living with diabetes Archives - BCDiabetes

BC Pharmacare to cover SGLT-2 inhibitors and to delist the Lantus brand of insulin glargine U100

Dr. Tom Elliott — Tue, 28 May 2019 17:30:22 +0000

Yesterday BC Minister of Health Adrian Dix announced Pharmacare coverage of the SGLT-2 inhibitor class represented by empagliflozin (Jardiance). Although BCDiabetes would have preferred that all three SGLT2 inhibitors on the Canadian market be covered, the long overdue announcement was most welcome news. Our readers will be aware of the long-running BCDiabetes advocacy campaign for […]

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HCTZ and Risk of Skin Cancer

Dr. Tom Elliott — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 22:04:33 +0000

Yesterday Health Canada issued a warning around HCTZ (hydrochlorothiazide), a commonly used diuretic blood pressure lowering medication: The warning was issued because of new evidence suggesting a 4-fold increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer in individuals who have taken HCTZ for 3+ years. Non-melanoma skin cancer is made up of basal-cell skin cancer (BCC) & […]

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John Daly from CKNW and Dr. Tom Elliott discuss recent advances in diabetes care

BCDiabetes Team — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 23:33:04 +0000

BCDiabetes Medical Director, Dr. Tom Elliott, will be on CKNW radio! Dr. Tom Elliott will speak on John Daly’s radio show Back on the Beat this Saturday, 11:00 am about the benefits of CGM/Sensors, insulin pumps, and GLP-1 agonists. Dr. Tom Elliott will also speak about the new “Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy”. BCDiabetes is […]

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Health Canada approves insulin pump with partial artificial pancreas capability

Dr. Tom Elliott — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 18:41:12 +0000

2018-Oct-10 saw Health Canada approve the Medtronic 670G insulin pump, the first of its kind in Canada to support closed-loop functionality for basal insulin. This innovation, the first step towards an artificial pancreas, is welcome news for every individual with diabetes who is an intensive insulin user (either a pumper or taking multiple daily shots). […]

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The Feast and Famine diet, a cure for diabetes?

Dr. Tom Elliott — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 00:36:55 +0000

Yesterday, (2017-02-23) a study of diabetic mice was published in the journal “Cell” showing that a special “fasting mimicking diet” (FMD) for 4 days every month caused regeneration of pancreatic insulin-secreting beta cells. As such, in mice at least, this diet has the potential to reverse both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. No […]

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The Dexcom G5: State-of-the-art sensor technology

Dr. Tom Elliott — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 21:25:02 +0000

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) or “sensors” have been around for more than a decade. With the arrival in Canada last week of the Dexcom G5 everything has changed: the G5 is more accurate than its predecessor the G4 allowing for ever more reliable low and high sugar alarms, it sends results straight to your smartphone […]

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Dexcom G5 Hack – Extending sensor life up to 28 days

Dr. Tom Elliott — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 21:24:19 +0000

First: purchase two accessories from Amazon.ca GrifGrips (package of 20 for CAD$20) Skin Tac (either wipes or the liquid, 50 wipes for CAD$14.84) Technique Place the sensor like you usually would, but put in on the back of the arm (as you would for a Freestyle Libre) – much better numbers. Then soak the white […]

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