Category: Diabetic Issues

I don’t know what brought this up, but one of my teacher friends sent one of her students to talk to me about the insulin pump.

Come to find out, the young lady is a senior in high school and wants to go out of town for college.

I told her why I like the pump and then went into how I managed my blood sugar with it. Like all people when I first explain it, she had assumed it checks blood sugar (for those of you reading the blog that doens’t know, NO it doesn’t — that technology isn’t available yet).

Well, come to find out, it sounds like she doesn’t manage her diabetes well enough, and I’m with her parents and told her this. I also told her — and made sure she understood that I was talking to her diabetic to diabetic, not teacher to student, or adult to child) that she needed to start managing her own diabetes.

I’m in an unique position for these kiddos, since I DO manage my diabetes and do use insulin. I can see both sides of the situation, both the parent side and the kid side. So hopefully I got something good across to her.

But there is no way I would encourage her to even go on the pump until she learns to do her own management, much less go to college!

Diabetes Mine: Stem Cell Hero

Oh, goodie, it’s working! (the trackback thing).

So here is what I don’t get? Why do you think that stem cell research is being opposed?

Stem cell research is going on ALL the time. Especially in the US. Didn’t you see the story about where a dog got a stem cell transplant? Story here.

Here’s the deal. The current administration has placed limitations on EMBRYONIC stem cells. Those come from an early embryo and those on the right to life side of things feel that destroying potential life is wrong.

There are lots of other types of stem cells. In fact, we all have them, and adult stem cells is where the dog got his transplant. We’re doing plenty of research in this area.

There are also cord blood stem cells, and there is also research being done in that area. In fact, many new mothers are having their children’s cord blood stem cells saved, “just in case”.

Unfortunately the other side lumps all stem cells together. The other fact they that ignore is that embroynic stem cells do not seem to give as promising results as adult stem cells.

I personally think we should concentrate on the adult stem cells until we’ve exhausted those possibilities, and leave embroynic stem cells alone.

So they are showing diabetic alert dogs. “Heaven Scent” is the company.

I’m an experienced dog trainer, and taught police officers for about 10 years how to detect drugs with dogs. I also have a dog that alerts when I am starting to have difficulty breathing (we thought it was asthma, but it is gastric reflux disease).

Here’s my opinion on training diabetic alert dogs … I won’t do it. I have considered it, but here’s the problem. First, Marcie (the dog who alerts on breathing problems), doesn’t notice a high. However, I don’t go into DKA — or haven’t so far. Second, I won’t risk going low, I don’t like that feeling. And to properly train a detection dog, you have to do several repetitions every day.

If we could isolate what happens with someone when they go low and high, then we could train dogs to detect it, as long it was it replicable and reliable. However, we haven’t and we can’t. Again, to properly train a dog, it has to be repeated daily several times.

Personally I think Scott King should include this company with his “duds”.

If she is using her diabetic children to train the dogs (forcing them to go low and high), CPS should take over the children. (D*** she does!) ARGH! She’s even put the kid on low on purpose to demonstrate it! How many brain cells just died? I’m sorry folks, but this is just criminal.

I can’t believe DLIFE put it on!

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.

I really hate it when people say I have a worse case of diabetes than other people. For one thing, thinking that, lets the other guy off the hook if they are not managing their diabetes.

That said …

I’ve looked at what was posted at QUALITY: Alternative approaches to diabetes, by Pamela E. Mack and I’ve been keeping up with Alwin at code:theWebSocket

Pam appears to be managing her diabetes by diet, exercise and doing a lot of testing.

Alwin appears to be using oral medications and testing.

Pam was lucky, she expected diabetes and was keeping on top of things, so she probably can control it with diet and exercise. I knew diabetes was coming, but was never given enough tools to prevent it. I think my primary care physician should have sent me to diabetes education and should have had me testing when he first told me he was watching it.

I had already been working on diet and exercise, but not very successfully at it. I’ve also got a lot more than 60 pounds to lose.

According to this post, Alwin got hit in a crisis too. Mine wasn’t as alarming, but a crisis none the less.

For those who haven’t kept up, haven’t explored the site, here’s what when on with me.

My primary care physician was watching my blood sugar for a while while treating lipids. My fasting blood sugar was in the 120’s. I don’t know why he didn’t just treat the diabetes, but he decided to do a glucose tolerance test, which I failed spectatularly.

Within 10 minutes of drinking the glucose, my vision blurred and I got into a really lousy mood. At the time, I thought the reason I was so down was two factors:

The lab where I was getting the test was jerking me around.

and

I was a couple of miles away from where my best friend got killed — and both the fact I was near there, and the fact that he’d gotten killed was unexpected. In fact, between blood draws, I went and visited the site where he died.

The nasty mood never left. In fact, I felt really really lousy, really really angry, and I kept the vision blur.

I had the test done on Friday, and was still feeling awful on Monday morning. It was so bad, that when I got to school, I immediately asked for a sub and started trying to get a hold of the doctor’s office.

About the time they got me a sub, I got a hold of the doctor’s office and the reason the phone line at the doctor’s office was busy, was because they were trying to call me. They had gotten a fax from the lab company telling them to get ahold of me immediately.

My blood sugar was over 500 when I was tested, and was still over 500 when the doctor tested me. He immediately threw glucophlage at me, and scheduled me for diabetic education.

I arranged the first class available, that Thursday and Friday.

FYI: The educational experience was the most painful part of being diabetic!

Anyway, my blood sugar was still over 500 when I got to diabetes education, my first time to get a blood sugar monitor. At one point that weekend, my blood sugar hit over 600, and the CDE urged me to get ahold of my doctor.

He’d just left for a conference, so I ended up at an urgent care center. That doctor also found my blood sugar over 600, and sent me home to take double glucophlage.

I saw my own doctor the next week, but my blood sugar was still in the 400’s. In fact, no matter what I ate, what I did, my blood sugar was staying before 400, even fasting. And he was furious that the doctor had not given me any insulin or any other treatment other than increasing the glucophlage.

I talked to my cousin, a CDE who is a pharmacy PHD, and she suggested adding insulin to pull my blood sugar down fast. When I asked the doctor about that, he gave a huge sigh of relief, wrote me a script for it, and sent me to more diabetes education to learn about insulin.

It took a while, but I finally got my blood sugar down to a reasonable level.

However, I ran into major problems with the long acting insulin — I was one it for 6 months, kept gaining weight, and kept having problems with hypoglycia episodes, especially when trying to exercise.

Nothing like spending an hour on the treadmill than having to drink a sports bottle of gatorade, and then going into roller coaster mode. That will guarantee you gain weight.

To shorten a long story … after about 6 months on shots and changing doctors (not my choice), and coming in every month and complaining … my primary care physician said on the way out the door — why don’t you look into insulin pumps.

Man, best parting shot I’d ever heard. I went to an insulin pump user’s group, did hours of research on the internet — even going so far as to looking up pumps on the FDA’s Maude database. Read back months of conversation of the insulin’s pumpers mailing list. Decided to take the plunge and go with the pump.

Since being on the pump, I haven’t suffered from a real hypoglymic episode. I’ve lost weight — about 35 pounds since last year’s spring break. My lipid levels are finally normal, as is my blood pressure.

I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been.

Here’s the latest.

I want an IR1250 from Animas. Why, the carb counter for 500 foods you most often eat is built into the pump. Having to carry around a Palm pilot all the time to do the calculations has gotten to be a pain. So, I want one.

I’m now on Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I contacted my sales rep, who had me contact someone who is expert on pursuing denials and she told me since I was on a PPO, they had to ship the pump, then get approval and they ate the cost if it was denied. Okay, I can deal with that. Oh, man, can I deal with that, after the HMO thing, of waiting forever for the denial, getting the pump and waiting months for more denial.

So I sent in all the paperwork, got shifted to a different person than before, which might be a good thing, and get an email that he sent the pre-certification paperwork on Feb 04. I’m like what, I thought they said it didn’t grow through that.

So I emailed the person I emailed about this first, and said since it had been less than 2 years, it was “inside Animas” and had to be pre-certified, but just because it got pre-certified doesn’t mean they will pay for it.

Well, now I’m waiting on that — though I don’t think the 1250 is shipping yet. I’d love to have it before we go to Monte Carlo, but that all depends on insurance and when they are shipping.

The weirdest thing, is though they have issued press releases there is still nothing on the website about the 1250.

comments

See, someone else with the SAME problem.

When I have my blood sugar under control, NO problem with food, but man, when it spikes and for me a spike is anything over 180, I start looking for more food.

One of the symptoms of diabetes is polyphagia – eating lots and lots of food.