What's up with the diabetes? Funny you should ask.

As I was sitting down at my desk one recent morning my coworker, Cath, came to me and said, “Theresa, I guess I need to ask you about diabetes.”

Being short on coffee and a bit long on self-centeredness, I blinked in confusion, thinking she meant MY diabetes. But, since I've worked with her for years and already demoed my new-ish Freestyle Libre to the office (and my mom, my friends and my doctor), this made no sense.

She was actually trying to drum up the contact list for our November feature on diabetes, an assignment I find more challenging every year. The space has changed so much, especially in terms of reimbursement (dismal) and technology (amazing).

I have found myself doing more articles on diabetes technology, talking to companies like One Drop and Ascensia about patient self-management tools.

Technology like the aforementioned Libre, which I started using this spring—readers, it's life-changing. After nearly 20 years of finger sticks, to wave a device at a sensor and get a number? Amazeballs. Sometimes I just keep scanning it, unlike with those precious test strips I daren't waste.

The Libre also allows me to note if I am trending up or down (uh, my blood glucose, not my Twitter feed). It allows me to see patterns I never would have caught with traditional (less frequent) finger sticks.

But let me tell you, with technology advances, as with so much else in our on-demand society, users can be quite demanding and have very high expectations that it works conveniently and consistently (not me of course, I am as sweet as a sugar-free pie). Hopefully, that demand will push innovation further down the road.

As to the diabetes feature for November? If you get an email from me seeking product listings, please, send them along. If you get an email from our contributing editor, John Andrews, please weigh in for our story.