CWD News

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES As someone who lives with diabetes and has a uterus, I can attest to the fact that diabetes complicates the functionality of my entire body. I can also say, without a doubt, that my normal hormonal fluctuations affect my blood sugars in seemingly sporadic and inconsistent ways. But what’s interesting, and frustrating, is that there are not a lot of published studies that focus on female health issues and diabetes. When I searched in PubMed for scholarly articles using the two phrases “diabetes mellitus” and “female,” eight of the first ten […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES This past weekend, a team of 40 dedicated volunteers and staff for CWD’s Friends for Life conference met in our home-away-from-home: Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. For me, it was at first very scary to be around so many other humans after a long year of isolation and social distancing due to COVID … especially in public spaces where mask usage was not at 100%. But we collectively experienced an incredible sigh of relief when we determined, in coordination with Disney’s Conference planning team, that we could safely hold a modified […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES Imagine you have a device on you at all times that clearly shows every up and down of your blood sugar levels, and someone else is watching those levels. And it’s not just the data that is on display, but sometimes it can be all of the emotions of diabetes out there for others to see, too. Although many people with diabetes try our best not to feel emotions about our blood sugar levels, it’s almost impossible not to feel disappointed about a high blood sugar. To think, oh yeah, I […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES My friends with diabetes and I often joke which came first, the type A personality tendencies or the type 1 diabetes? When you’re diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, it’s hard to say what pieces of your personality are attributed to growing up with a chronic condition and what is just your personality, regardless of health conditions. When I was in nursing school, I learned about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and realized that it made sense to me completely. How could my emotional needs be met if my body was […]

Written and clinically reviewed by Marissa Town, RN, BSN, CDCES One of the barriers to achieving “optimal glycemic control” is having insulin that works fast enough to match the absorption of foods. The rapid acting insulins that we currently have available take 20-30 minutes to be absorbed into the blood stream. In order to try and match the absorption of the food eaten, people with diabetes are encouraged to take their insulin ahead of time, know exactly what and how much they are going to eat, and hope that the timing and calculations work out. This is commonly referred to as […]