Diabetes Technology (DTech) – Page 12

One Monday per month, I’ll take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how much diabetes technology, education, and stigma has changed over the years. Remember when…

…”It’s Time to Learn About Diabetes” came out on VHS, with a workbook to accompany it?

Oh, the ’90s. What a time to be alive. Nickelodeon was in its prime, boy bands and Britney Spears were all the rage, and VHS tapes preceded DVDs and Blu-Rays as the way to watch movies. In 1995, one particular VHS tape conveniently debuted one year after my diagnosis that quickly became one of my most-watched tapes of that decade:

“It’s Time to Learn About Diabetes” told the tale of two fellow ’90s kids, Cindy and Mike. This 20 minute video walked viewers through diabetes basics and it couldn’t be more supremely cheesy. I’m certain that if I were to unearth the tape today (and a VCR to play it, to boot), I would cringe for the duration of it.

This video definitely shows its age…

…which is approximately 22 years old.

It’s been about 20 years (!!!) since I last watched the tape, but here’s what I remember about it: 1) mentions of NPH and regular; 2) the kids playing on a playground when one of them experiences a low blood sugar; 3) tacky illustrations of beta cells (I think that’s what they were, anyways); 4) 60-second meter countdowns; 5) zero inclusion of insulin pumps or CGMs, because they weren’t invented yet; 6) no explanation of the difference between T1D and T2D (for that matter, I don’t think T2 was mentioned at all); and 7) really bad you’re-about-to-learn-yay-for-education-in-the-’90s introductory music.

I’m really selling this tape here, huh? In all honesty, it wasn’t a bad way for me to really understand my diabetes at a young age. After all, how many other small children do you know that can tell you what the purpose of a pancreas is? It was a different way to present vital information I needed to know and clearly, it stuck with me pretty well.

I guess it just resonates more strongly than ever with me today because it’s a reminder of how much technology and the way information is presented has changed since my diagnosis. The Internet was still pretty new when I was diagnosed, and smartphones didn’t even exist yet. Just as phones and computers were bulky and slow in those days, so was the DTech at my disposal. 20 years later, though, information is readily available at our fingertips. It’s incredibly fast and detailed, and as technology evolves, it continues to become even more streamlined. In this way, I’m glad to have been exposed to the technology, both medical and otherwise, of the ’90s: because it makes me grateful for the incredible improvements we’ve experienced since then.

It all started when I realized my Dexcom CGM wasn’t holding a charge. It went from needing a charge twice a week to practically every day. I knew this wasn’t right, so during the first week of July, I found myself reaching out to Dexcom support to see how I could go about getting it replaced.

Three months later, I finally have my new Dexcom G5 CGM.

Of course, it shouldn’t have taken most of July, all of August, and part of September for me to get my new CGM. But it did, and resulted in my mother spending hours on the phone with Dexcom and our insurance provider on my behalf as well as countless communications exchanged between me and my endocrinologist’s office.

What was with the holdup? There were a few factors at play here, which is why I thought it was important to share this ordeal with you all. That way, if you or a loved one encounter an issue like this in the future, maybe you can learn from my mistakes and get your CGM sooner rather than later.

At last, my new (pink!) Dexcom has arrived.

Factor #1: The CGM was out of warranty. Normally, I would’ve had it replaced much faster if my Dexcom drama happened within one year of initially receiving the device. But I’d been using the same receiver (the handheld component of the CGM that displays blood sugars in real time) for like…four years. That was issue number one because Dexcom can’t do anything about products that have an expired warranty. Now, I know to get in touch with them every year to get a new receiver and to ensure that I’ll always have one that can be replaced.

Factor #2: My medical supply providers have changed recently. This one’s a bit out of my control, but a couple years ago, Neighborhood Diabetes was divested and sold to Liberty Medical. This meant I wouldn’t receive my sensors or any other CGM supplies from Neighborhood, like I had for a few years. So from then until now, I was getting my sensors from Express Scripts, which also ships my insulin to my home. But for other reasons, my mom and I discovered back in August that we would need to use Better Living Now to supply my Dexcom sensors. Getting confused yet? Yeah, this all went over my head, too. I’m extremely lucky that my mom helped me out and solved this confusing insurance situation.

Factor #3: Communication was poor. And I have to take some blame here, because I should’ve been checking the inbox that my endocrinologist’s office uses to communicate with me. I missed a couple of messages sent by a nurse at the office, and when I did finally see them, I was in a rush to reply and didn’t read his messages as thoroughly as I should have. This resulted in, I’m sure, frustration on both ends as we tried to explain what was going on to one another. There’s a reason why people say that communication is key, and I bet we would’ve had answers a little sooner if we had been on top of things.

That’s the story, in a nutshell and without getting too much into the insurance side of things. I’m just relieved that I finally have my new CGM, and it works great. It’s pretty cool to see my blood sugars displayed on my iPhone, too, using the Dexcom app. And I’m pretty grateful that I have an awesome mother who really came through for me, as well as an endocrinology team that was willing to bear with me through all this Dexcom drama.