My Life with Diabetes
WELL BEYOND A HALF CENTURY AND COUNTING...
In fact, every few months I’d read another article saying that blood
sugar normalization wasn’t even remotely possible. How was it that I,
an engineer, had figured out how to do what was impossible for medical
professionals? I was deeply grateful for the fortuitous combination
of events that had turned my life, my health, and my family around and
put me on the right path. At the very least, I felt, I was obliged to
share my newfound knowledge with others. Millions of “ordinary” diabetics
were no doubt suffering needlessly, as I had. I was sure that all physicians
treating diabetes would be thrilled to learn how to prevent and possibly
reverse the grave complications of this disease.
I hoped that if I could tell the world about the techniques I had stumbled
upon, physicians would adopt them for their patients. So I wrote an
article detailing my discoveries. I sent a copy to Charles
Suther, who was then in charge of marketing diabetes products for Ames
Division of Miles Laboratories, the company that made my blood glucose
meter. He gave me the only encouragement I received in this new venture,
and arranged for one of his company’s medical writers to edit the article
for me.
I submitted it and its revisions to many medical journals over a period
of years—a period during which I was continually improving in health,
and continually proving to myself and my family, if to no one else,
that my methods were correct. The rejection letters I received are testimony
that people tend to ignore the obvious if it conflicts with the orthodoxy
of their early training. Typical rejection letters read in part: “Studies
are not unanimous in demonstrating a need for ‘fine control’”
(the New England Journal of Medicine), or “How many patients would use
the electric device for measurement of glucose, insulin, urine, etc.?”
(Journal of the American Medical Association). As a matter of fact,
since 1980, when these “electric devices” finally were made available
to patients, the worldwide market for blood glucose selfmonitoring supplies
has come to exceed $4 billion annually. Look at the array of blood glucose
meters in any pharmacy and you can get an idea of just how many patients
use, and will use, the “electric device.”
Trying to cover several routes simultaneously, I joined the major lay
diabetes organizations, in the hope of moving up through the ranks,
where I could get to know physicians and researchers specializing in
the disease. This met with mediocre success. I attended conventions,
worked on committees, and became acquainted with many prominent diabetologists.
In this country, I met only three physicians who were willing to offer
their patients the opportunity to put these new methods
to the test.
Meanwhile, Charlie Suther was traveling around the country to university
research centers with copies of my unpublished article, which by now
had been typeset and privately printed at my expense.
The rejection by physicians specializing in diabetes of the concept
of blood sugar self-monitoring, even though essential to blood sugar
control, was so intense, however, that the management of his company
had to turn down the idea of making meters available to patients until
many years later. His company and others could clearly have profited
from the sale of blood glucose meters and test strips. However, the
backlash from the medical establishment prevented it on a number of
counts. It was unthinkable that patients be allowed to “doctor” themselves.
They knew nothing of medicine—and if they could, how would doctors
earn a living? In those days, patients visited their doctors once a
month to “get a blood sugar.” If they could do it at home for 25 cents
(in those days), why pay a physician? But almost no one believed there
was any value to normal blood sugars anyway. In some respects, blood
glucose self-monitoring still remains a serious threat to the incomes
of many physicians who specialize in the treatment of the symptoms of
diabetes and not the disease. Drop into your neighborhood ophthalmologist’s
office and you will find the waiting room three-quarters filled with
diabetics, many of whom are waiting for expensive
fluorescein angiography or laser treatment.
With Suther’s backing in the form of free supplies, by 1977 I was able
to get the first of two university-sponsored studies started in the
New York City area. These both succeeded in reversing early complications
in diabetic patients. As a result of our successes, the two universities
separately sponsored the world’s first two symposia on blood glucose
self-monitoring. By this time I was being invited to speak at international
diabetes conferences, but rarely at meetings in the United States. Curiously,
more physicians outside the United States seemed interested in controlling
blood sugar than did their American colleagues. Some of the earliest
converts to blood glucose self-monitoring
were from Israel and England.
By 1978, perhaps as a result of Charlie Suther’s efforts, a few additional
American investigators were trying our regimen or variations of it.
Finally, in 1980, manufacturers began to release blood glucose meters
for use by patients.
This “progress” was entirely too slow for my liking. I knew that while
the medical establishment was dallying there were diabetics dying whose
lives could have been saved. I knew also that there were millions of
diabetics whose quality of life could be vastly improved. So in 1977
I decided to give up my job and become a physician—I couldn’t beat ’em,
so I had to join ’em. This way, with an M.D. after my name, my writings
might be published, and I could pass on what I had learned about controlling
blood sugar.
After a year of premed courses and another year of waiting, I entered
the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1979. I was forty-five years
old. During my first year of medical school I wrote my first book, Diabetes:
The Glucograf Method for Normalizing Blood Sugar, enumerating the full
details of my treatment for type 1, or insulin-dependent, diabetes.
In 1983 I finally opened my own medical practice near my home in Mamaroneck,
New York. By that time, I had well outlived the life expectancy of an
“ordinary” type 1 diabetic. Now, by sharing my simple observations,
I was convinced I was in a position to help both type 1 and type 2 diabetics
who still had the best years of their lives ahead of them. I could help
others take control of their diabetes as I had mine, and live long,
healthy, fruitful lives.
The goal of this book is to share the techniques and treatments I have
taught my patients and used on myself, including the very latest developments.
If you or a loved one suffers from diabetes, I hope this book will give
you the tools to turn your life around as I did mine.
Get Adobe Acrobat Now