DiabetesHealth has issued the following report from Linda von Wartburg:

BRET MICHAELS was only six years old when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Now 44 years old, he's a twenty-year veteran of the rock and roll scene as the lead singer of the eighties band POISON.

Not one to slow down, he's soon going on tour with the band again. And he's about to appear in his own VH-1 reality show, in which several uninhibited women vie for his attention and spar with each other in an attempt to win his heart. But in spite of his raunchy public style and rocker persona, there's a deep undercurrent of mature common sense when it comes to his life with diabetes.

Living by the mantra "you can't bury your head in the sand," and the motto "mind, muscle, and motorcycles over matter," he works just as hard as he plays, which is pretty hard indeed.

An Early Diagnosis...

Bret describes his diagnosis with type 1 diabetes at such a young age as a blessing in disguise because it has always been with him, accepted as part of life from the beginning. A very active child, he remembers feeling "really, really worn out," before his diagnosis, having a funny taste in his mouth and itchy skin, and being, of course, thirsty beyond belief.

His family attributed his symptoms to various temporary illnesses, so by the time he got to the hospital his sugar level was sky high and he was going into severe ketoacidosis. He remained in the hospital for three weeks, during which his parents helped him realize that "it's not going to be fun, but it's part of life now."

For the first few years of his life, Bret's parents gave him his single daily injection of slow-acting insulin in the morning. He was really thin and active, and he had more lows than highs. He went into insulin shock about four times when he was younger, once at the school cafeteria and once at home. That time, he almost bit his father's finger off while his dad, afraid that he was seizing, was trying to open his mouth.

At about age ten, Bret went to a diabetes camp, the optimistically named Camp Kno-Koma, where he met other diabetic children for the first time while learning to give himself shots and eat properly. He still feels strongly about the value of camp, and many of his fundraisers underwrite camp scholarships.

Bret's Current Regimen...

Now Bret takes three injections a day, at breakfast, again at dinner, and then a little bit at night. In the morning he usually takes about six units of NPH; his dose of fast-acting Humalog depends on his blood sugar.

If he's at 78 mg/dl, he'll take about four units; if it's 220, he'll take eight or ten. His last A1c was around seven percent. "I know injections are a little old school," Bret comments, "but it's worked for me." He is moving toward getting a pump in the next year or two, but he isn't "cosmetically ready for the pump just yet."

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