Category: Diabetic Issues

If you are on insulin, you need to read this article. However, their registration is a real PITA.

MercuryNews.com | 05/31/2005 | Diabetic’s road tragedy raises thorny questions

The tragedy has shaken Nebel’s understanding of his disease. Like millions of diabetics nationwide, he checks his blood sugar levels and injects insulin several times a day. He thought it was enough, yet his body betrayed him.

Remember a few things when reading this — reporters rarely get diabetes right, but gives a lot to think about.

Mike posted a comment to my post on too many hosts — and he is right — they DO try to cover too many topics. They really should go to an hour, and even then, go with ONE topic at a time.

I hope they were just getting out there.

One thing about their channel — there isn’t much going on it anyway. Have you looked at their schedule? Most is paid programming, and of course, I’m sure DLife is really a form of that too.

FYI: I do have a bit of knowledge of this type of thing — I once had a radio talk show — it was a local one hour call in show where we also covered something new — at the time, a lot of our slots were paid for by Microsoft, since Windows 98 was the next new thing.

It was paid for by a local computer store, though we solicited advertising as much as possible. Thus, the featured products. So DLife may very well be organized the same way.

I still don’t get why people are up in arms about this. The President repeated his stance on this today:

He doesn’t feel that government money needs to be spent on something this controversial. The JDF and other groups are free to raise money and support embroyic stem cell research. He just refuses to spend government money on embroyic stem cell research. Money can be spent on adult stem cells, cord stem cells, and the existing lines. He doesn’t think that the government should be financing the possibility of destroying life. I’m happy with that.

Frankly, I’m not sure government money should be spent on researching diseases anyway — and I feel that it should be privately funded. Then it is up to the researchers to determine what direction they should go.

I think that the government needs to be involved in protecting us from our enemies and in financing the mandates they are putting in place when it comes to educating our children.

A Shot in the Dark: Bloody Peach Vanilla Cake!

I was reading this article and feeling sorry for both Josephy and his mom, Sandra. I can imagine nothing harder than being a mother of a child with diabetes. As a high school teacher I watch parents and students struggle with each other all the time and I’ve glad I made the choice to be a bystander and not a participant.

Anyway on the treat thing — I’m comparing it to this week here at school. I’ve avoided two events completely because they had the wrong timing for me and the wrong foods. Having just come off a massive non-compliant episode, I just didn’t need the events. I am honestly — scheduling a meal at 3:00 pm doesn’t work for me at all. It’s either too late or too early. The other event was at 1:30, which isn’t much better.

This morning, I did “give in”. One of our long term teachers who is retiring brought a little bit of everything: fruit, chocolate and crackers. Of course, everything she brought turns to sugar, but at least everything was prepackaged, easily countable, and portable. I grabbed an apple and a small piece of chocolate (one of those minatures), and brought them upstairs to eat after my postprandial reminder went off.
She was super pleased with herself for thinking to bring stuff that people like me could eat, and I sure wasn’t going to burst her bubble — besides, I could have choosen to toss the items and she would have none the wiser.

Social situations can be hard.

The person or persons bringing the food honestly do so out of pride, admiration, or just a way to show that they care. Too many people take rejecting food they give as rejecting them or at least the recipent can feel that way. It’s even harder when they are trying to do the right thing — I’m learning though to tell people that it isn’t the right time for me to eat, and take it and find a way to get rid of it later.

I’ll say, either I just ate and I’m full, or give some other legimate excuse. That usually works.

I’ve gone a couple of months without pulling a set off, but managed to do it yesterday morning.

I had been pretty pleased with myself, though I do faithfully carry extras and I have been worried about having to float.

The biggest danger time for pulling a set off, for me, if the first few hours after a set change. I alternate sides plus I was wearing slacks instead of a dress.

Just as I yanked, I could feel the tubing in my hand, but it was too late.

Lots of reasons I HATE doing that. First it hurts. Second, sets aren’t cheap. $10-15 a piece, and the insets run the high end. Third, everytime you put a set in, you run into the danger of having it inserted wrong. The good news, is that I can’t remember the last time I had an Inset set fail, the last time was months ago, and I had pulled the set towards the end of the set life, and pulled the cannella out without pulling off the adhesive.

I was able to change the set in my classroom without anyone noticing, but mostly because I was wearing a two-piece outfit, and could get to the set without disrobing.

My plan is to be able to buy all new clothes at the beginning of the school year (having lost weight), and high on that plan is to make sure everything I buy is seperates. I’m going to miss my walk in closet.

You see, I absolutely refuse to change a set, test my blood sugar or inject in a room that has a toilet in it. Especially a public restaurant. Have you see the studies where they show how the entire room has a high bacteria count and that they find particles of feces and urine in the air and stalls. There isn’t enough alcohol in the world to prevent a infection in that situation. It gives me the willies thinking about it. And those were “clean” restrooms.
We’re lucky if they get serviced once a day and that’s usually just to remove the trash.

Now you know why I had her make mine with white beads, and use both the flat tag AND a dangle.

And do what I did — ask a couple of paramedics if they would notice it. I swung by the fire station to ask mine. It also isn’t a bad idea if they know you, but then I live in a small town (suburb of Dallas), and the fire station is less than 3 minutes away from a phone call.

Diabetes Mine: Too Pretty to Save My Life?

The consensus was that they were at least as likely to notice that as a plain steel bracelet, but they think they would notice the tubing and pump first.

Of course, you don’t pump, so you don’t have visible (to a paramedic) signs available.

Diabetes Heroes

Animas Corporation? and Nicole Johnson Baker want to know all about your diabetes hero!

CNN.com – Transcripts

CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Panel Discusses Diabetes

I really think that all the diabetes bloggers should read this, since there are some very rational discussions of the current issues in diabetes.

Dr. Peters expresses her opinion on upcoming cures, especially stem cell research. They also express their opinions on “forbidden” foods, especially sugar.

Couple of interesting things to note: I had not idea that Nicole Baker was a paid spokeswoman for Animas — (it’s misspelled in the transcript). I think they should fix that.

Amy at http://www.diabetesmine.com comments:

Obviously, I disagree. I do think you have to “look a gift horse in the mouth” sometimes if ethics, hypocrisy, and/or dangerous messages are at stake.

Yes, it is good for the ADA to get an influx of money, but at what price?

Amy — and the rest of the people who think this way is guilty of wrong thinking about food. I think that is very dangerous for both diabetics and parents. There are really NO wrong foods.

Gee, I ate a Snickers bar this afternoon. It tasted very good, and it solved a problem I was having — I was having trouble maintaining my blood sugar level. I choose a Snicker’s bar over several other vending machine choices primarily because of the combination of sugar, chocalate and peanuts. There are times I’ll choose pure sugar — if I am having a sudden crash. Other times I might choose chips.

As I said before — there are no “bad” foods and really no “junk” foods. Carbs aren’t bad, protein and fat isn’t bad. We need all of them, we just have to choose wisely.

There are no bad food manufacturers, either. The ADA is not accepting money from evil doers at all.

As for parents, labeling food bad or forbidden DOES lead to food disorders. I’ve seen it in my students, and I saw it in myself and others in the numerous attempts at controlling my weight in group settings.

One of the healthiest things you can do for children is to teach them how and when to eat appropriate foods. Not labeling things as bad or forbidden. That goes for a lot of other items we ingest too.

In fact, I’m going to be a VERY adament that I think that the diabetics who are criticizing the ADA for accepting donations from Cadbury Sweppes are at the very least, very short sided, and that the very most, very bigoted.

I went out to the Cadberry Schweppes, and as I suspected, they make more than “junk food”.

Cadbury Schweppes plc | our brands | find a brand

I personally don’t label anything as junk food, or forbidden food, first of all that is VERY dangerous and can lead to eating disorders. Yeah, I’ve been treated for an eating disorder myself, though I thought the process was a waste of time. (And for another post).

I’ve been involved in non-profit organizations before, and am a teacher at a public school, and one thing I’ve learned, is to NEVER EVER look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it helps being a drug dog handler and knowing that most of the funding you are getting are from confiscations, but frankly, I’m not to proud to take any money given and use it.

I also bet that the very people who are condemning the ADA buy Cadberry-Schweppes products on a regular basis. Mott’s Apple products, for example, or how about Welch’s products, or even Sunkist products?