Ladies and gentlemen, you.
This is America's Healthcare Advocate broadcasting coast
to coast across the USA.
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Welcome back Grace Marie.
It's a pleasure to be with you. And I do have to say.
You are the most knowledgeable about health policy.
Just superlative!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen.
And now.
America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall.
Hello, America.
Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast
across the USA here on the HIA Radio Network.
My producers, Mr..
Dave Thiessen behind the cameras and Mr.
Garner Cowdery behind the microphones here in our Cumulus studios
in Overland Park, Kansas.
America's Healthcare Advocate is to show
are we separate fact from fiction about the subject of health care?
We're really going to get into one of those subjects today,
and I think you're going to find it amazingly informative,
and you're going to learn a lot today that you had no idea
how to deal with a certain disease.
And the breakthroughs that are happening,
or we're going to expose all of that today, because Ron Hoyler
from Saint Luke's, who is the educational director
at Saint Luke's for the diabetes program, is going to walk us through
a whole series of information that we've never seen before.
And I think you're going to find it's going to make a big difference.
Also, if you want to listen to one of these shows or tell
somebody about the show after it airs, you can go off on our podcast platforms.
There are 16 of them.
You can find us almost anywhere and listen to America's Healthcare Advocate.
Additionally, our YouTube platform, America's Healthcare Advocate.
All the shows are posted up there by Mr.
Dave Thiessen.
So you could actually see the video of the shows and the information
that we're producing on the broadcast.
I want a little shout out today to KNSS 1330 in Wichita, Kansas.
We're very happy to be back on the air up there in Wichita, Kansas,
one of our oldest affiliates, and we've been off for a while.
We're back on there and we're very happy about that.
So we want to thank all of them for putting us back on the air at KNSS.
If you are looking for Medicare insurance or ACA, the lovely Carolee Steele
at RPS Benefits by Design can help you anywhere in the country.
I got a great e-mail from a lady the other day who she had helped,
who was in Florida.
Again, if you if you're
looking for ACA coverage or Medicare, she certainly can help you.
Also, if you're a 1099 employee, they have some great programs over there.
There is a product called Gig Care that they can help you with.
If you're a 1099 employee, you might find that to cost a lot less
than an ACA plan with better benefits if you're not getting a subsidy.
So I'll put that caveat there.
But if you're not getting a subsidy or getting a very small subsidy,
you may find that the gig care program might be better for you.
Again, you can call them at 877-385-2224.
And if you're looking for employer sponsored health care, Maria Ahlers
has some pretty unique, opportunities that she can also help you with.
So once again, 877-385-2224 RPS Benefits by Design.
As I said, Ron Hoyer is joining me in studio.
Is this the third one of these we've done? I'm happy.
It is.
It is third in our series on diabetes education.
So what you're going to learn today is probably going to shock some of you
about how
we're treating this disease now and how it's not being adequately treated.
You're going to be a little surprised to learn some of those facts.
We're also going to show you a solution.
It's really quite remarkable and can help you manage diabetes,
whether you're type one or type two, in a way never before available to you.
This is going to be pretty interesting.
Ron Hoyler has a masters of Business Administration, Care Management,
a master of science nursing, a Bachelor of Arts
and Personal Administration, an Associate of Applied Science in Nursing.
He is a certified Diabetes Technical clinician,
certified Diabetes Care Education Specialist,
a Pump Certified Trainer Patient Experience Champion for Children's Mercy
Hospital, 2010, the nominee for the Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses.
This.
He's got a whole list of these and I'm just reading a few the point
and telling you all that is to tell you that Ron Hoyler
really knows what he's talking about when it comes to diabetes.
And here's why this is important, okay?
And this will scare you. If it doesn't, it should.
Three out of four Americans over the age of 65 have diabetes or prediabetes.
And you're looking at one of them.
Okay, I was diagnosed as pre diabetic about eight, nine months ago.
And I decided to do something about it.
I did I got involved with it
with a, with a weight loss clinic and I dropped the, the weight down
and I started changing my diet and I've got it under control.
But the point is, if you don't take this seriously,
the comorbidities, we're going to talk about those in this segment.
In the next segment,
the things that you're putting yourself at risk for are very serious.
And and in my opinion, I think they're pretty scary.
So let's just dive right in that when I saw this on the notes,
or I was up doing show prep at 530 before we got in here,
and I'm like three out of four.
I think that's the first time I've seen that number.
I knew one out of three Americans have diabetes or prediabetes, but this over 65,
and you're looking at the guy at 75 here, by the way, just so you know.
Okay.
That's a that's a shocking number Ron.
Scary stat, isn't it? Yeah.
So so, you know,
the thing that drove me that bring you back in here is you
and I've been having conversation about this,
some of the other comorbidities that we're talking about here.
So let's go through some of those.
Yeah.
Some of the most common you've got adult blindness
in stage renal disease, neuropathy, amputation.
We all know that type one diabetics have a great risk for that
is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.
And someone dies of diabetes every five seconds.
In the world.
Those numbers are. Shocking. Yeah.
They are.
So it's such a prevalent disease.
And for being one of the most common chronic disorders in the world,
it is a disorder that we could do so much better
at in taking care of than what we do now.
Yeah.
And that's so, so here's, here's a number that will knock your socks off.
We have a 165 meds to treat diabetes with.
And we're going to get into how the doctors decide
which meds to treat you with.
But that number alone is pretty shocking.
Yeah. How do you 165 meds.
Okay.
Now I went on metformin for six months to get myself turned around,
and I'm off of it
now, but if I had to go back on it, I would have no issue with doing it.
But the point I'm
making is, you know, I was able to use that med to get it under control.
But, you know, again, I don't want to I don't want to,
you know, talk about this now because I want to get into it in the third segment.
We're really going to surprise some people with what we have.
But that's got to be extreme.
You're a clinician. Yeah.
Look, you when these patients are coming in to see you,
you get 165 beds to choose from, Ron?
Right.
Well, and technically there's over 800
combinations of meds and doses that can be applied together.
And how does a physician decide which one's right for you
or their other patient or their other patient?
It's almost a crapshoot, really.
It's really what it sounds like.
And what would really be helpful would be getting feedback
or information that's adequate about your blood sugar
and what's happening on a daily basis with it. Yeah.
And that and we're going to talk about that.
Believe me, the third segment is going to be a big surprise
to a lot of people, especially if you're diabetic
or have somebody in your family at risk for diabetes.
But let's talk about what kind of drove us to come back in here today
to do this show.
And that was and we'll get into this in the next segment.
But let's talk about the cognitive issues.
This is something that was new to me.
And you brought this up. I was like, for real.
Yeah. So let's we got about two minutes left here.
Let's talk about that before we go to break. Yeah.
I think, you know,and technically there’s over 800
combinations of meds and doses that can be applied together.
And how does a physician decide which one’s right for you
or their other patient
or their other patient?
It’s almost a crapshoot, really.
And when we have high blood sugars, that interrupts the efficiency of the brain
to take in this fuel to run efficiently, it makes it harder to,
to do certain processes daily living,
remembering things, doing processes of,
balancing your checkbook or making decisions.
And knowing when to take your meds.
That would be another one.
Knowing when to test your blood sugar, remembering where you live.
In fact, people with diabetes have a 50% greater
chance of developing dementia than someone without diabetes.
And that's just scary.
As we get, more and more people into our population that are aging,
that's shocking.
And how big is the risk?
Does that risk grow for over 65?
Well, first, people over 65 get diabetes more so than under.
So that's going too.
Create three out of four right. Pretty big number.
And then beyond that, once you have diabetes you're at a greater
risk for not just dementia, but the complications from dementia.
Some of the specific, diseases that come under the dementia umbrella,
like Alzheimer's,
but cognitive impairment in general,
you know, that fog that you'll sometimes hear it called where you are
just suddenly in the moment, not quite sure what you were thinking or doing
that can be related to the high blood sugars that you might be experiencing.
So when we come back to the break, we're going to get into this in detail
because this is a piece that we have not talked about
before, the risk here, remember, you know, the key issue here,
three out of four of you listening to this broadcast out there
over the age of 65 either have diabetes or prediabetes.
So that's that's why this becomes an even greater issue on your quality of life.
We'll be right back after the break.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate
Broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network.
Coast to coast across the USA.
Stay tuned. We'll be right back with more.
Welcome back.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show, broadcasting coast to coast
across the USA here on the HIA Radio Network.
You know, you're listening to this, and maybe you've got somebody in
your family is diabetic and you're you're concerned, okay.
About what
I just told you of what Ron just told you and what you're hearing and information.
Go up to one of the podcast platforms we're on, every Spotify Rumble,
you name it, iHeart radio.
We're on.
We're on 16 of them.
Okay, you can definitely find this, right?
SoundCloud. There's more.
You can find us up there and have them listen to the show,
or you can go to the YouTube channel, America's Healthcare Advocate.
The shows are all posted up there.
They've post the shows up there so you can watch them, listen to them, whatever.
But that's a great way to educate somebody that may have this disease.
Maybe you're struggling getting that family member.
Pay attention and do what they need to do to correct the situation with diabetes.
The reason I do these kind of shows and bring experts in here
who take time out of their day, like Ron Hoyler to do this,
is so I can educate and inform, and that's what we're trying to do.
All right. So we're going to switch gears. Now.
We're going to talk about,
as I said, the thing that really caught my attention was this whole cognitive
issue and how diabetes affects is because we have not talked about that before.
So it's called big brain age gap.
And I'm going to show you a picture now of what that looks like okay.
And then I'm going to ask Ron to explain this so you can see exactly
what we're talking about here.
These are concrete examples of what happens if you're a type
one type two diabetic, and you are not keeping this disease in check.
Ron, walk us through this.
We have a lot of different ways we can measure different functions in the brain.
And one of the things that we can do is we can look at it and the processes
and how fast it works.
And if, if we're really doing, the things we want our brain to do
and we can, accumulate that information for an age group,
and we can say, this is your brain age for this.
Yeah. The what the brain scan does, it does an amazing job.
Yeah, I've seen those before. Those are excellent.
And what we can do then is we can look at somebody who has diabetes
and we can say, is your brain front function
working at the same chronological age as what you are
or compared to somebody your age without diabetes?
And, data demonstrates
that diabetes can cause brain atrophy and that affects
the brain age of your brain, and that makes it go further
and further from chronologically, what it should be when you have diabetes.
And no surprise that the worse control
you have with your diabetes, the greater the distance
between what your chronological brain age should be and what it actually is.
Okay, so you're 75 years old.
You're not paying attention to your diabetes.
You're letting it rage out of control.
You're doing the things you shouldn't be doing.
So instead of having a 75 year old brain, you've got a 97 year old brain.
Well, I'm giving you an example.
That that's maybe a little bit more of a gap than what the statistic
indicates, but it certainly indicates, let's say that if your,
hemoglobin A1c or 8% or greater,
that on average that's about a four year gap or deficiency.
You're going to continue to.
Yeah, most likely among other things. Right.
Because as we talked about in the last segment, your risk for,
other functions in your brain being affected or the risk of dementia,
or, impairment are significantly increased.
The worse blood flow you have into the brain from the high blood sugar.
So I will tell you, okay.
Personally, for me, and I did not know this, but, you know,
I've been very aware of I've done a lot of shows on Alzheimer's.
So we've had Steve Sanborn on here talking with the Wavi brain scan
and his group Neurologic, what they do and what a difference that makes.
That's one of the things that is terrified me about aging
was am I going to wind up?
I've got a very good friend, a guy I served with overseas in Vietnam.
He was he and I were partners the whole time
we were there as dog handlers.
And he's got dementia.
And I worry about George.
We're back and forth every week talking.
He lives down in Texas, East Texas, and as a cattle ranch
and, you know, very concerned about his dementia.
And, you know, him being able to keep it in check.
And this is exactly why I wanted to do this show today and talk about this,
because I will tell you, as a seasoned citizen,
one of us that is chronologically challenged,
this is the one thing that terrifies the hell out of me.
And it should terrify all of you to be sitting there
and not have control of your mind and your own thought
process, and be able to care for yourself in any form.
And then, you know, in addition to, you know, you're being that person
that has this problem, what does that do to your family?
Right?
What a hardship did.
That whole burden.
Yeah. Over to your wife and your children.
Because you weren't paying attention to something that you knew,
was a possibility.
And the thing.
I keep going back to this number because it just shocks the hell out of me.
Three out of four Americans over 65. Yeah.
So if they're, you know, if they're not paying attention to this,
you can almost guarantee they're going to wind up with that problem.
Sure.
And, you know, to be clear, you can have dementia without having diabetes.
Of course you can. But do you want to add to the risk? Right.
Exactly.
You're tipping the scale the other way.
Okay, let's hurry up and get dementia, okay. Yeah.
That's what we want to do, right?
That makes a hell of a lot of sense that.
No. Well, that's why this information is so important for people to understand
so that they can stack the odds in their favor,
right, of not having to deal with those kind of complications.
And, and the first thing is, and we, you know,
we're going to come up on the break here in about three minutes.
But the first thing is that and kind of explain to people
why it's so critical
that they get that A1c initially and find out if they're at risk.
Yeah, yeah.
You think you don't have a problem.
You don't know that truth. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
That's why, you know,
you're going into your doctor for an annual physical and lab work
because there are a whole lot of ways that we can easily and quickly
or, early on detect something so that we can fix it.
Always easier to fix it when you catch it early on.
Right. Cancers,
all kinds of stuff, diabetes included.
And, one of the quick things that they can do at a physical is check
a blood sugar,
take a urine sample, see if there's glucose in the urine.
They get an indication.
Do you seem to be in that prediabetes stage
or possibly already in the diabetes stage?
And the earlier you catch it, the earlier you can start to intervene
and get it under control.
Now I want to tell you something.
You may think, hey, I'm physically fit, I workout.
You know, I've been a gym rat all of my life, okay?
Ever since I got out of the military,
I've always worked at least 3 or 4 times a week.
I still couldn't shake this.
I could not get out of this pre-diabetes zone
with this A1C and I, you know, I took the steps.
I did the right thing.
I went to a group here called Heartland
Weight Loss, and got myself back under...
dropped about 18 pounds, and got my A1c down
and I, you know, I've got labs coming up here in a couple weeks.
Time to go right back in and check it again.
But if you, if you think, oh gee, I'm in good health, I don't have this problem.
No, you don't know.
And that's Ron's whole point.
You need to get physical, get the A1c check if you're in that range.
I was in the range for pre-diabetes.
I was not diabetic yet, but I was right there.
I could cross the line pretty easily.
That's when I changed my diet and, you know, made a difference.
Like I said I went on metformin for six months.
Got it under control. Now I'm off of it.
I'm staying under control, but I'm paying attention to it.
If you're not paying attention to this, you get further down the road.
You might not be able to correct it, right.
Then it shifts over into type 2?
And now you got a big fight on your hands,
a really big fight on your hands, and it's going to affect everything in your life.
So that's why we're doing the show today, is to try to explain to you.
Now, when we come back from the break,
we're going to talk about how this disease is treated,
how it has been treated historically, and about a major breakthrough
that literally is going to change the way diabetes gets treated.
Stay tuned.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate
Broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network.
Coast to coast across USA.
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more.
Welcome back to America's
Healthcare Advocate, broadcasting coast to coast across the USA.
By the way, I've been getting a lot of emails lately.
People that have questions, issues
that lady up in West Virginia the other day, etc.
if you want to send me an email,
go to the website America's Healthcare Advocate.com.
America's Healthcare Advocate.com.
I get the emails.
Dave makes sure that I answer him.
If I don't, he tells me I missed okay.
And then I answer them.
So if you've got a question for something I can help you with or you have an issue,
please feel free to reach out to me.
Use the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com.
All right.
So now this is going to be interesting because I'm going to I'm going
to use an analogy here.
And then I'm going to have Ron explain that analogy
as we talk about this new way to manage this disease.
So would you buy a car without a speedometer.
I would not.
And and because that would be foolish, it would would.
Yeah.
You know, I tell patients that managing your diabetes
without constant information is going to set you up for failure.
And I use an analogy that, let's say you rented a car
to travel across the United States from the East Coast to the West Coast.
And the car they want to give you doesn't have a speedometer.
How comfortable are you feeling about driving?
Not knowing your speed and not being able to assess
if you are going the appropriate speed limit?
Yeah, obviously I'm not going to drive that car, right?
Yeah.
And because you recognize that that incoming data is necessary
for you to be in a safe situation and not get yourself in trouble.
And diabetes is no different.
The amount of information coming in about your blood sugars needs to be frequent,
and it needs to be something you can see readily, and that's something
that we're not appropriately using, like we could with the technology
we have today.
Yeah. So let me just give you an example of what we do now.
Then I'm going to ask Ron to explain this.
This is a typical, chart,
if you will, that a doctor sees if you are getting A1c.
So we're going to explain A1c here in a minute.
And you're having a check. This is what it looks like.
This is what he or she has.
Or Ron in the case of a nurse, if they're treating this
to go by to decide which one of those 165 medications
that we were talking about, this is how he,
he or she is supposed to know which one to give you.
You might as well just get a dart board and throw a dart.
It feels that way sometimes. No.
So you, first of all, let's explain A1c and then let's talk about this.
Sure. This this this idea.
So we got a little history lesson here because,
we've only had blood sugar meters, which is what this is.
These are, examples of somebody who has checked their blood sugar twice
a day, which is often, the number of times doctors ask you to check or,
maybe the number of times your insurance will allow you to check daily.
And, it is some points on the board, random points.
And a clinician is supposed to be able to look at that and somehow, ascertain
how your medicine is going, how your daily life is going,
how the decisions you're making are working to manage your diabetes.
And so that is just not a lot of information.
It certainly is not.
So that is blood sugars right now,
one of the common ways to get at least a ballpark idea of your average blood
sugar is what's called an A1c, in which, this has been around for decades.
It's a quick, fast, cheap way to get an idea of somebody
who maybe doesn't check their blood sugars
or simply doesn't have any idea of how their blood sugars are looking.
We measure, we take a drop,
a red blood cell, and measure the amount of blood sugar on it.
And because a red blood cell has a life span of three months, we know that
that is a three month average of your blood sugar.
Now, that is some information.
And for years, really for decades, it was kind of the gold standard.
And the problem is that an average is often misleading.
Let me give you an example.
If half of your blood sugars are high and half of them are low,
they're going to average out correct to a nice A1c right.
If you're simply going by A1c, you may say, oh, I'm doing great.
But the truth of the matter is, when you have that kind of variability
in your blood sugars from high to low and high to low,
that's creating oxidative, oxidative stress on the cells that's damaging them,
interrupting blood flow efficiency into the brain and other organs.
And so an A1c while it is some information, it is not the best
indicator for your diabetes management and overall health of your diabetes.
So now we're going to shift to this breakthrough technology.
And you know, we live in a world where things are changing rapidly
with technology.
This breakthrough technology is called CGM.
This is what I want to have Ron explain that.
But this is what a chart looks like from a CGM.
You see the difference here? Just the visual difference.
And looking at this okay, this is the difference.
Now explain what that means.
First of all, what is the CGM. Let's show them.
Yeah well so a CGM is just a little device about the size of a dime.
Sticks on your arm or, there's other places on your body.
It's waterproof.
And you can wear it for either 10 or 15 days.
It continually monitors your blood sugar.
And that's why you get this really nice
graph layout here that shows everything, high.
Low when it's high, when it's low during the day.
Except. Right.
Well, not only that, but that information goes directly
to my doctor's office if he or she wants to see it.
And is it on your phone?
It is also the the. Alright.
So for me, I can just touch the icon and it's going to
show me,
where, where I'm at, say I want to look at my time and range.
Well. Let's hold that so the camera can see that.
Yeah, yeah.
So what I know is that the decisions I've been making
have been keeping my blood sugar in range.
The reason that's significant is because many researchers and providers
feel that time and range is the best indicator of your overall diabetes health,
because going back to an A1, see, as I said, you could have a nice A1c
the A1 that Ada recommends and A1c of it, because we just talked about averaging.
If you get the average right, you know you're not because you're
you're it's a false it's a false narrative.
Well, use this again.
This CGM download shows me in this particular case
that this patient was in range 59% of the time.
70% is the goal.
So they have some work to do. Right.
However, it also gives me an indicator of what the KG or what the A1c would be.
And I think it has it at 7.2 here.
So if you were just going by A1c you'd go wow, look
how close I am to doing really well now that's not telling the whole picture.
Number one, we're not getting our time and range.
But number two,
remember I talked about the variability that causes the oxidative stress on cells.
This shows me the variability and if it is matching up to a healthy range.
And so now I'm getting
not just a little bit of information I'm getting the entire picture.
I also see a graph of where you go high or low throughout the day,
so that I know where we need to pinpoint specifically
either the medicine we're taking at that time or the dose, or.
How you're. Eating or how you're eating.
So my Saturday morning donuts are going to show up, not doing
only Saturday.
So that's not true Saturday and Sunday okay.
But you okay. Yeah.
So the point is simply this that with an abundance of information,
I can make a more accurate and timely clinical decision
to help you manage your diabetes, but you also are able to.
Yeah.
So the that's the part I want to get to here.
This is what's so critical about this this piece of technology.
What it does.
You now can treat
your own know how to treat your diabetes okay.
To help to help your clinician, your doctor, your nurse, whoever it is,
keep your diabetes under control because you have a constant flow of information
going back to your physician, which you see.
So if you decide that I'm going to have two martinis that evening,
you're going to see your blood sugar jump.
Okay.
You know,
if you decide you want that piece of apple pie with with ice cream on top of it,
you're gonna see your blood sugar jump,
but you're going to know what you're doing, okay?
And where you are.
How do those foods affect your behavior?
So I think this is absolutely remarkable.
Now here's the $64,000 question.
Or are the insurance carriers covering this.
Yes and no. Is Medicare covering.
It? Medicare will only cover it if you have a diabetes diagnosis
and you're on insulin, or you have a history
of hypoglycemic events that you are unaware of or in danger of.
Is a type two diabetic or pre-diabetic able to get this paid for.
In some instances?
Maybe in some instances, one of these, devices has got a, program
where they will sell you a sensor at a fairly reasonable cost.
What's reasonable.
Whether about $85 a month. That's fine.
But $85 a month to know that I'm not going to move toward dementia.
Right? Yeah.
And and all the other comorbidities that we talked about here
amputations, seizures, renal disease, neuropathy, etc..
I would say it's worth $85 a month.
Well, you know, my heart and my brain tell me what I would
really want to see is why do we even need prescriptions for these?
Yeah, we have watches that tell us our heart rate,
that tell us how many steps we get that tell us, you know,
our oxygen saturation for every day we have all that information.
If diabetes is such, such a dynamic disease
affecting us right now, why aren't we making the tools available
more readily for people to be able to be healthy?
Okay, so it's called the CGM.
You can ask your physician about it.
You may qualify for it if you're a type two diabetic.
Possibly. Okay.
If you're pre-diabetic, it's not going to be covered by insurance.
You can almost guarantee that if it's worth $85 a month to you.
And I can assure you
that, you know,
when I walk out of this studio, that's the first thing
that I'm going to do is I'm going to get that monitor
and I'm going to have it on my phone
so I know what I'm doing because I, you know, I've got six grandchildren.
Okay?
I want to continue to enjoy my life with my wife and be able to do
the things I want to do, and I'm not going to put myself at risk
for something like this when I don't have to.
That's why we do this radio show.
So we'll be right back after the break.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate
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Welcome back.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show broadcasting coast to coast
across the USA.
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and understand this is a better way to deal with this issue of diabetes.
Okay?
And that's why I do these broadcasts and that's why we're doing this today.
So it's important that you have that information.
I want to thank Saint Luke's that by the way, if you wanted to see
Ron Hoyler, saintlukeskc.org is website.
saintlukeskc.org. Make an appointment.
Get going there.
Sit down and talk with him
and find out what you can do to start getting your diabetes under control.
It is critically important that you get it under control.
So as Ron, like say you live with the diabetes, not the diabetes
telling you how you have to live.
And we'll talk a little bit about that here in this segment.
So this is interesting.
We just talked about Medicare what they cover and what they don't cover.
You know how much I love government run health care.
And I'm on Medicare one half of the budget
that Medicare allots for for care goes to diabetes and diabetes programs.
So do you think maybe by implementing a program like this,
we could see a
significant savings that maybe DOGE needs to get involved in this.
Okay. And explain.
There is a better way to do this using technology.
Okay.
That would drive down the cost of the whole Medicare budget.
Half of the budget is alotted to diabetes.
For complications from diabetes.
So that's spending the money on the back end instead of the front end
with the CGM, like Dexcom and Libre,
that can help you see what's going on so you can more effectively manage your diet.
And take control of your life.
And look, you know what we talked about the 165 diabetes medications.
With a sensor.
I can more appropriately see which medication is working and which isn't.
So now I have a better choice of what's going to work for you.
Yeah.
So the clinician is not working off of this okay.
They're working off of something that's going to tell them, listen to this.
Every five minutes, 288 readings
a day of your blood sugar range increase range
18 to 70 in increased time in range from 18 to 74%.
Reduce this blood glucose to 286 to 158.
That's a 100 point drop.
I mean, this is remarkable.
All because he's got that little disc,
on his arm that allows you to know where you're at.
And most important part is it feeds that information to your doctor.
Yeah.
And I should just mention that this is not surgery or anything.
This is sticking on like a band aide, Okay.
Yeah. It's noninvasive people. Okay. Believe me.
Right. Okay.
So, so I, you know, when I look at this, this gives me a lot of hope.
Yeah, well, you know, it's no mystery that
with all this appropriate data, you're going to do better.
The mystery probably is that why aren't we doing it more?
Well, because.
Because we've got to go through the hurdles with the insurance carriers
and then we've got to go through the hurdles to CMS.
And God knows how long it will take them to figure it out. But
therein lies the problem.
Yeah. Okay.
Is, you know, you would think,
given you know, how significant the difference is between
these two ways of treating this disease and the people that have it
and the frequency of people three out four,
65 or older, are they going to have it that they would be all over this?
Yeah.
In terms of handing it out to people say here, all you have to do is use it, okay?
Because it's kind of, it's going to prevent all of these comorbidities
going down.
What does it cost to treat Alzheimer's, dementia, you know, type
two diabetes, moving to type one diabetes, you know, all the rest of this.
So this big brouhaha about the cost of insulin and how to bring the.
Well, that's not treating the problem is you're already you've
you're already crossed
the Rubicon in terms of where you're at when you're going on to an insulin pump.
Right. And that talk about a change in lifestyle.
There's a change of sure, sure.
Well, you know, insulin is just one of the medications,
right, that you can take, to manage diabetes.
Unless you of course have type one.
Right. And remember, type one, your body can't make insulin, right.
So you have to take it. Right.
But that's only about 5% of people with diabetes have type one.
The vast majority of people have type two.
And that's when your body can make insulin.
But it's not making it very well to be able to do its job.
So we supplement that with one
or several of these other drugs that can help adjust your blood sugar.
But how well is it working? Is it the right dose?
Do you remember to take it? Do you have side effects?
All of those variables come into play then, and that's why
understanding what that's doing for your blood sugar
really helps you make the right decision for this man.
It gives the it it gives the the clinician, the doctor, the nurse.
It's it's treating you.
There's a roadmap on to okay.
Well that didn't work. Maybe metformin didn't work.
And you need or you know, one of the things
that was surprising to the nurses that put me on metformin
was they kept asking me every week because I was going to be checked out.
How about side effects for you?
I didn't have any side effects, but I was like, I wasn't even taking it.
It was remarkable.
I had no issue. Some people, a lot of people do.
A lot of people have side effects. I was very fortunate.
But for folks that have side effects, being able to use this
with these kind of measurements that I just talked about, 288 readings a day.
That's a whole lot of information that makes a big difference.
Well, let's go try this med and then we'll see.
We'll actually be able to measure. Sure.
Whether it's working or not beyond meds.
Look, if you're trying to lose weight and you're making that conscious effort
to eat better and or eat less or eat more of the things
that you've been told to do, this shows you the results.
And when we see results,
that motivates us, that keeps us going down the right path.
If you're just guessing because you jump on the scale once a day,
that's just not enough information to tell you if you are truly doing
something that is going to keep you going down the right path.
Knowledge and information are critically important
when you're trying to do anything in managing this disease.
I think they're even more critically important, because the risks that you run
by not knowing where you're at in terms of this issue is significant, that
we just went through a lot of these co-morbidities, and they are real.
I'll show you something real quick that's easy for all of us to understand.
When I look at this, you'll see that around lunchtime.
What is happening after my blood?
What's happening to my blood sugar?
Okay. Skyrockets. Yeah.
Just that information alone tells me.
What are you eating? Let's discuss that.
What medication do I have you on that works at this time of the day?
Because one of those things needs to be adjusted.
Because we go up 100 points here after we eat lunch.
Not so much at breakfast, not so much at dinner.
Just a quick glance already
has given me so much more information than a couple of random numbers.
Yeah, so. It's night and day.
And yes, of the stark difference between
the information that the folks have, you know, thank you for doing this today.
I really
I really think these kind of broadcasts make a huge difference to people's lives.
I've gotten phone calls from people.
We've done these shows, and it does make a difference
if you don't know if you these little if you're over the age of 55 or 60
and you don't know whether you've got type two diabetes or you're pre-diabetic,
you really need to find out if you are pre-diabetic and you know it.
This is a far better way to treat it with that simple little disc.
And for 85 bucks a month, you can bet I'm going to be doing it.
Okay.
Just look, you know, look at think of the cost of Alzheimer's
drugs or dementia drugs versus $85 a month to make sure you're
not having that problem.
So that's why we do these shows.
Thank you again.
And thanks to the people at Saint Luke's for letting him take time
to come here at the website for Saint Luke's, is saintlukeskc.org.
If you haven't been checked or you need to be checked
or you haven't had an A1c, I would strongly suggest you do.
And if you want to see Ron, go to the website.
Make an appointment.
Thank you again. Sure.
And I would just probably mention $85 is the general number.
It might be based on your insurance.
And now I leave you with this thought from Doctor Martin Luther King.
Americans must learn to live together as brothers and sisters,
or we will surely perish together as fools.
Truer words were never spoken.
Thank you for listening to America's Healthcare
Advocate, broadcasting here on the HIA Radio Network.
Coast to coast across the USA.
Goodbye America.