Deejay Changes Career Focus : Broadcasting: Pat Gallagher faced up to being a diabetic, now produces programs about the disease.

Reaching under his suit coat, Carlsbad-based radio and television talk show host Pat Gallagher pulls out a small box resembling a telephone paging device. At regular intervals, the box, an insulin pump, delivers insulin into his system through a catheter, a lifeline counteracting his diabetes.

As recently as two years ago, such an overt declaration of his insulin dependence would have been unthinkable for Gallagher, described by one doctor as “the new American Diabetes Assn. poster boy.”

“For 17 years I didn’t tell anybody about my diabetes,” Gallagher said. “Looking back, I was feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t want others feeling sorry for me.”

Once a well-traveled disc jockey, Gallagher’s career is now solidly focused on educating people about diabetes, a disease that affects a body’s ability to produce or properly use insulin, the hormone necessary to convert sugar to energy.

“Diabetes is the only chronic disease that the patient takes care of himself,” Gallagher said. “You have to live with it 24 hours a day.”

Gallagher and his wife, Judy Hahn, produce a one-hour talk show, “Living With Diabetes,” that airs at 10 a.m. Saturdays on KCEO-AM (1000). It is syndicated to 48 other stations nationwide.

Two months ago, Gallagher debuted a television version of “Living With Diabetes” for the Lifetime Cable Network. It airs at 9 a.m. Sundays.

Both shows, the first of their kind to discuss diabetes, focus on education, bringing in experts from the medical field, as well as celebrities with diabetes, to discuss the disease and methods for people to best cope with it. Actress Jean Smart of “Designing Women” and major league pitcher Bill Gullickson have appeared on the show to talk about their experiences with the disease.

“Pat is sort of a phenomenon in the diabetes world,” said Dr. Daniel Einhorn, a San Diego-based diabetes specialist.

“He’s been the first one to really communicate the facts about diabetes, to provide an opportunity for the exchange of ideas about the disease.”

Undoubtedly, the twist that makes the shows work is Gallagher’s very personal feelings about the disease. He speaks not as a doctor lecturing the audience, nor as an outsider. He asks the questions and moderates the shows from the perspective of a diabetic.

Gallagher, 35, was first diagnosed with the disease when he was 14, an active, vibrant cross-country runner for Escondido High School.

“I was told that I would have to take shots for the rest of my life, I couldn’t drink Cokes and I couldn’t run,” Gallagher recalled.

Like many with diabetes, Gallagher based his handling of the disease on ignorance.

“I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he said. “The problem was, I was in the majority.”

After leaving Palomar College in 1976, he worked at XTRA-FM (91X), KBST-FM (now Y95) and KVSD (now KCEO), among others. Afraid of being discriminated against, he told few of the disease, often making excuses to sneak out to give himself shots of insulin.

In the back of his mind, he was always fearful of being hit by a low blood sugar attack, which can cause diabetics to appear to be in a state of intoxication. As a counter, he went to the other extreme, downing candy bars and sodas before going on the air--a dangerous practice for a diabetic unable to adequately process sugar.

It was not until 1986, when he met Judy--who later became his second wife--that Gallagher began to learn more about the disease that was controlling his life. With Judy, he went to classes designed to educate people about diabetes.

“It was the first time I had met anybody else who had diabetes,” he said. “It was a major revelation for me.”

Gallagher was working as a weekend announcer for XTRA-AM (690) and as a columnist and salesman for the Vista Press, when he decided to attempt to help other diabetics share his revelation. Acting on impulse, two years ago they bought time on the Carlsbad-based KCEO-AM to produce the talk show, selling advertising time to recoup their investment.

It was risky, putting together a show that would primarily target people with the disease. But the show clearly struck a vein of interest, evidenced by the amount of response and the 48 stations throughout the country that have chosen to carry the radio show.

“People say its a narrow market, but it’s a large narrow market,” Gallagher said.

According to the American Diabetes Assn., there are 130,000 diabetics in San Diego County; 12 million nationally. By the year 2000, the ADA expects 20 million Americans to have diabetes.

In addition, Gallagher says any discussion of the disease relates to a wide variety of other problems which are often caused by diabetes, from kidney disease and blindness to discrimination in the workplace. Just as much as the show aims at diabetics, it also seeks to educate doctors, many of whom are not familiar with new advances in treating the disease.

Gallagher says that, when he first started feeling the effects of diabetes, one doctor told him that he had the flu and he should go home and drink a soda.

“Many doctors don’t have the background to recognize all aspects of diabetes,” Dr. Einhorn said. “He has tapped into a wellspring of a need for information.”

Although no ratings numbers were available, Alex Wagner, spokesman for Lifetime Cable, said, “This particular show has done better than any previous show in that time slot.”

Gallagher has found a built-in base of sponsors for the television show, which is taped in Los Angeles in front of a live audience. Several large companies market equipment to diabetics.

“I think it is something that is important to people with diabetes. They need to learn about the products and they need to know that information,” said Linda Creel, San Diego area director for the American Diabetes Assn.

The ADA often receives calls prompted by the program, Creel said.

“I think it’s fantastic,” she said. Gallagher serves on the board of directors of the local chapter of the ADA, and is the public information officer for the ADA state office.

“Pat just dropped on our doorstep one day like a little bundle from heaven,” Creel said.

The acceptance of “Living With Diabetes” parallels Gallagher’s own growth, particularly in regards to dealing with his own diabetes. He’s started running again, and recently participated in an all-diabetics relay race across England.

“The show let’s people know that even though they have diabetes, they can do whatever they want to do,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher uses a blood glucose meter to periodically check the sugar level of his blood, and the insulin pump frees him from the necessity of giving himself regular shots. Gallagher said many diabetics don’t even know of such devices, much in the way he was ignorant of them a few years ago.

“The biggest problem with diabetes is that 300,000 people a year die from this disease, and the biggest reason is they don’t have the education and they don’t know to take care of their blood sugar,” Gallagher said.

Recently, Gallagher was told that his 9-year-old daughter, Courtney, had a good chance of developing diabetes. Despite his wealth of knowledge, the recognition that diabetes didn’t mean a person would have to lead a less fulfilling life, he was shocked and dismayed.

“It’s different when you’re a parent and you hear your own child is going to get it,” Gallagher said.

The news about his daughter, coupled with his mother’s death from diabetes-related complications a year ago, has made him even more committed to his shows.

“Seeing it firsthand, watching someone die in front of you from not controlling her blood sugar, made me see and understand what is going on, and I didn’t want to see it happen to me or anyone else,” Gallagher said.

Working as the voice for the diabetes community is not the direction he envisioned for his career, but he’s willing to stick with it.

“If diabetes is cured, I’d love to do something else,” he said. “The main thing is I would like to see the frightening statistics drop. That’s my goal for the show.”