The Corner Booth

 If state lawmakers do what our Diabetes Community needs them to, 2019 could be a banner year on the issue of drug and insulin pricing transparency. That doesn't necessarily mean we'll see a direct price drop for insulin. But the first step in addressing any problem is admitting there is one, and setting the stage for actually dealing with it effectively. We've seen a handful of legislative efforts across various states in recent years, following Nevada's mid-2017 law that marked the first bill of its kind focusing specifically on diabetes prices. Now the drumbeat is growing louder, with increased media coverage and the grassroots #insulin4all effort making waves nationwide; more state legislators are raising the topic and introducing so-called "sunshine bills" aimed at insulin prices. It's refreshing to see both big and small groups be a part of this effort, even if they don't always agree on exact messaging or methods. The more story-sh...

It was New Year's Eve, but the celebratory spirit wasn't the only thing on the mind for some families using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). In fact, it was quite the opposite when a Dexcom server crashed, leaving many in our Diabetes Community unable to see their CGM data stream or view shared data for remote monitoring. That was the case for Scott E. Kelly and his family in New York, who felt blindsided when the outage suddenly hit without warning from the California CGM manufacturer. Although Dexcom was working diligently over the holiday hours to fix the issue, the company unfortunately didn't communicate that to users out in the field. Kelly's 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed the day after her 5th birthday and has been using a Dexcom CGM with data monitoring on the phone app for several years now, with "amazingly wonderful" results, he says. But he sure wasn't happy with how everything played out over New Year's Eve. "I work...

Years back, we were lucky enough to connect with longtime type 1 advocate Ivy Lockett in Georgia, who was diagnosed as a girl in 1949 and later founded a diabetes camp named after her in that state. She served as camp director for 37 years before the camp closed down in 2014, and all who knew Ivy attest to how many lives she touched with her vibrant personality. Sadly, Ivy passed away in 2018 (from breast cancer) at age 81, and D-Mom Pamela Heyward who knew Ivy well shares this: "Ivy Lockett was a great friend of mine. We went from strangers to closest of friends. when I stumbled upon her camp and emailed her... fiery as she was, she immediately called me asking, 'How did I possibly get her contact info and who was I?' I explained and then she became my greatest admirer and her mine. We never met in person but spoke almost weekly on the phone. We said, 'I love you' upon closing every time. Every time Ivy called she'd ask, 'How are you doing, Beautiful?...

Most of us living with diabetes know glucagon solely as a "break the glass" emergency solution, brought out only for the scariest low blood sugar moments that leave us incapacitated -- assuming we're lucky enough to even have a complicated glucagon kit, and that someone nearby knows how to use it. But there will be a day soon when glucagon becomes infinitely easier to use, and with these new products we'll be on the verge of a paradigm shift that requires our D-Community to rethink how we use this fast-acting glucose booster beyond just emergency situations. Two new products expected to shake up the glucagon market soon are the nasal "puff up your nose" glucagon mist by Eli Lilly that went to regulators in Summer 2018 , and a ready-to-use rescue injection pen by Chicago-based Xeris Pharmaceuticals set for an FDA hearing in June 2019 . Incredibly, these will be the first new forms of glucagon available in SIX DECADES (!). While that's ...