Disability Tax Credit, Type 1 Diabetes, And A Call To Action In Canada

Disability Tax Credit, Type 1 Diabetes, and a Call to Action in Canada

Outside of November (World Diabetes Month), it’s not that often that Type 1 diabetes hits the mainstream media. This past week though, if you’ve been anywhere near the tv news, talk radio, or a facebook feed, you’ve probably heard that the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) has made drastic cuts in approvals of Disability Tax Credit applications for adults living with Type 1 diabetes. This has been done without any substantiated explanation or evidence to support that any Type 1 diabetes therapy requires fewer than 14 hours per week to manage – the standard being used for approval of the credit. The CRA denial documents claim that “the type of therapy indicated [in patient applications do] not meet the 14 hour per week criteria.”
This, followed up by a letter from Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier outlining that the CRA believes that advances in technology (read: Insulin Pumps) have decreased the time needed by adults to care for for Type 1 diabetes.
Perhaps the biggest insult to the Type 1 community is the fact that the CRA has decided that their evaluation of the care needed for Type 1 diabetes supersedes the recommendations of the medical community. Each applicant works with a medical professional to document the minutes and hours required for proper care. An application cannot be submitted without a signature from a medical professional (and, in most cases, follow-up communication with that medical professional to confirm the details included in the application.)
All of this seems confusing if you aren’t familiar with the credit or the costs of living with T Continue reading

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'The CRA lied to us' about tax credit, say diabetes advocacy groups

Diabetes research and advocacy groups say the Canada Revenue Agency has been lying to them about changes to how it assesses applications for the disability tax credit.
In order to qualify for the credit, the CRA requires adults with Type 1 diabetes to spend at least 14 hours a week on activities, specified by the agency, related to administering insulin. A patient's physician must confirm those hours to the CRA.
Diabetes Canada and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation obtained an internal CRA memo, dated May 2, 2017, that says: "Unless there are exceptional circumstances, adults with diabetes can generally manage their daily insulin therapy without taking 14 hours per week."
Kimberley Hanson of Diabetes Canada says that effectively means most adults with Type 1 diabetes will be denied the disability tax credit, even if they had been approved in previous years.
"It put into place a practice whereby no matter what a doctor or a nurse practitioner certifies for their patient, the agent is to disbelieve that and say no," said Hanson at a news conference Monday in Ottawa.
Conservatives accuse Liberals of diabetes tax grab
Since May, people with Type 1 diabetes have complained that hundreds of them were suddenly being turned down for the tax credit.
Hanson said they started asking questions and the CRA denied there were any substantial changes.
"I consider that the CRA lied to us in not admitting they sent this email May 2nd and pretending that they were shocked that there had been a change and that it was impacting so many people," she said.
No change, minister says
Nationa Continue reading

Preventing, Reversing and Managing Diabetes Naturally

More health practitioners today are recognizing both the mind-body connection, as well as energetic and metaphysical insights into preventing and reversing illnesses. As a result, those facing diabetes and other health challenges are accessing contemporary resources such as Louise L. Hay’s explanation of the emotional roots of disease in You Can Heal Your Life, and the medical science and natural methods explained by health researcher and author Gary Null, Ph.D., in No More Diabetes: A Complete Guide to Preventing, Treating, and Overcoming Diabetes.
Applying a “both” rather than an “either” approach illuminates the importance of recognizing the ways our thoughts, emotions and lifestyle choices can impact chronic illness and long-term health.
Two Perspectives
Hay suggests that this metabolic disorder may be rooted in a feeling of being deprived of life’s sweetness and longing for what might have been, accompanied by a great need to control deep sorrow. Such chronic unease can show up as Type 1, or insulin-dependent, diabetes; Type 2, or non-insulin-dependent diabetes; latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), a slowly progressing variation of Type 1; or gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy.
Eavesdropping on our repetitive inner mind chatter and observing its impact on outer experiences can reveal faulty thinking that disrupts the mind-body connection. Hay, a firm believer in the power of affirmations to send a message to the subconscious mind, recommends them to aid healing. For diabetes, she suggests, “This moment is filled with joy. I now ch Continue reading

Senior Diabetes Prevention: 7 Tips to Reduce Your Risk

Over 25% of seniors age 65 and older are living with diabetes, some not even knowing they have the disease. Having diabetes can lead to serious complications over time, including heart disease, kidney damage and vision loss – but in many cases, the damage is preventable.
Types of Diabetes
For National Diabetes Month, we’d like to highlight what seniors can do to prevent diabetes or lower their risk if they have it.
To start, we need to clarify that there are two main types of diabetes:
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is the least common of the two types and it isn’t preventable. Typically appearing while someone’s still relatively young, Type 1 diabetes is neither curable or preventable, but it is manageable if you cultivate the right healthy habits – like being careful with their diet and taking insulin for the rest of their lives. In fact, today’s seniors are the first generation where a large number of people with Type 1 diabetes have been able to live into their senior years with minimal complications.
Type 2 Diabetes
The more common form of diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, is preventable. Getting it is largely related to lifestyle and it usually shows up a bit later in life, in people middle aged and older. Lifestyle changes can make a difference in preventing Type 2 diabetes before it occurs, as well as being able to reverse the effects of it after it’s been diagnosed.
What You Can Do to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes
One of the main goals of National Diabetes Month is to help people understand the lifestyle changes they can make proactively to avoid a diagnosis of T Continue reading

Pregnant and Pumping

Great Expectations
A healthy pregnancy with diabetes is a challenge, but consider this: Less than 100 years ago, before the discovery of insulin, many young women with Type 1 diabetes didn’t even live to reach childbearing age. And less than 30 years ago, physicians routinely told young women with Type 1 diabetes that pregnancy was far too dangerous for both mother and child. Today, thanks to advances in diabetes treatment, plus improvements in medical care for infants, there has never been a better time for you to have a healthy baby. Insulin pump therapy is one of the options available to women today for managing diabetes during pregnancy.
Challenges of pregnancy
Pregnancy with diabetes presents a variety of challenges for you and your diabetes management team far beyond the routine morning sickness, fatigue, and strange food cravings experienced by many women who are expecting. The length of time you’ve had diabetes as well as the course of your disease influences the seriousness of medical risks during your pregnancy. For example, if you have mild retinopathy, it may progress during pregnancy. Your kidney status could worsen. Women with diabetes are at higher risk for frequent and severe hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) during pregnancy because glucose crosses the placenta to provide nutrition for the growing baby. The pregnancy state also tends to allow diabetic ketoacidosis — a dangerous condition usually accompanied by very high blood glucose — to develop quickly. Having a thorough medical evaluation prior to pregnancy is extremely important for determining y Continue reading