines or printed …

In order to ensure that patients who really need their opioids get them, the state of Florida now mandates that every pharmacist must have a CE on Controlled Medication Dispensing. Seven years ago, Florida dispensed 10 times the amount of opioids as the rest of the country added together. However, …

For many of our patients, the desire to exercise is often overwhelmed by the pain associated with the activity. Other patients who are reluctant to exercise in the first place will use any pain as an excuse to stop. Interestingly, much of the pain they complain of could be eliminated …