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Home › Mom of the Month

KK Patton

By Kelly Burgess

Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a mother who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a woman and a mother. Above all, the Mom of the Month is dedicated to her children. Rich or poor, famous or not, she shines as an example of what mothering is all about.

KK Patton is living proof that when life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade. When she discovered her "gestational diabetes" was actually Type I diabetes and she was going to be dependent upon insulin injections for the rest of her life, she set out to make her disease as manageable as possible. That meant inventing a product that minimizes injections, thus minimizing not only her discomfort, but the natural human tendency to avoid doing anything that makes us uncomfortable. Thanks to Patton and her invention, the i-port, everyone with diabetes now has one more option for keeping their condition under control.

The Diabetes Diagnosis

Thin, pretty and athletic, KK Patton is the absolute picture of health. As active as she was, it was a surprise to her that she had such a rough pregnancy with her son, Will, now 7. "I complained to my doctor a lot because I felt really bad during the pregnancy," Patton says. "I did have an autoimmune issue before I got pregnant, and I thought that might have something to do with it, but I was really in bad shape."

When Patton was around 7 months pregnant she went to an endocrinologist for a blood sugar test. The doctor came back into the exam room five minutes later, insulin pen in hand, alarmed that Patton's blood sugar was so high. Patton had to start on daily injections immediately, as well as following a special diet. Still, neither she nor her doctor was particularly worried.

Try KK Patton's recipe for Thai Beef Salad.

"The doctor just assumed it was gestational diabetes and was more severe than usual because it was so late in the pregnancy," Patton says. "She told me that everything should be fine after I delivered."

But everything wasn't fine. After Will was born, Patton still felt terrible. She also lost weight too quickly. At her six-week checkup, she asked them to retest her blood sugar. She eventually was diagnosed with Type I diabetes.

Struggling with Shots

People who don't have diabetes may not realize what a challenge it is to keep your insulin levels stable. Each time you eat you need to take an injection 10 to 15 minutes before the meal, but the dose is based upon your best guess of what you're going to be eating, so after the meal you have to check your blood sugar and maybe inject again. Insulin levels can also be impacted by being sick or taking medications such as cold medicines. Being a woman, Patton says, complicates the condition because insulin levels can be impacted by hormones as well.

Already dealing with the life changes and upheavals brought on by having a newborn, Patton now had to think about her blood sugar almost every waking moment. She struggled with keeping her insulin levels stable, and was taking a lot of shots, which left her skin irritated and bruised. Eventually, she started skipping meals just to avoid giving herself a shot.

After about six months of injections, Patton tried the insulin pump, but found that wearing it on her hip interfered with her lifestyle of swimming and riding horses. She told her diabetes educator that she wanted something that would enable her to cut down on shots, like the pump, but without the bulk. While her diabetes educator thought that was a great idea, she told Patton that nothing like that existed. Patton went home and told her husband, who felt that if it didn't exist, it should. And from those two brief conversations, the i-port was born.

"The next day I was in a patent attorney's office and asking him to do a patent search," Patton says. "I knew I wasn't the only person who faces this and doesn't like injections. It just makes so much sense and because of my experience I just took a leap of faith and jumped in with both feet."

The i-port is a deceptively simple idea. It's an injection delivery device that punctures the skin once, leaving a catheter in place to deliver insulin. It can be used multiple times for insulin injections, without puncturing the skin multiple times. Since it can be worn up to 72 hours – assuming an insulin injection of a minimum of four times a day – this can cut direct injections from 12 to just one over a three-day period. But the benefits go far beyond just saving skin from a needle stick. It's a serious problem for diabetics to skip meals or snacks just because they don't want to have to have an injection. This gives them one more reason to keep to a normal food intake and to not avoid eating.

Prior to her pregnancy and her diagnosis with Type I diabetes, Patton rode horses professionally and owned and operated a horse business with her mom and sister, so being an entrepreneur comes naturally to her. A friend of Patton's, an attorney, was so convinced that it was a great idea that he signed on almost immediately and guided the fledgling company through the initial testing and approval process. Patton acts mostly as a spokesperson and ambassador, offering testimonials based upon her own experience to help spread the word. More important, she says, is concentrating on her family, husband John and son Will.

"I'm very much a family person, and went through a rough spell the first couple of years after I was diagnosed and was struggling with all those shots and how to balance my life," Patton says. "I got through it, and the i-port helped me get to a place where I am now, where I'm balancing exercise and healthy eating and my injections. What I did realize is that I have to take care of myself to take care of my family, and that's my most important job right now."

Learn more about the i-port at www.pattonmd.com.



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