Clinical Director

Parenting is one of the most difficult jobs people experience. You want to be kind but not too passive, supportive but not an enabler. You want to give your children the world, but not spoil them. When you add a chronic disease, that means their life will be different than most of their peers, making it challenging to enforce all the added rules. As a person with diabetes, a nurse, and a diabetes care and education specialist, I’d like to discuss what I’ve been seeing more lately with families. My experience First, a big acknowledgment that I am NOT a […]

In general, people with diabetes feel like diabetes should not stop them from living an everyday life (whatever that is). Since diabetes is ever-changing, it keeps you on your toes, which means that you may need accommodations to care for yourself appropriately and work or study as you desire. Definition of a Disability The legal definition of disability, according to the U.S. federal government is “an individual is considered to have a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Major life activities include caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, […]

The CWD Team traveled to Florence, Italy, to attend the annual Advances in Treatments and Therapeutics in Diabetes conference and learn about the latest updates on diabetes care. Here are some updates that may be pertinent for PWD, their loved ones, and any healthcare professionals who work in diabetes. Artificial Intelligence for AID Algorithms Throughout the last couple of years, more research has been focused on using artificial intelligence to enhance the algorithms for AID systems. Multiple groups are pursuing this path, including Dr. Boris Kovatchev and Marc Breton at UVA and Dr. Roman Hovorka at Cambridge. Both groups presented […]

When traveling with T1D, we try to be prepared for anything. We pack extra supplies and keep them in our carry-on bag. We bring extra insulin so we don’t run out. We bring a meter and test strips even though we rarely use it anymore with CGM. But sometimes, we may not have enough of the supplies we need to ensure we have a backup for our trip. Or our backup fails and we don’t have a backup to the backup. When your CGM fails Recently, I traveled to Colorado from Ohio with my children and husband. It was a […]

Despite being a small team, Children with Diabetes (CWD) is a non-profit organization that is able to accomplish many things! For two decades, it was run by only two people, Jeff Hitchcock and Laura Billetdeaux. They worked tirelessly and took few vacations for twenty years to grow CWD into the trusted, global resource that it is today. CWD now consists of six employees, the most it has ever had, and the small but mighty team does a lot to help the mission: Care today, Cure tomorrow. Friends for Life Conferences Most people know CWD for our major events for people […]

Diabetes technologies are changing quickly, so we at CWD want to make sure you have the up-to-date information on what’s available to you in the U.S. For your reference and to help with any decisions you may need to make, we put together this chart of the current Automated Insulin Delivery (AID) systems for people with diabetes, as well as some helpful information about AID in general. Some Quick Definitions: Basal – Background insulin Bolus – insulin taken for food or correcting a higher than target blood glucose CGM – Continuous Glucose Monitor Open Loop –  when the pump is […]

Most of us are familiar with the Super Bowl, but you may not be familiar with a super bolus. Here is all you need to know about this relatively new concept in diabetes care. What is a super bolus? A super bolus is a 1.5x normal pre-meal dose of insulin and suspension of basal insulin for 2 hours.1 Stopping the basal insulin helps ensure that there is not too much insulin circulating in the bloodstream at once and lowers the risk of low blood sugar from the bolus. Why would you do a super bolus? This is typically done when […]

One of the harsh realities of life with a chronic condition in the United States is the possibility of losing insurance coverage – or never having it in the first place. Growing up with diabetes, I felt conditioned to prepare myself to have job opportunities that would provide adequate insurance coverage. A young man with Type 1 Diabetes shares a similar sentiment on the Diabetes Link, “Any T1D knows that health insurance is arguably the most important perk when deciding whether or not to take a job.”1 This is the reality of the current systems in the U.S., for better […]