Weird, not sure why my comment got cut off above. I meant to say it seems there's also a print version of Diabetes Health. I really enjoy some of the articles in that magazine.
I agree about contributing articles. I bet a few people here could write some really fantastic articles.
I agree with Melissa about the magazines too. My family members have periodically bought subcriptions for me but it's all about Type 2. I no longer subscribe either. My problem is that the issue is bigger than just magazines to me - this problem applies to all Type 1 education.
Everything about diabetes is all about Type 2... from the educational classes to support groups to the research being done. I live right down the road from a major biomedical research facility that does tons of Type 2 research and can't find a boot camp or educational class or seminar or anything in my region of the country for Type 1s. All of the programs that I have found are in the Northeast or California. For those of us who are Type 1s living in the South, we could just as well be living on an island.
While I understand the numbers and the fact that we are a smaller population than Type 2, does that justify not having access to the same level of care? Does everything really have to be all about the profit? Why can't some of the big pharma or test strip or cgm or diabetes supply companies create an educational fund with some of those big bucks they're making off of our suffering?
Sorry for the rant but this is one of my medical pet peeves.
I am T2 and find the same doo doo about eating "healthy" carbs annoying, and usually inaccurate.
I found a JDRF magazine (was it "Countdown" back then? Cannot remember) of use to me when I was a kid/teenager with T1 (like 30 years ago). I compare the articles of back then to what I see when thumbing through a "diabetic" magazine in the grocery store checkout and wow, they are not the same thing. For a long time back then it was "JDRF=kids" and "ADA=adult onset" but it looks to me like the JDRF is figuring out that hey the kids grow up, and the ADA is realizing that adults with T1 aren't all that different but are not exactly the same as a recently diagnosed as an adult with T2.
I haven't checked out the printed JDRF magazine for years and years but I just googled and found "Countdown" at countdown.jdrf.org and if the magazine is anything like their website, I think it'd be worthwhile. It's not your grocery store magazine that's for sure. I just looked through the website at the recent issues and there's articles about the stages of retinopathy and extreme hypos, i.e. this is not the sissified watered down stuff you see at the checkout.
Most of the local education and insulin users groups I have attended where started by someone in the area a fellow PWD.
A Type 2 needs long term support their condition is normally a slow progression and they have some decisions to make it's easy for them to lose there way..."fall of the wagon". If your a type 1 there are no decisions to be made in the beginning we are just thrown into the pool and it's sink of swim 24/7.
I here this all the time, a type 1 wearing a pump and CGM saying we never get any support. I think most type1's just need fellowship a place to meet others that live a insulin dependent life. Just spending some time in a room full of people that are insulin dependent is very rewarding....it's very good medicine. ;)
If there is no group in your area start one...Remember "book it and they will come ".
Hi John, I appreciate your thoughts very much but I respectfully disagree with the notion that a Type 2 needs long term support to keep from losing their way and a Type 1 doesn't. Over the 25 years I've dealt with Type 1, I've lost my way more often than I'd like to admit, mostly because I didn't know any better.
I think there are just as many decisions to be made with Type 1 and if you don't have the education or support to learn to make those decisions on your own, how can your care not suffer?
When I was diagnosed in 1968 Diabetes Forecast had an approximately 5x7 format and much better features, including Dave's Diary, Deaconess Maude Behram and a full page of letters from kids "just like me" at 11 years old. Then it followed the route many of you have described and I unsubscribed. Diabetes Health is about the best magazine I've found; it used to be grittier when Scott King was at the helm, but it is still good. I read it online.
Also, I nearly fell off my chair a few years ago when one of the glucometer companies targeted their TV ads to teenagers. "I'm (whatever years old), I play basketball, and I'm a diabetic," one commercial said with a cool guy sitting on a bench in the locker room with a hip look and holding a glucometer (in fact, he may not have been holding a glucometer, just sitting there in a pose to say, "I'm cool.") There was also a commercial with a couple of perky teen-aged girls saying about the same thing with the added phrase "we test ten times a day." These commercials lasted a while and then disappeared. I've never seen them since.
And the biggest comment I get when I actually tell the few people I tell that I have diabetes? "But you're not fat." After a while, you just cut off any additional information.
Melissa I've found the samething in allmost all (well all) of the magizenes I've surcribed to so now I just don't bother surcribing to them. And here all this time I thought it was just me.
In the world the number of people with diabetes is approximately 6.4% (according to a random google search). Out of ALL diabetics we are 10%, and and so we are such a small fraction of the population.
It might be costly to advertise and write material towards such a small demographic - but that demographic will forever be buying products. We are the ones willing to try new and learn more.
I agree and I would like to see a publication for type 1. Patra Philips, I'm a writer and former journlist - I'll be part of your project!
I also worked at a magazine for a while and much of the editorial decision making was on trying to figure out what will draw the most "eyes." Being that those of us with Type 1 are just 10-20% of the PWD population there just won't be a whole lot of content that is designed to appeal to our interests or needs.
However, there is nothing to say that a diabetes publication can't put in a 1 or 2 page section called "Type I corner" or something similar. If featured on the cover with other article headlines it would possibly attract buyers who have long abandoned purchasing diabetes magazines because of the perception many of us have that nothing in it will address my desire for information. Look at any diabetes magazine and they typically follow the same general format:
Tips for healthier living
Recipes
Role models or success stories of patients
"Latest" developments/research.
Add a "Type I Corner: New Pumps On the Horizon" or some such and it would appeal to this segment of the PWD population.
But here's the thing — these training courses and workshops tailored to type 2 could benefit from some of the information that is routinely handed out to T1s. I have a number of T2 friends who said that just hearing me talk about some of the information I got to care for my T1 son really helped them to understand better WHY they had to do some of the things they were told to do. At least in the (admittedly limited) experiences of my acquaintances, T2s are not being taught the ins and outs of insulin response and how it interacts with diet, exercise, stress, combinations of nutrients, sleep, and so forth. They're given small tidbits, whereas T1s are given the full-course meal, if you'll excuse the food related metaphor (I think my subconscious wants me to go have lunch). Yes, there are different ways to manage different problems, but there are also certain strategies in common that all of the above could benefit from learning about. And that's one reason I find it frustrating that all the focus is on T2s and the T1s are thrown an occasional scrap.
I agree. A Type 1 might have some protection from falling off the wagon completely in the sense that they have to keep testing and taking insulin to stay out of life-threatening situations. But a Type 1 can still test and take insulin and yet easily run an A1c of 8-9% and be told that's okay by their doctor, even though it it's not. Is this any worse than a Type 2 stopping their exercise and oral medication program and running an A1c of 8-9% and being told it's okay?
Also, Type 1 DOES require ongoing decisions/support because the treatment of Type 1 has changed a LOT over the past 20, 40, 60 years and there's no reason to think there will be any less change another 20 years down the road. So it's not quite the same types of decisions as a Type 2 would make, but there are definite changes over time.
I also don't know about those diagnosed as adults, but for many people diagnosed as younger kids, there is a HUGE need for re-education as young adults. Aside from the fact that things may have changed a lot, in a lot of cases when kids are diagnosed it's the PARENTS who get the education and not the kids. I know that, for me, when I became a young adult and wanted to get tighter control I felt like I knew nothing. I'd even forgotten what ketones were or what they meant! I think a lot of people assume that those who have had diabetes since a young age must know everything about it, but at least for a lot of people I know diagnosed in the '80s/'90s, that's not the case (maybe it's different now).
I got a laugh out of your comments on general format of diabetes magazines. Cynical, but very true.
I used to subscribe to diabetes magazines, paper newsletters.
They were all "Cardboard Diabetes 101". There were no edges, no "in the mud" articles anywhere. Only pathetic cheer-leading, brain dead stuff (i.e. You can do it... rah-rah you can do it... rah-rah) no serious proverbial nutrition in them. No serious substance whatsoever to them. Pretty color ads, and marketing.
If you find a mag/newsletter designed for people with serious experience send up a "flare" would ya???
Stuart