Diabetes and Her

A Member Story

When our 27-year-old member visited us for the first time just two months ago, she was struggling with multiple chronic conditions: mature-onset diabetes of the young (MODY, a heredity type of diabetes), obesity, gastroparesis (a condition that slows the stomach’s emptying),  and cyclic vomiting caused by cannabis use in extreme doses. Unstable housing and depression compound these ills.

Ms. D lives with her mother temporarily, but their relationship is strained. Though she has been lax with self-care, she has goals: she’d like to find her own apartment, secure a stable job, lose weight, and control her diabetes.

In order to get to a place where any of this is possible, however, she needs the kind of care we call “beyond medicine”; that is, she needs housing resources, education on diet and diabetes, and lessons on how to use her continuous glucose monitor.

Our interdisciplinary care team went to work immediately to help her with all these goals. In just two short months, Ms. D has secured an apartment and is waiting for a move-in date. AbsoluteCare set her up with a Freestyle Libre system, helping her to download the app and review the results at subsequent appointments.

As of this week, Ms. D has cut down her cannabis use by three-quarters (from four times to once a day) and has had no cyclic vomiting episodes. In addition, she has missed zero dozes of insulin, is regularly monitoring her glucose, maintains improved blood sugar levels, and is now interviewing for certified pharmacy technician positions.

Getting members involved in their own care while surrounding them with ours allows us all to see significant improvements in health, attitude, motivation, and achievement. If we can, together, see improvements like these in just under two months, imagine where Ms. D could be next year.