One more meter for the road is a lot better than another drink. Home Diagnostics in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just came out with the smallest blood glucose meter ever. People with diabetes now have at least three tiny meters to take along in the car, on the trail, or anywhere we go.

If you are old enough to remember Frank Sinatra’s moving rendition of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” you will catch my comparison between meters and alcohol for the road. The new meter for anyone who travels is the True2go.

This unbelievably small meter is little bigger than a stack of a dozen quarters. But it weighs a lot less — 0.7 ounces, while the 12 quarters weigh 2.4 ounces.

Small Enough?
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Now that I have practiced yoga for all of an hour and one-half, I can confidently recommend it to almost everyone who has diabetes.

On Friday I took a yoga class for the first time in my life. While my yoga experience and expertise is as minimal as possible, my first impression of yoga is just about as positive as possible.

And our first impression of someone or something new is not only crucial in social situations but can be more accurate than a painstaking analysis whenever we face other complex situations. Making a decision on the basis of a first impression is anything but a “snap judgment.”
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Every time we pop a pill we put our health at risk. Whether it is a prescription medication, an alternative supplement, or an over-the-counter remedy that we take to feel better, the pill can hurt instead of help us.

Every pill that does anything good for us can pack a surprise. These unintended side effects range from the unpleasant to the deadly.

Ever see an ad for a pill that “has no side effects”? These ads are a dead giveaway that they are either lying or that the pill has no effects. These are the only pills that may be safe — although we certainly would also be wasting our money.
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The usual way that people with diabetes control hypertension — high blood pressure in normal English — is with medication. These drugs include everything from diuretics and beta blockers to ACE inhibitors and ARBs and more. Unfortunately, like all drugs, they all have their unwanted side effects.

If we could control high blood pressure without drugs, we could do away with all those nasty side effects. Now, it seems that we can.

Not that I was quick on the draw to recognize that fact. The Israeli company InterCure makes the RESPeRATE device that we can use at home to control high blood pressure. I’ve know about it for years and actually once blocked its ads on my website because one of my advisers didn’t like the testimonials on InterCure’s site.
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Seeing your doctor probably costs a lot more than you think. Even if you have health insurance with a minimal co-pay, that’s not the half of it.

If you need to see your endocrinologist every quarter, these costs can really add up. You need to factor in the cost of travel, which can include meals out and even overnight accommodations, particularly if you live a long way from the doctor’s office. If your child is the one with diabetes, one or both parents will need to take off from work.

Until Kevin McMahon, the president and CEO of Diabetech in Dallas, told me about a new online cost calculator I hadn’t realized what a financial burden these doctor visits could be. Kevin just told me about this neat way to help you determine the cost of these visits.
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“East Coast elitist” is not a label that even Sarah Palin could pin on me. But I am no “Joe Six-Pack American” either. In fact, after drinking my fill of German beer for the three years I lived in Bavaria as a soldier and student, I have despised American beer.

No way could a “mountain boy” like me be elitist. I grew up in the mountains, and once when I went back to visit my boyhood home, a guy there pinned that label on me. It fits me perfectly.

One of my so-called girlfriends once said that she liked me only when I was hiking in the mountains or stoned. I broke my addiction to pot more than 20 years ago, but my addiction to hiking in the mountains is just getting stronger as I get even more into photography.
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Once upon a time I knew some people who wanted me to help them set up a charity. They were smart enough to know that they could make a lot of money by establishing a not-for-profit organization that would pay them outrageous salaries.

They said that I could be the vice-president of the charity. While I respected their intelligence, I declined their offer. I decided that I wasn’t as big a scumbag as they were.

However, they weren’t the first scumbags earning big bucks from our charity contributions. The salaries that many heads of charity organizations take home are obscene. And that includes some of our most respected diabetes organizations.
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When we act like responsible adults, we always look at the expiration dates on the containers of prescription medicine and over-the-counter drugs that we use. Just to give one example, I can’t count the number of times that I have tossed old aspirin tablets.

Now, it turns out, I was throwing away my money.

From now on I will be saving money after reading an article in the current issue of my favorite health newsletter, which I subscribe to the old-fashioned way, on paper. The article, “Out on a date” in the October issue of the “UC Berkeley Wellness Letter,” explains that expiration dates are guarantees that prescription and over-the-counter drugs will be both potent and safe until then. But they don’t mean that after the expiration date, they won’t be effective or safe.
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Since Joseph had a family history of diabetes, he knew the importance of checking his feet regularly for diabetic foot ulcers. But despite giving careful attention to his health, he still needed to have one of his toes amputated.

Limb salvage expert Dr. Jeffrey Niezgoda of the Center for Comprehensive Wound Care in Wisconsin was able to save the rest of his foot by using a new treatment called Graftjacket. This treatment helps our body to repair the wound quickly by providing immediate coverage to the wound and a way to rebuild the area of missing tissue. The graft incorporates itself into the wound until it gradually converts into the patient’s own tissue.
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