Never Give Up!!

We have talked to many people about type 1 diabetes. Some have no idea what it is and others deal with it everyday. I cannot tell how different people can be about this one disease!

After 8 years I still get shocked by people's reactions. The ones that shock me the most are the ones that have accepted this disease as a way of life. I have had one mother tell me that basically why worry about a cure. It's already too late for our teenage daughters. WHAT???? Are you kidding me? But then I think that these people may like the attention of having this disease. We are not that way. We want this thing out of our lives forever!

We want Shanie to never have to think about her blood sugar or how many carbs she can eat! We never want her to lose sleep because she is correcting lows all night long. Or like last night we had to change her pump at 4:30am. We never want her to be irritable when her numbers are high (because she is such a sweet loving girl and that is not her, that is the disease). We never want her to be thirsty or have to go to the bathroom all the time because of highs. We don't want her to feel weak and shaky from lows and have to stop what she is doing until she brings her numbers up. We want her to be free from needles and tubes. She does her best not to let this disease slow her down, but sadly since we don't have the control, it has in fact stopped her in her tracks. No matter what you do, it can knock you down at any time! And because we know this is the reality of this disease WE WILL NEVER EVER GIVE UP HOPE FOR A CURE! That is the power we have over this disease! :-)

We know there will be a day when Shanie can say, "I used to have type 1 diabetes!!"

For the past several years we have been supporting Dr. Faustman and her team. Here is some info on what she is working on.

In 2003, after over a decade of work, Dr. Faustman became the first person to cure diabetes in naturally diabetic mice. This was not a treatment, like injecting islet cells or transplanting a pancreas. Dr. Faustman’s mice had a genetic disorder that caused them to develop diabetes naturally. Once her mice reached old age (about a year in mice time), she treated them with a two-drug combination to kill the defective t-cells that were destroying their insulin producing function. The stunning result: the mice regrew their beta cells and began naturally producing insulin again! This experiment has been repeated and verified independently by a half dozen labs since.  In the past, there have been many false alarms on the “mouse cure” front. Treatments have been sold as cures or a reported cure was unable to be repeated. This is the real deal. The mice had diabetes into their old age, and this treatment cured them. Other labs have verified the results.

Now, on to people!
Dr. Faustman is now in the middle of a stage 1 clinical trial to test this technique in humans. Using special blood-testing equipment that’s taken years and millions of dollars to develop, her team is measuring whether the BCG vaccine is able to measurably reduce the number of defective t-cells.

Support Dr. Faustman’s Research
These clinical trials are 100% self-funded. Because the BCG vaccine is not patented and can be used by anyone, the pharmaceutical companies will not fund these studies. It is up to us to ensure that this moves forward as quickly as possible.