The Corner Booth

  We're in the hottest time of summer now, when many of us have nice cold ice cream on the mind. July also happens to be National Ice Cream Month AND the third Sunday of each month marks National Ice Cream Day , so what a totally perfect time to revisit the topic of ice cream and diabetes -- and the universal questions it brings.   Can People with Diabetes Eat Ice Cream? The other day, after a casual dinner at home, my wife and I went out for ice cream. We'd opted to leave the air-conditioned safety of our home on this 90+ degree day, to head for an ice cream parlor that's just a short stroll from our house. As we stood there pondering the particular ice cream creations that sounded best, I glanced at my Dexcom CGM to see where my blood sugar happened to be and what that would mean for my carb counting and insulin dosing. Seeing a 97 mg/dL on my receiver, I smiled and rattled off the number to my wife who had already moved toward the counter to tell the cle...

Hello again, Diabetes Awareness Month. Yup, November marks another national awareness month -- aimed at those in America who are pancreatically-challenged or rapidly heading in that direction. And on Nov. 14, we'll once again mark international World Diabetes Day honoring the birthday of insulin co-discoverer Dr. Frederick Banting, who was born on this day in 1891. As always during this time of year, we've been inundated with marketing pitches from organizations big and small. And as always around this time of year, many in our community ponder the perennial question: Does it all matter? Really? Admittedly, it's not outside the realm of reasonableness to question the effectiveness of NDAM (shorthand for National Diabetes Awareness Month). But our country is in a different place in 2017 compared to past years, is it not? It's a good time to set skepticism aside to argue that November's designation as Diabetes Awareness Month truly does matte...

The Diabetes Community got quite worked up recently about a Miss Manners advice column appearing in newspapers all over the country, in which the etiquette expert's advice to a type 1 diabetic seemed to say that he ought to flee to the restroom when doing blood sugar checks on an airplane. You know... because that finger poke might be seen by others as a task more "properly done out of sight." Um... what?! Hundreds from the D-Community responded with letters, emails, newspaper comments, and (at least three dozen) blog posts about how they felt the column slighted people with diabetes. Many dubbed advice-columnist Miss Manners "ignorant" or worse, and some called for an apology to our community. We also spotted forum discussions on Children With Diabetes , Diabetes Daily and TuDiabetes, and the Glu community even posted a survey on the topic to which a majority of people responded that they are NOT embarrassed to check their BG in public. Themes we...