(They are looking for 80 T1Ds over age 60 plus 80 care partners. Please feel free to share this within your community. This is a significant study, (for US based participants only).
Continuous Glucose Monitoring with Care Partner Data Sharing
Recruiting NOW. All will be completed virtually. Approximately 6-8 hours over an 8-week period.
This is a prestigious grant and they are looking for 40 T1Ds and 40 care partners. That’s a big ask. If you know others who might be interested and qualify, please share with them.
The PURPOSE of this study is to test the Share plus intervention aimed at improving the use of data sharing between partners with diabetes and their care partners in order to maximize the benefits of CGM (e.g., increase time in glucose range [70-180 mg/dL]) and decrease diabetes distress. By leveraging the full potential of technology along with a care partner intervention, we aim to optimize the support that can be provided for effective glucose management in older adults with T1D.
I’ve heard comments like that … but do you have other folks who could be care partners, if you needed help? That’s one of the biggest concerns I see as we T1Ds age.
I really don’t. But my wonderful hubby doesn’t quite realize that a single unit can drop me 200 points. So if my BG is up, it doesn’t stay up for very long. It’s a real balancing act.
7.5 is so high, that anything you do will reduce it. It’s kind of a warped study. Even if you just bring people’s attention to the fact that they have a hight a1c will reduce it.
Obviously if you are at 5.5, you aren’t likely to get as big of a drop as someone who is at 7.5
If you are type 1 and running 7.5 or higher, likely you have some secondary complications, That fact skews the results too.
That’s just not so. It may be true for some T1s who are genetically very susceptible to complications, but not for most. My A1c has bounced between 7.2 and 7.7 in the past couple of years. My endo is happy with this, combining various observations, which include TIR, my diet, my aerobic exercise, and perhaps most important, that I’ve been T1 for 56 years and have no complications whatever. And of course in the early years, before I could test my bg myself, I certainly ran far higher A1c.
I got my first fluorescein angiogram in 1992. The retinal specialist at that time said he could see minor background NPDR, though nowhere nearly enough to warrant the laser. Twenty years later, I had another fluorescein angiogram. No sign of NPDR, indicating that my regimen in between had not only stopped the NPDR development but actually reversed it.
If I were newly diagnosed today, it would be a hard choice between the uncertain risks of diabetic complications and the certain cost of very tight control. But I think it’s wrong to be telling people that 7.5 is necessarily very bad for them.
You are the exception to the rule, not the rule though.
So many studies that tie complications to both high blood sugar and length of time with the disease. 7.0 is close to the spill point for most people, where sugar starts to spill into your urine. Maybe you have some really resistant blood vessels but most of us don’t.
The best way to stay healthy and without complications, is to keep your a1c in normal range. Even better if you get your time in range better than 85%.
Not everyone can do it. And when you have an a1c over 7.0, you are technically diagnosable as out of control diabetes.
I’m not saying that if you aren’t able to lower your sugars and a1c, that you will get complications, but keeping it low is really our number 1 tool to prevent complications.
We all have to do the best we can, and lucky you, you can run that high with no complications. I try to keep in the normal range or lower.
This study asking for people over 60 with an a1c that high, pretty much eliminates most of the people on this site, because generally this site is full of people who push the limits of the disease and are really well informed. Everyone has their different way of achieving it.
I’m not judging anyone who has an a1c over 7.0. I’m just staying that in my opinion it’s unhealthy, and getting it lower will make you healthier going forward.
