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I was taking care of a patient  who was at the end of the line with regard to his diabetes. He was a retired ICU nurse who had not taken his disease seriously until his kidneys were failing, by which time of course, his vision was nearly gone and his vascular disease was advanced. Naturally he had diabetic foot ulcers which is why he was coming to see me at the Wound Center. However, he had finally woken up to the reality that his diabetes was killing him and he came to clinic one day to ask me about “insulin resensitization” therapy. It sounded like a scam. I asked Dr. Google and sure enough there were centers doing this treatment not far from me – most of which were taking cash payments because insurance didn’t cover it. I was highly skeptical.

However, by strange coincidence, a few days later I was on about a totally different topic with a group of well-known cardiologists and strangely, insulin resensitization came up out of the blue. One of the cardiologists had investigated the concept and despite limited data on results, at least assured me that it was a real treatment and that preliminary data suggested that it could at least partially reverse diabetic neuropathy. I said, “Good grief, if that’s true, this is something that wound care practitioners need to know about!”

That’s why when Dr. Yesenia Justiniano-Rosario mentioned to me that she was actually providing insulin resensitization therapy, I was excited. I asked her to write an article for Today’s Wound Clinic and it came out today. Check out this fascinating article, Can Physiologic Insulin Resensitization Therapy Give Patients With Diabetes a Second Chance?” I don’t have any direct experience with this or any “dog in this fight”, except that if there’s something out there which can even partially reverse neuropathy, WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IT. It’s not like there are a lot of other options for our patients to reverse their underlying disease processes…

What do you think? Have any of your patients tried this?