Health, Lifestyle & Fitness

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Gastric bypass or banding surgery has become known as an effective measure for treating type 2 diabetes. What has put it in the news, of late, is the fact that gastric bypass is incredibly successful. Many recipients who've gone under the knife respond not only with extreme weight loss (of course - that's what the surgery is designed to do!), but also a normalization of blood sugar levels. Sometimes the reaction is so positive that patients can stop taking blood sugar controlling meds.

Case in point: Marlene Zytcer (57) and her daughter Aimee (31) of Phoenix, Arizona. Marlene and Aimee recently both had gastric banding surgery at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. Prior to the surgery, both mom and daughter were doing poorly health-wise. They were both obese and fighting heart disease and type 2 diabetes. They say they both have a genetic predisposition to those conditions.

The surgery was a big success: Marlene went from 236 to 199 pounds. Aimee dropped from 195 to 165 pounds. Marlene says she now feels great. She has quit taking diabetes and heart medications. She says her blood pressure is down and she has more energy. They hope to keep the weight off through cooking light and getting more exercise. They also get help from the UCSD's Center for the Treatment of Obesity, and they attend support group meetups there too.

The way Marlene and Aimee see it, having the surgery was their best way of fighting back: "By working side-by-side to lose weight, we are turning the tide against a family history of disease," says Marlene. "We have strength in numbers, even if the number is two," she adds.

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A few mommies, both accomplished and aspiring, who have come to know more about each others' diseases than their doctors met in person for the first time today in Fairfax, Virginia.

The women, this blogger among them, have corresponded for various lengths of time at www.diabeticmommy.com, a forum for women who have diabetes and are pregnant, hope to become pregnant or have become mothers. Today, they met each others' husbands, laughed at the pair of 2-year-olds squirming at a Cheesecake Factory table, compared insulin pumps and meters, listened to each others' stories and chowed down. Some went bowling afterward.

All of the women have tales to tell about struggles with their illness, medical care, families, children, pregnancies, birth experiences and more. And all would probably give up diabetes if given the chance. But none would trade the support discovered and celebration of victories shared via the web while embarking on what is among a diabetic woman's greatest challenges.

Tags:mothers, Virginia, www.diabeticmommy.com

Read all about it. Professor Vincent Marks, a world expert on insulin who has assisted in some high profile cases of insulin murder, has written a book - the 'Insulin Murders - True Life Crimes'.

The first recorded incident of insulin used for murder was in 1957, and since then there have been about 50 cases globally of insulin being used for murder. Although insulin can be used to kill, Professor Marks said it was actually a very poor murder weapon. Detecting its use was difficult, but not as many assumed...impossible.

It is not a very good weapon especially nowadays. More tests are available to prove the misuse of insulin. If a non-diabetic is dead on arrival without a usual suspect - I suggest the coroner check the patient's blood sugar. If that's hovering around absolute zero I'd put a request in for the insulin antibody kit!

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As Bev observed in a post yesterday, California schools will now be required to ensure that diabetic kids get their medical needs met during school hours. Parents are relieved by the settlement, which was reached between the California Department of Education and two school districts (on one side) and four families with diabetic children, working in conjunction with the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

It's a thorny issue. If you require by law that kids be in school during specified hours, you'd better make darn sure you can meet their needs while they're there. As Michelle Ferry, mom of a seven-year-old boy with diabetes, observed "If I had a child in a wheelchair, they wouldn't expect me to come in and take them out of a wheelchair" as necessary throughout the school day. Michelle, you see, was required to drop everything and come running to the school when her son needed a shot because there was no one at the school willing/qualified/permitted to administer it.

While she has a point, you could also argue that helping a (developmentally normal) child in and out of a wheelchair doesn't require special training. Helping a child monitor and adjust his or her blood sugar level most certainly does. Understandably, school administrators were, and remain, concerned about legal liability. Teachers also have a right to be concerned.

I agree with Bev: this sort of agreement has been too long in coming. Parents of diabetic children: I take my hat off to you. I cannot imagine the stress and strain involved in sending your child off to school each day, hoping that if they need special care that it will be available, pronto. But hat's off, also, to the CA school administrators who agreed to create the new policy. They accepted there is a problem and they are trying to fix it.

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