About Diabetes, and How having a service dog will help control it.

Diabetes has become more and more of a problem in the U.S. According to the American Diabetes Association 300,000 people will die this year from diabetes. That's more than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Type 1 diabetes is the more serious form of diabetes and the onset is typically diagnosed in children. For some kids, like Elisabeth, they struggle with hypo and hyper glycemic unawareness. Hypoglycemia is when you can't feel when your blood sugar is dangerously low.

Insulin is not a cure for an auto-immune disease called type 1 diabetes. Every day, with every blood test, the hope and the goal is for a cure. Until that day, I am grateful for the tools that each have a place in managing this horrible disease. Insulin, Insulin pumps, glucose meters, and alert dogs are all management tools. Science has proven that tighter control of blood sugar will help keep away the deadly effects of blindness, kidney disease, neuropathy, heart disease, amputations, and death.

Keeping blood sugar under tight control is a process that can make a person insane. We study Elisabeth's charts, measure her food, count her carbohydrates, and try to figure out why one day an insulin dose is perfect, the next it's too much, and the next it's not enough. Elisabeth's endocrinologist says there are just too many parameters such as growth spurts, adrenaline, exercise, hot baths, lack of sleep, stress, excitement, and so on that affect blood sugar. It will never make sense.

One way with control Elisabeth's blood sugar now is with the use of an Animas Ping insulin pump. The pump is a sophisticated tool that can deliver precise amounts of insulin. Elisabeth's A1c has started to lower after he started on her pump. A lower A1c means better health now and in the future.

So how will a dog trained in diabetes alert be able to help Elisabeth?

A dog’s keen sense of smell gives it the ability to watch over the blood sugar levels of a diabetic .Reports suggest that some dogs can detect early warning signs of low blood sugar, called hypoglycemia by using their sense of smell to ‘sniff out’ whether or not their owner’s glucose levels are dropping. Our bodies give out a "chemical" smell which these dogs can sense.With low blood sugar Elisabeth can fall into a dangerous coma, something which we worry about in the middle of the night while she sleeps. Or passing out when she is outside playing and myself or her daddy are not within a birds eye view of her.

This same concept of "sense of smell" also works with detecting seizures.

A dog to benefit BOTH kids.