It’s opposite ends of the spectrum for 75-year-old Jerry Blue and 25-year-old Zakary Kriener. Blue has Type 2 diabetes while Zak has Type 1. Blue takes a number of pills and a large amount of insulin each day to help keep his blood sugar in check, while Kriener uses an insulin pump to automatically provide the right insulin dose.
How to manage your diabetes
By Chris Deback
cdeback@thefayettecountyunion.com
According to the American Diabetes Association 21.1 million Americans (9.3 percent of the U.S. population) had diabetes in 2012 with 1.7 million new cases being diagnosed each year.
Right here in Fayette County, many have to work hard to keep the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States at bay. It isn’t easy, but here is the story of two, one younger and one older, who have been diagnosed with different types of diabetes and how they have coped with that diagnosis.
Zakary Kriener is a 25-year-old newspaper reporter with the Ossian Bee who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the spring of 1995. His step-father, Darryl Frana, and his mother Anne Kriener, along with his biological father Ivan Kriener noticed that the 5-year-old had an unquenchable thirst and urinated all too often. After seeing his doctor and being referred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Zak spent one week in the hospital after his diagnosis. He checks his blood sugar three to four times per day with a finger poke.
On the other hand, Jerry Blue, businessman and former editor/publisher of the Fayette County Union, was diagnosed in 1990 at the age of 50 with Type 2 diabetes. He said it was discovered through lab work and attributed to a poor diet, lack of exercise and busy schedule that didn’t allow him to get adequate sleep on a daily basis.