High-tech solution for diabetes management

Published 4:01 am Sunday, October 11, 2015

Meridian family benefits from technology

    In the 1920s, those living with diabetes monitored blood glucose by mixing urine with a solution in a test tube that was boiled for five minutes, after which the color indicated the level of sugar present.

    The decades that followed brought more unwieldy tubes and chemicals, reagent strips that would react to urine glucose with a spectrum of colors leaving plenty of guesswork, and messy finger-stick strips that needed drops of blood and would be matched against a chart that could again be subject to misinterpretation.

    Jet to the present, and blood glucose readings delivered via cloud—and above the clouds.

    Helping usher in the age of digital diabetes is U.S. Navy pilot Michael Weyenberg of Meridian, whose daughter, Allison, 8, has type 1 diabetes. Using crowd-sourced technology and a precocious app called Nightscout, Weyenberg has been able to check Allison’s blood sugar in real time with a quick glance at his smart watch—even while airborne.

    “I don’t attempt to monitor my daughter’s sugar while flying because the nature of the job is such that you can’t do that but there have been occasions when I was airborne and noticed a blood sugar update on my watch,” Weyenberg said. “Once it even happened at nearly 11,000 feet and I thought about how amazing it was that I could know what her sugar was doing from that high in the air.”

    Meanwhile, his daughter may be on the ground, taking a spelling test, romping on the playground, or eating in the cafeteria.

    Allison wears a blood glucose sensor with a receiver that displays not only her blood sugar but also plots its changes on a chart that shows whether it is trending up or down and alarms if it drops too low. That is critical information, for a plummeting blood glucose can quickly turn into an emergency, and rising glucose, left untreated, could lead to coma or even death.

    “Every morning, before school, I wire Allison’s continuous glucose monitor receiver to a cellphone with the Nightscout app, which uploads her readings to a website that my wife and I can check from any Internet connection,” said Weyenberg, who will be walking with his family in Mississippi’s Walk for Diabetes on Oct. 17 at 9 a.m at Bonita Lakes.

    “I often have the site pulled up on my iPhone, but when I don’t it’s usually because her CGM number is displayed on my Pebble smart watch, which communicates with my iPhone via Bluetooth.”

    “Every five minutes I get another reading on my watch that tells me what her glucose is, whether it is headed up or down, and how much insulin she has on board,” Weyenberg said.

    Weyenberg’s wife, Missy said, “With the Nightscout website (http://www.nightscout.info), if I see that it is 11 a.m. and Allison’s blood sugar headed down, and I know Allison doesn’t have lunch for an hour and a half, I can contact the school and they can get her a snack before the low will occur.”

    Nightscout is a testament to patients’ taking their diabetes care into their own hands— circumventing legal hurdles that can accompany new technology.

    “Nightscout isn’t a product that can be purchased,” Mr. Weyenberg said. “It’s a dedicated community of people on the Internet who share solutions about how to get their CGM data from anywhere with a connection.”

    And it has liberated Allison’s parents from fear.

    “The peace of mind that Nightscout brings us by delivering real-time CGM info to our smart watches is amazing,” Michael Weyenberg said. “When you have a CGM that remotely reports sensor glucose numbers to the cloud, that opens up a whole new world of opportunities for Allison as well as us.

    “Suddenly we are sending her on school field trips, and we are comfortable leaving Allison with a sitter, since we can see what her numbers are while we’re enjoying dinner out together.”

Want to go?

What: Mississippi’s Walk for Diabetes

When: Saturday, Oct. 17, beginning at 9 a.m.

Where: Bonita Lakes Park in Meridian

FOR INFO: To volunteer or form a team, call the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi at 601-957-7878 or 1-877-DFM-CURE or visit www.msdiabetes.org.