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Diabetes Device Fatigue. For many people living with diabetes, clicking on a new device for the first time — an insulin pump or continuous glucose monitor (CGM) — can feel like a watershed moment.

Diabetes Device Fatigue

Adrenaline rushes as you think, “I’m finally free!” And then the beeps begin. And the honeymoon is over. Those using much of the diabetes technology developed and brought to market in the past decade or so are quite familiar with device and alarm fatigue. Take patient advocate Anna Norton. “The first alarm went off and my husband’s reaction was like I’d given him a thousand bucks,” she told DiabetesMine. But their enthusiasm about the safety alarms fizzled quickly. “It nearly drove me crazy,” she says. Norton is not alone. “When I first got my [new] pump, I wanted to drive over it with my car just to make those alarms stop forever,” says Jessica Kroner, a first-year medical school student at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York.

“It was like, you’re high! Another problem is the breakdown of trust.

Diabetes Management is a Huge & Never Ending Journey

2020 Standards of Care updates from ADA. By Divya Gopisetty ADA now much more assertively recommends of GLP-1 agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors for people that have heart and kidney problems– they also recommend earlier combination therapy in type 2 diabetes, GLP-1 as first-line injection therapy (that means, before insulin), nasal glucagon, using time in range to assess diabetes management, and CGM to avoid hypoglycemia The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recently made important updates to its 2020 Standards of Medical Care – a very influential and helpful document that provides healthcare professionals, researchers, and insurers with recommendations and guidelines for diabetes care.

2020 Standards of Care updates from ADA

The guidelines aim to provide the most current, scientifically backed recommendations for diabetes care. 12/9/19: A contact lens that shows when blood glucose levels are high. A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the Republic of Korea has developed a contact lens with a tiny LED light that turns on and off to show blood glucose levels.

12/9/19: A contact lens that shows when blood glucose levels are high

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how they made their contact lens and how well it worked when tested. The current standard method of at-home glucose testing is collecting a tiny blood sample and then using a micro-scale device to test. While not unduly painful, most diabetics would likely prefer a means for testing their glucose that is both gentler and easier to carry out. Because of that, health scientists continue to carry out research looking for a better way.

Prior research has shown that human tears can be used to test for glucose levels, leading many to look into ways of obtaining it for testing. 11/27/19: Illinois expected to cap insulin cost-sharing at $100 per month. Welcome to this week’s round-up of state-level health reform news, including: Illinois expected to cap insulin cost-sharing at $100 per month as of 2021 Earlier this year, Colorado became the first state in the country to limit how much state-regulated insurers can require members to pay for insulin; the state’s $100/month cap takes effect in January.

11/27/19: Illinois expected to cap insulin cost-sharing at $100 per month

Illinois is now on the brink of enacting a similar bill, which would take effect in 2021. Illinois S.B.667 was approved by lawmakers earlier this month, and awaits Gov. J.B. 12/4/19: DexCom’s Blood-Sugar-Monitor Data Sharing Returns After Outage.

Diabetes: Type I -Juvenile

Type 2: Adult Onset. What is diabetes? Making Sense of Diabetes. A Community of People Touched by Diabetes. Glu. T1International Testimony for Insulin Access & Affordability: The Rising Cost of Treatment - T1International. Beyond Type I. Inject Insulin via Syringe. Traveling with Diabetes. Insulin. Insulin pump. Glucagon. Infusion Sets. CGM / CLOSED LOOP. Diaport. Lipohypertrophy (LH) DIABETES temperature extremes. Will Your Insurance Pay for Your Prescription Drugs? Here's How to Find Out. By Jeemin Kwon and Jimmy McDermott Using your insurance company’s website, mobile app, or direct phone number can help you price a drug based on your current insurance plan coverage benefits There are many reasons why you would want to find out if a health insurance plan covers a certain prescription.

Will Your Insurance Pay for Your Prescription Drugs? Here's How to Find Out

Perhaps you’re shopping around for a new plan and it’s important that your current medications are covered. Maybe your healthcare professional just prescribed a new medication and you want to check before you get it filled at the pharmacy. While this information is searchable, it takes a little know-how to easily find it. Note: the information in this article is specific to health insurance plans in the US I want to know if my current insurance covers a medication One way to find out your prescription coverage is to call the number on the back of your insurance card.

Insurance member ID: this can be found on your insurance card Name of the medication and the prescribed dosage.

Blood Sugar Management Subscription Programs?

6/14/19: Insulin Pricing Crisis Becomes a Plotline on Designated Survivor. -Craig Idlebrook A presidential administration, albeit a fictional one, decisively takes on a pharmaceutical company over the high price of insulin, and even suggests a real-life policy fix for the insulin pricing crisis.

6/14/19: Insulin Pricing Crisis Becomes a Plotline on Designated Survivor

The third season of Designated Survivor, which follows the turbulent administration of Tom Kirkman, a former Cabinet member who assumes office after a terrorist attack, includes several plotlines about the promise and the failings of the pharmaceutical industry in America. In the third episode of the new season of the political drama, which is now on Netflix, members of Kirkman’s staff focus on the issue of high drug prices in an attempt to help him in his first official presidential campaign. The president’s chief of staff, Mars Harper, asks staff member Isabel Pardo for suggestions of drugs which are priced unreasonably high. Join T1D Exchange Glu for more type 1 diabetes news.

Here is where fiction and non-fiction collide. 3/12/19: Drug prices are killing diabetics. Walmart insulin isn't the solution. 3/4/19: Lilly to introduce generic Humalog for $137.35 /vial. Access to Insulin T-shirt. 2/7/19: Does Walmart Sell Insulin for $25 a Vial Without a Prescription? In early February 2019, amid continued public outcry over the soaring cost of life-saving pharmaceuticals, readers shared a screen-captured image on social media of a local news station’s reporting on the story of a woman who said she bought inexpensive insulin without a prescription at Walmart: Readers asked us whether this was true.

2/7/19: Does Walmart Sell Insulin for $25 a Vial Without a Prescription?

It is true, although you should note Walmart sells human insulin, an older version of the glucose-moderating hormone, whereas most insulin-dependent diabetics are currently prescribed insulin analogs that have evolved to help prevent dangerous swings in blood-glucose levels. The screenshot above was taken from a 4 February 2019 news broadcast from Dallas–Fort Worth television station KDFW: We confirmed with Walmart that the retail chain does indeed sell human insulin without a prescription (except in Indiana). That product is Novo Nordisk-manufactured Novolin, which Walmart has branded as ReliOn and sells for $24.88 per vial. 1/29/19: Congress holds first hearings on high insulin, drug prices.

1/10/19: Rush Introduces "Insulin Access For All Act" for Medicaid & Medicare Beneficiaries. On Wednesday January 9, Representative Bobby Rush (D-Ill) introduced the Insulin Access For All Act in the U.S.

1/10/19: Rush Introduces "Insulin Access For All Act" for Medicaid & Medicare Beneficiaries

House of Representatives. The bill aims to eliminate the cost-sharing requirement for patients on Medicare and Medicaid so more people living with diabetes have access to this life-saving medication. Cost sharing refers to the share of costs covered by insurance that must be paid out-of-pocket, often including deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments. If this bill were to become law, insulin could be covered by Medicare and Medicaid in full, eliminating costly monthly pharmacy expenses. “This bill, introduced with significant [33] cosponsors, addresses the appalling issue plaguing Americans who have one of the most devastating and debilitating diseases of modern times — diabetes. The high cost of insulin can have fatal consequences, as was the case with Alec Raeshawn Smith in 2017. Read more about H.R. 366 here. 12/12/18: 'We're fighting for our lives': Patients protest sky-high insulin prices.

9/16/16: Why Walmart Insulins Aren’t the Answer to High Insulin Prices. Commentary Some people don’t understand why people with diabetes get upset at the price of insulin.

9/16/16: Why Walmart Insulins Aren’t the Answer to High Insulin Prices

They see insulin for sale at a relatively reasonable price in Walmart and don’t see the problem. What they don’t know is that these Walmart insulins just don’t perform nearly as well as the more expensive insulins, and that gap in performance can have a very negative effect on the health of people with diabetes. 5/8/18: (VID) Committee Hearing: Insulin Access and Affordability: The Rising Cost of Treatment. 4/14/16: ‘‘It would be cheaper for me to die’’ 4/5/16: Insulin prices have skyrocketed, putting drug makers on the defensive. Here’s a sticking point for diabetics: the cost of insulin more than tripled — from $231 to $736 a year per patient — between 2002 and 2013, according to a new analysis.

4/5/16: Insulin prices have skyrocketed, putting drug makers on the defensive

The increase reflected rising prices for a milliliter of insulin, which climbed 197 percent from $4.34 per to $12.92 during the same period. Meanwhile, the amount of money spent by each patient on other diabetes medications fell 16 percent, to $502 from $600, according to a research letter published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2/19: Losing Meaghan 2the Perfect Storm. 9/1/15: Video Shows Rikers Workers Ignore Dying Diabetic For More Than 12 Hours. Distressing Rikers Island surveillance video provided by the lawyers for the family of a Brooklyn man who died in custody appears to show guards ignoring him all night as he stumbles, carries a plastic bag full of his own vomit, and collapses to the floor.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of Linda Mercado, sister of the late Carlos Mercado, claims that, starting shortly after his August 22nd, 2013 arrest in Brooklyn on heroin-selling charges till he lapsed into a diabetic coma two mornings later, he pleaded to at least 28 different police and corrections officers and Rikers medical personnel for treatment of his diabetes, but received none. The video seems to back this up, as does a state report cited by the New York Times. DiabetesDetective.