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Judy
Vanderwist creator of Carb Cards is the mother of two children,
Charles
and Windy, who were diagnosed five years apart with Type I diabetes at
ages 9 and 8. Keeping them healthy and encouraging self-management has
been her challenge for fifteen years.
Shocked
by the news that her children had a life threatening disease, Judy
immediately sought answers from the medical community about managing their
diabetes. As Judy and her husband supported and nurtured them through
the trials of living an active life with diabetes she became more
frustrated with the lack of child -oriented educational materials. The
family’s growing dissatisfaction with ever changing nutritional
guidelines and confusing lists and textbooks convinced her to explore
every alternative in hopes of conquering the disease. Eventually, Judy’s
research led her to the conclusion that carbohydrate counting was one of
the best ways to achieve consistent control of their blood glucose levels.
When
Charles headed for college she wondered how he would manage carb counting
at parties, restaurants, and the dormitory cafeteria. Both children were
interested in going on the pump as well. Judy explains, “When you’re
taking a fast-acting insulin, Humalog, like my kids are, diabetes
management has to be precise. It’s like conducting a chemistry
experiment every time you eat. I was worried about how they would do on
their own. I was riding my bike one day, when the answer came to me: ’Why
not make carbohydrate counting a card game?’”
Equipped
with her collection of nutrition books and ADA carbohydrate lists she
sketched the idea. A twenty-year-old working relationship was revived when
Judy invited her friend, Carla Blowey, to help make her vision of Carb
Cards a reality. At the time, Carla was facing the loss of yet another
relative due to diabetic complications. Inspired by Judy’s enthusiasm
and determination to help her children, Carla happily agreed to lend her
artistic and creative talents to the project.
Together
they created several prototypes and tested them over several months at
home and with focus groups of children and adults with diabetes. Each deck
included 54 food flash cards (2”x 3.5”) with portion sizes and
carbohydrate amounts in grams, 6 extra blank cards to customize, an
activity game card and four crayons all packaged in a clear plastic
drawstring bag.
The
54 cards became a routine at meal times as Judy displayed them next to
Windy’s plate. Soon the memorization process took hold and Windy began
to gain better control over her blood glucose levels. Judy realized that
the basic concept of flash cards had a wider appeal and would suit other
children, teens and adults as well.
By
March 2000, the Carb Cards web site was online selling packages of Carb
Cards for Kids and received an enthusiastic review by Jeff Hitchcock of
Children With Diabetes. “Carb Cards are an excellent, fun tool to help
introduce or teach carbohydrate counting to children or adults.” Carb
Cards made its first public appearance at the Children With Diabetes
conference in Orlando, Florida.
Later that year Carb Cards for
Kids and Carb Cards Nutrition Navigator for Teens and Adults made its
debut at the annual Association of American Diabetes Educators show in San
Diego in August 2000. Carb Cards were sold in the AADE bookstore at that
event, and later at the national American Dietitians Association
conference in Denver. The acceptance and appreciation of this tool continues to
grow.
Carb Cards is featured in the
Feb./March 2001 issue of the magazine Successful
Living with Diabetes, and in two national catalogues for dietitians
and diabetes educators, NCES, and Nasco.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation included Carb Cards in
their 2001 Bag of Hope project and distributed them to 10,000 newly
diagnosed children.
DiabetesInControl.com
recently concluded a case study on carbohydrate counting using Carb Cards
with educators and patients. The results confirmed that counting carbs
with Carb Cards helped patients keep track of daily carbohydrate amounts
while lowering blood glucose levels.
“After
the 90 days of using the Carb Cards®, mean daily preprandial plasma
glucose concentrations were 6%(153 vs 143mg/dl) percent lower, 2-hour post
prandial plasma glucose concentrations were lowered by 14 percent (196 vs
168mg/dl) and HbA1c were lowered from 8.6% to 8.2% (0.4% decrease). In
the subset of patients under 18 years results were even better with
average preprandial glucose dropping 8% and average Postprandial dropping
21%. HbA1c decreased 0.6%. The consistent use of the Carb Cards® appears
to improve glycemic control in
patients with type 2 diabetes. Reducing postprandial blood glucose
significantly caused a decrease of HbA1c, therefore reducing the
complications from diabetes.
Now, children, teens and adults
in Europe, Canada and the United States are learning to count carbs with
Carb Cards. In addition to the 2003 Edition of full color Carb
Cards, other
products include the Carb
Cards Place Mat, Giant Carb Cards and the Carb Cards Educator Tool Kit.
These educational tools help keep carbohydrate counting simple and fun
for kids of all ages at home, in the clinic or away at camp.
“From the time our kids were
first diagnosed, we didn’t want them to feel like diabetes was their
problem alone,“ recalls Judy. “We worked together, helping each other
cope with diabetes. And, it has brought out strengths in all of us. If
Carb Cards does one thing to
make life better for other families, especially for he newly diagnosed,
then that makes me happy!”
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