My 14-day experiment got me thinking…..

A few weeks ago, I received some “not so good” lab results. My glucose levels (A1c) were pretty elevated, along with some higher than normal liver enzymes. :/

I know, I know….eat healthier, drink less alcohol, get more sleep and exercise. All of these things my doctor recommended, once again. But this time, she suggested something additional. She suggested I slap a constant glucose monitor to my arm for a couple of weeks, and really find out what was causing my blood sugar to rise to higher than normal levels, after all, I’m not diabetic.

For the first few days, she recommended I maintain a normal routine (diet, behavior, etc) and monitor the results, and I discovered that my body really does react (badly) to processed carbs and sugary snacks. Several different food items were causing my blood sugar to really spike during the day…..all unbeknownst to me.

They say “seeing is believing”, and I guess that holds true for me in this case. I needed to “see” the results of my choices.

Constantly monitoring my blood sugar also led me to discover how my body responds to moderate exercise too, which is great! I found that my body really likes exercise…..(shocker, right?) I noticed that if I would walk, or jog, half an hour after a meal, it would really affect my levels.

All of this got me thinking about self-funded health plans. The average annual cost on self-funded plans to treat each diabetic employee is just over $15,000 according to the Healthcare Cost Institute, compared to just under $5,000 annually for a non-diabetic. Anyone and everyone who works in this industry, or manages a self-funded plan, knows that diabetes is one of the most prevalent and expensive conditions in the entire plan spend.

Other studies, such as the Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey, show that anywhere from 8% to 17% of employees of an employer’s self-funded plan are diabetic, yet generally represent between 12% and 25% of the total plan spend. That’s a lot! Not to mention, the same studies show that diabetic men miss 11 more days of work on average than non-diabetic men, while diabetic women miss 9 more days on average than non-diabetic women, yet another contributing factor in the rising cost of managing diabetes.

Mitigating risk and controlling costs in this category is something the vast majority of employers are trying to do effectively. But let’s not lose focus on the main point: these are people, not figures. These are people who need help managing lifestyles, not just a condition. I realized that during my 14-day experiment. If my doctor has told me once to eat healthier and exercise more, she’s told me 100 times! But when I got to see how my body was responding to food and exercise in real time….it made a difference. It resonated on a different level.

Creating an evidence-based diabetes program is critical to reigning in costs, and affordable testing and monitoring is at the center of such a program. I’m not even a diabetic, but after wearing the constant monitor, and KNOWING my glucose levels when I needed to know them, made a significant impact on me. It made me realize that certain foods really are hurting my body, and that putting off exercise is only contributing to my problem.

I am on a high-deductible health plan and I had to pay out of pocket for my 14-day constant glucose monitor. It cost me $54. That’s a very small price to pay for the experiment. Just in the last two weeks of monitoring my glucose levels, eating well, and incorporating moderate exercise every day, my levels have fallen back below normal levels and I’ve lost 13 pounds.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Affordable constant monitoring should be affordable for employees, free if possible. It’s a critical piece of managing this costly chronic disease. If it can do for diabetics what it did for me, prove what was causing my blood sugar to spike, and what gets it back to normal in real time, etc, it is well worth the investment.