It's early October and time to arrange for a flu shot, or a flu 'snort'. That's right, this year more places are providing a nasal-spray flu vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has lots of information about influenza (flu). Because I've got two chronic diseases, diabetes and asthma, taking a flu shot is an easy way to reduce my risk of getting the flu. I actually got my shot yesterday at a local pharmacy, I like to get one as early in the flu season as I can. But if you've got school age children you need to think about getting vaccinatios for yourself and the CDC now recommends vaccinations for all children under 19.
For some of us, our employers may be organizing flu vaccinations at work. For the rest of us, you can trek to your doctors office or try one of your local pharmacies. Most pharmacy chains have a store finder page that includes a check box that allows you to search for stores that are offering flu shots or vaccinations, this includes CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid and Osco/Sav-on. In some cases you may have to make an appointment, call ahead and make sure.
So grab a book (so you don't mind waiting), head for the closest place, and take a small step to improve your changes for a healthier winter.
If you're a regular reader, you'll know I've been offline for a few weeks, this was for good reasons. We visited Ireland for a big family reunion and had a wonderful time.
I'm finally back on East Coast Time, but still missing all of my family in Ireland (including my darling grand-daughter) and the wonders of beautiful Kilkee in County Clare in Ireland. I promise to post a few pictures in the next fortnight or so.
In the last two years I've raised funds for Dr. Denise Faustman's research into a cure for type 1 diabetes. This year, the Bike the Miles folks don't have an event as they their fund-raising goal. So I've been preparing to take part in a triathlon and use that as a fund-raising opportunity. For me, that's a big challenge, even if this isn't an Ironman-type triathlon.
So on Saturday September 6th I'll be taking part in the Hyannis Sprint 2 Triathlon on Cape Cod. The triathlon has a quarter-mile swim, 10 mile bike ride and 3.5 mile run. If you're going to be there, I'd love to say hello.
I'd like to challenge you to sponsor my triathlon so I can raise more funds for Dr. Faustman's research. In previous years I started fund-raising in the spring, so I know it'll be a stretch to get more than $3,600. But that's my goal for this year: $100 for each year I've had type 1 diabetes.
I'll do the sweating and you just have to write a check of any size. (If you're a US taxpayer the amount is a charitable donation.)
Your check should be made out to Massachusetts General Hospital with Dr. Faustman Type 1 research in the memo field.
You can either send it to me at my P.O. Box Bernard Farrell P.O Box 937 Westford, MA 01886
Or you can send it directly to the hospital at The Massachusetts General Hospital-East Attn: Lynne Murphy Building 149, 13th Street, Room 3602 Charlestown, MA 02129
If you're doing this to sponsor my triathlon, please send me an email (bernard.farrell@gmail.com) letting me know how much you sent to Mass. General so I can track the level of sponsorship I get.
As always I'm grateful for any support I get in this effort and I do plan to have a page acknowledging all the support I get (let me know if you don't want your name on this page).
To stop you from worrying I have not had a heart attack. Or any inkling of one.
Recently when I saw my excellent endo we had a discussion about whether I should continue to take a statin to reduce my cholesterol.
I've been taking Lipitor for about a year. I changed my use of the medicine (this may not work for you) from a 10mg pill every day to half of a 10mg pill every other day. I see a substantial reduction in my cholesterol level with this dose and I don't seem to have any of the possible side effects, thank God.
But a while ago, I read news about investigations into the benefits of taking statins. This was why I had the conversation. I was especially taken by the quote from the NY Times article.
"If a patient has had a heart attack," Dr. Afilalo said, "they generally should be on a statin."
For people who haven't had a heart attack the investigation showed there isn't as much evidence that taking statins provides a substantial benefit to enough folks to justify everyone taking it.
I was shocked by her response. "But you've already had a heart attack." For a moment I thought I was in an alternate dimension. I reminded her that I'd not actually had one. She told me that type 1 diabetes increases my risk of heart problems. Just as much as if I'd actually had one. Yikes.
Now I do really like and respect my endo. I've moved medical offices to follow her from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. But I still like to verify what I'm told, it's my natural cynical nature.
Then earlier this month I saw this news report. She was right! A recent study found that folks with diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) have double the risk for a heart attack.
So for now I'll be staying on my statin and living with yet another drug to reduce the risk of "bad things" happening in my future.
Attribution: This beautiful picture was taken by Conny. She retains all rights to the image and I'm grateful to her for letting me use it in this post.
Not a huge number, a la Martha Stewart. But something between 4 and 6 depending on whether some have been taken by critters, or just passed on.
Early the other morning as I went get something from the garage I spotted the chickens already out for the day. It was bitterly cold, so their feathers are all fluffed up for extra insulation. And it was too dark to start picking around for food.
Yet they're still out there, instead of being a little warmer inside the enclosed part of our home-made coop.
If you're wondering why, then you clearly don't know chickens.
In the five years since we started keeping chickens I've learned a lot about them, and a little more about myself. Chickens are just plain stupid. They can't figure out even the simplest of things.
Thankfully we don't keep them for their brains. Initially we wanted them for their eggs and to teach the children about where some of their food comes from.
But over time I've learned that chickens are just a delight to have. They don't need much care and feeding. They'll eat table scraps, so we're not throwing out as much food.
And they make me laugh. Big belly laughs when I watch them run around the yard.
So in a way having chickens is also good for my diabetes. Because anything that gives you healthy fresh eggs and makes you laugh can't possibly be bad for you.
Oh, and they've also trained me very well. If I look at the coop and the chickens see me, they crowd at the door. Most of the time this is enough to get me to go out there and feed them some cracked corn.
I'm in bed as I type, courtesy of some bug that's been floating around the family and the office.
Despite diabetes I'm usually fairly healthy, but diabetes means my immune system doesn't work as well as it should. My blood sugars have been high all day, and wouldn't go down even with extra insulin. That gave me a chance to think about how I felt, and I had to admit to having caught something. Oh well, hopefully I'll be back on my feet before the weekend is out.
So here are a few links for Friday. I hope everyone has a wonderful Veteran's Day weekend. Keep our military men and women in your prayers, they need our support.
Today is D-blog day. If you're new to the blogosphere, you'll find lots of great bloggers writing about diabetes-related issues.
I've mentioned the diabetes search engine before. Right now it uses Google technology to search over 750 sites for information about diabetes. I'm probably adding around 20 sites a week to the engine so hopefully it's getting more useful over time. And the money that's raised by advertising revenue goes to diabetes research causes. Please try it out and let me know what you think. If you know of a good diabetes site that's not in there let know about that too.
Recently I found the SafeSittings web site. (The owner is a member of TuDiabetes.) What do they do?
SAFESITTINGS is a nationwide website that makes available teens with Type 1 diabetes as babysitters for children with diabetes. These teens have been managing their own care for many years. They understand the dangerous highs ands lows inherent in the disease and have the skills to test blood sugars, give insulin injections, adjust insulin pumps and treat hypoglycemia.
I imagine that for parents of children with diabetes, this might be a great service. And for teens with diabetes, it might be way to earn useful babysitting money and feel good about helping out a family. What a great concept!
I've been reading the Wall Street Journal Health Blog a lot. Good short articles about health-related issues. One of the recent posts is about the increase in use of adult meds by overweight children.
A small but growing number of children are taking medicines for high blood pressure, cholesterol and especially diabetes[my emphasis], according to an analysis presented at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Washington this week. One big reason: childhood obesity. ... Among the findings: America’s tweens, kids ages 10 to 14 more than doubled their use of type 2 diabetes meds during the studied period. Girls ages 10 to 14 showed a 166% increase. Still, the prevalence of use is still pretty low. For kids aged 15 to 19, the use of type 2 diabetes meds was only a tad more than one kid in a thousand in 2005.
So the bad news is that type 2 diabetes is on the rise in children. The good news (such as it is) that it's not a huge proportion, yet.
I wish there was an easy way to improve these statistics.
Gasp, hard to believe that another year has passed by. Didn't you just get the last flu shot a few months ago?
If you have diabetes, you should have a flu shot every year. And with the shortage of flu vaccines that we've had in recent years you can't start thinking about this too early.
The good news is that many pharmacy chains offer flu shots at their stores. I've used this approach for the last 2 years to get a flu shot close to work with only about a 20-minute wait. Right now I can get flu shots in my area in early October and I'll be there in line.
To find out when and where flu shots are available near you, go to the store locator page for your favorite pharmacy (Brooks, Rite Aid, CVS, or Walgreens) and select their option for Flu Clinics or Adult Immunizations. Then fill in your zip code and see what they have near you. You can also use the American Lung Association Flu Clinic Locator.
Once you've found a clinic location date and time that suits you, make sure to mark the details in your calendar. Nothing worse than driving there and finding you just missed it.
My other advice is get there slightly early in case they run out of vaccine. Bring your health insurance card and cash. You may be able to give the insurance information and not have to pay anything, or you may need to pay a co-pay. Since the flu clinic is generally not affiliated with the store they generally only take cash.
Between Diabetes, Asthma and general coughs and colds, I'd say that I'm in a doctor's office at least 10 times each year. And one thing that's always bothered me is when I visit a doctor that I don't see visibly wash their hands before starting to talk with me.
Now they may have washed their hands before coming into the room. But what are the chances?
Today on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, I saw an advertisement placed by RID, the Committee to Reduce Infectious Deaths. And guess what they have listed as the first of 15 steps you can take to reduce your risk of getting a hospital infection?
That's right Ask that hospital staff clean their hands before treating you.
I'm going to clip the advert and give a copy to all my doctors at my next visit.
I'm saying this because Google makes most of its money from advertising.
I first noticed Google's interest in health-related issues when I blogged about Adam Bosworth's keynote speech at the AMIA congress. And more recently, Google listed the members of their health advisory council. I guess I had my head in the sand, because Google has been looking at the health industry for some time now.
So how can I tell that Google is getting serious about the health industry? Because as of mid-June Google has a Health Advertising Blog.
I figure anytime Google gets interested in a new area, it's worth watching them. So I'll be watching that blog in the future.
For the most part, this is a diverse group of people. But I see someone from a cancer foundation and from the Lance Armstrong foundation. Unfortunately there's no-one on the list with a focus on diabetes.
Diabetes is estimated to consume about 1.3% of the total US GDP. That's more than all of agriculture contributes to the gross domestic product for the year.
I think curing diabetes should be one of our nation's top healthcare priorities. But then I'm biased.
On the spur of the moment, I bought myself a pedometer over the Christmas break.
Partly this was because of Amy Tenderich's book Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes. I'm about half way through the book, and it really does a good job at emphasizing the importance of exercise.
We finally have a treadmill in the house, so that helps me for the 25 minutes or so when I'm on it. But for the rest of the day, or the days when I'm not on it, I really don't pay any attention to how much walking exercise I'm doing.
So now I put the pedometer on first thing in the morning and take it off last thing at night. Then I'm using dHealth.net (which I found out about courtesy of Dave Mendosa's posting) to track the steps I take each day.
Guess what I found out?
For me, it's very challenging to wear this thing. Each day I have it on, I'm really focused on trying to break 7,000 steps. So far (one week and counting) I've got about a 50% success rate, but it's really motivating me to try and walk more and walk faster.
Can't be bad.
If you're interested, the pedometer I purchased is something like this one on Amazon (and yes I'll get a little something if you purchase this one from Amazon).
I actually got mine at an Olympia sports for about $16 (battery included), the model is an Accusplit Alliance 1590 and it's working just fine so far.
I'm hoping to work up to an average of 8,500 steps per day. I'll let you know how it goes.
The Diabetes Technology Blog is focused on using technology to life better with diabetes. I review: blood glucose monitors; continuous glucose monitor; blood sugar meters; diabetes software and living with diabetes.
About Me
Name: Bernard Farrell
Location: Massachusetts, United States
I was born in Ireland and now live in the US.
I have had Type 1 diabetes for over 36 years. I struggle with my blood sugar, the same as most people with diabetes.
I wear a Cozmo 1800 insulin pump and a Dexcom SEVEN CGM to track my blood glucose levels.
I'm blessed by God, and every day brings the possibility of a cure.
