You mean you can teach an “Old Dog” new tricks?!??!?

My rescue dog Jonah with a few of his toys...

Greetings! I want to share with you an enlightening experience I had last night. I have had Type I Diabetes 25 years come February. Yes, that long… One might think after all these years that I might know a thing or two about diabetes management, right? Well, that’s what even my doctor’s have reinforced through the years for me too. Comments like, “Why aren’t you a doctor with how much you know?” and “You know more than 1/2 the doctors I work with!”

I had seen on Facebook something about classes for Type I Diabetes and was mildly interested, but never took the initiative to sign up. Then an offer came through that piqued my interest. My friend, Scott Johnson, blogger of Scott’s Diabetes, (check out Scott if you haven’t already – he is one great Type I that you will want to have in your circle of diabetes friends!) posted recently about free classes being offered during the month of January. What is this place? It is called Type-1 University. It is run by a man by the name of Gary Scheiner, MS, CDE. He has lived with Type 1 Diabetes for many years, is the author of 4 books and has the education behind his words. So, I signed up! For all 9 classes — in January alone!! Sounds like a lot I know. But I thought if I was going to learn, I better dive right in!

Class started last night. My first class was titled, “Mastering Pump Therapy.” I have been pumping now since 1996 and currently wear an Animas pump. After 15 years on the pump, could this guy really teach me something new that I had not heard before? The answer was a resounding YES!! I am so thrilled and excited about what I learned last night. Here are a few highlights:

• Did you know that you can test ketones in your blood? (I had only been familiar about urine testing for ketones with my foil wrapped Ketostix) Apparently there are 2 different meters that can test in this capacity and ketones in your blood show up hours sooner than ketones in your urine!
• How to use temporary basal rates for many different activities in your life. He shared everything from high fat food to extended inactivity like a long trip to prolonged exercise/activity and what duration and percentage of temporary basal might be appropriate.

There were people all around the country in class even as far as Australia. He sends you a link to log in to up to 10 minutes prior to class where you enter the password that he provides. He lectured for about 50 minutes then left time at the end for Q & A. Here, you can type in your questions that go directly to Gary, and he will anonymously read your question and share his wisdom. He also emails you all of the slides he uses during the presentation allowing some great resources to look back on.

Overall, great impression! I’m looking forward to my next class on Thursday titled, “Blood Glucose Control During Sports & Exercise.” Thanks Scott for letting me know about this valuable opportunity to learn some new things to help with my diabetes management. And thanks Gary for bringing your years of experience, education and knowledge to many in an accessible forum. He likes to keep the price reasonable; about the cost of a co-pay. A live event costs $30 and pre-recorded is $20. I recommend the live class because it felt more engaging and exciting to be part of and I like being able to ask my questions to Gary.

I am looking forward to utilizing more this great underused tool (our pump) we have at our fingertips to better and easier manage my diabetes. I’d love to hear your feedback. Do you think you have anything new to learn in managing you or your loved one’s diabetes?

Blessings, light and love,

Cynthia

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Note: I am not being paid or compensated in any way to share my experience with you about Type-1 University. Just one Type I sharing some new information I came across with another with hopes to help lighten your load a bit!

2/11/12 Editor’s note: After publishing this article, Gary Scheiner, Clinical Director of Type I University and well-known author of “Think Like a Pancreas,” read my post and liked it! It is now featured on Type I University’s website as a review. Here is a link to his site where you can scroll down and see a few lines from this post under a section titled, “What our students have to say.”