Q&A on being in Dallas

For those of you who don’t know, I flew home to Dallas this past Thursday to stay here for a week. So far, my time here has been such a blessing. I am sure you have a few questions, so I will go ahead and answer them Q&A style below:

Q: Why am I home?
A: Since January of last year, after being diagnosed with Diabetes type 1, I entered into a clinical trial. The procedure of clinical trials are very specific. As a result, I had an office visit today that I had to fly home for.

Q: What is this clinical trial you are in?
A: This clinical trial is called the “protege” study. A couple of the requirements for being is this study were to be diagnosed with type 1, and to still be in the “honeymoon” phase of diabetes. In type one, the beta cells in your pancreas, which produce insulin, are depleting, but within the first few months, all of your insulin producing cells are not gone yet. Therefor you are in the “honeymoon” phase. So I was eligible for this study. Everyday for two weeks in January and July, I was given a drug through a picc line. The desired effects of the drug are to preserve the remaining good insulin producing cells in the pancreas. I had an 80% chance of recieving the drug, and a 20% chance of recieving the placebo.

Q: What was I doing at the doctor’s office today?
A: Interspersed between and after the drug, were/are office and telephone visits. They are following my insulin dosage and watching other things in my blood to see how I am responding to the drug. Today at the doctor’s office, they put in an iv, which they used to draw blood from, and gave me some boost (a meal replacement drink) to drink, and then came in every 15-30 minutes for four hours to draw blood.

Q: Do I think I am recieving the drug and why?
A: Yes, I am pretty sure I am recieving the drug. Why? Because the amount of insulin I am taking has actually gone down significantly from when I started taking insulin. I am on an unheardofly (I know that’s not a word) small amount of insulin. On average I use about 15 units of insulin/day, while many people use 40, 75, 100 or more units of insulin/day.

Q: What does that mean? Why would you want to be on a small amount of insulin?
A: There are a million reasons why. I honestly don’t even know all of the reasons (some of this is beyond my understanding I guess). To keep things simple on this question, just know that diabetes is a life-long, day in day out disease, with the potential of many long term affects. The fact that my pancreas is producing some insulin on it’s own is a good thing and completely new in the diabetes world. The more things I have going for me healthwise with diabetes, the less likely I am encounter some of the longterm effects/problems, ect…you can let me know if you have more questions on this one.

Q: Do I think this drug will be passes and released onto the market?
A: Yes I do. Not sure when, but I would think within a couple of years.

There are just a few questions answered for you. Let me know if you have any others. There might be a more fun post on the rest of my time in D-town coming soon…