Author: kathleen

Diabetes Mine: Continuous Monitoring: The Next Big Thing

Hopefully the trackback will work, but here’s the deal ….

They can’t get it to work reliabily.

Minimed has had a continous monitor that doctors give to their patients to wear for 3 days and then they download the data.

For over a year, Minimed has been promising a patient worn, all the time device. So far, it hasn’t been made available. It’s called the Guardian.

Here’s my guesses from the research I’ve been reading:

a) The FDA won’t release another continuous monitor until they are sure they work (can we say, Glucowatch).

b) There is probably an issue with waterproofness. Minimed has already gone up in flames over a waterproof issue, and lets face it, if this thing won’t let someone shower or bath, it’s worthless.

c) We already know that the FDA won’t release the first generation with a real time reading. None of the devices that are going through the approval process with a real time reading, only alarms.

On the Glucowatch thing. It works, if you don’t mind your arm being burned and you understand how it works. It can’t be used when you exert yourself, as it takes any prespiration as a low reading. Also, any reading you has at least a 20 minute lag.

Insulin Pumps and Airport Security – The Diabetes Weblog – www.thediabetesblog.com _

The Diabetes blog asks about experiences with insulin pumps and security.

I’ve flown 2 (two round trips) since I got my pump. Once from Love Field in Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansaw and once from DFW to London Gatwick, then from Heathrow to Nice. And took the return trip.

On both out going trips I would not like security xray my insulin. That stuff is a little delicate, difficult to get rapid acting without a prescription, and don’t want to deal with it in a foreign country, so I’m not taking risks.

I requested a pat down both times.

Love Field was the worse, they put me behind a curtain and made me take off my dress. Harwick was the best, the staff was sensitive to the fact that diabetes are picky about how insulin was handled. They also thought the pump was way too cool. (UK doesn’t do insulin pumps often).

Coming back, I didn’t disclose and didn’t worry about the insulin. Nothing set anything off and everything worked fine when I got home.

If I flew more often and the trips were domestic, I probably would not disclose.

Insulin Pump Experience

A Pumping Story

Wow! DLife just got real.

The first two episodes, they’ve danced around the issues. Today, they got real. They have a fairly young black man on, who has diabetes and completely ignored what he was told and is on dialysis now. And he’s in line for a transplant.

They even started out getting real, reading a letter from a reader who told an experience where he made a mistake and experienced a low.

Good news, their transplant doctor states that transplant isn’t a cure and that it is a last resort. He recommends managing diabetes.

Definately their best show so far.