As a diabetes educator/healthcare provider (DHCP) I’m observing that the rapidly growing world of the Diabetes Online Community, the DOC for short (link to handout), is helping people with diabetes (PWD) and their loved ones find support and feel supported. People and their caregivers are connecting, building relationships and feeling more positive about the challenges of managing their diabetes. I’m delighted to see this trend!

As a DHCP I’ve long realized that I can’t walk a mile, or even a few feet, in a PWD shoes. I can’t know what it is like day in, day out to deal with this challenging and relentless disease. But, what I do know is that we can learn from each other to change the dialog between providers and PWD to be more positive, more supportive.
Goal one with my Dialoging about Diabetes interviews is to help make living with diabetes…just a bit easier. Goal two is to enhance the two-way street – to help more PWD connect and encourage more DHCPs to open the doors of social networking to PWD.

Here’s my dialog with Catherine Price, who’s had type 1 diabetes (T1D) since 2001. Catherine engages with the DOC in several ways, writing and blogging for the diabetes site ASweetLife.org, organizing patient advocacy efforts and talking about the DOC at medical and pharma conferences. Beyond being a PWD and doing diabetes-focused consulting work, Catherine is a nationally known journalist. Her work has appeared in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, and Slate Magazine. Inspired in part by T1D and her interest in writing about nutrition -- she’s written the new book, Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection. But first, enjoy Catherine’s responses to my questions about life with diabetes, the DOC and insights from her new book.