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A commenter posted this:

If those 3 kids are on NPH or a mixture instead of a modern regimen they may have a lot of highs and lows naturally. Plus, if she has them change clothes every time and keeps them in a ziploc for several training sessions she may have plenty of opportunities without doing it on purpose. Is that possible?

First if those three kids are having a lot of highs and lows, I’d be in the doctor’s office getting it fixed before I’d be worried about detection dogs. I’ve been there, done that, and frankly, that insulin regimin is for the birds. I will give that it would be easier for a child to deal with than an adult, since they didn’t know anything else. The problem with those regimens is that if you don’t do everything exactly right, you are going to have swings.

As to the training. When I trained detection dogs, we used an established training protocol which had been tested. We trained every day. Those of us in the group who either had permits or were police officers and had access to real drugs, trained with them daily. The ones who did not have access to real drugs, used synthethic daily that had been tested in the laboratory AND the field. We trained with real drugs once a week under supervision.

I have some problems with using the used clothing. Do we know for fact what the dogs are being trained for, is actually “in the clothing”? Has anyone tested to find out how long the scent actually does last? Since diabetes itself is barely understood, I’m not even sure anyone knows what scent we are looking for.

Note: after dogs started alerting to certain cancers, they did isolate what was being detected by the dogs.

There are two problems that I see with purchasing a diabetic detection dog. If the dog does a lot of false positives, the user of the dog is going to start ignoring the dog. If the dog does not alert when they should AND the user of the dog is relying on the dog solely to avoid lows and highs, some diabetic is going to end up in the hospital unnecessaily.

I have no problem with someone purchasing a dog or cat, or getting one from rescue or a shelter with the purpose of obtaining a companion THEN noticing that the animal alerts. I do have a problem with declaring that animal a service dog since the behavior cannot be safely and reliably tested.

I also do have a problem with the diabetic relying on that animal solely. See above paragraph.

Another issue with service dogs is that if that label is abused and I know it has been, legimate users of service dogs are going to suffer.

I did post a shorter version of my blog rant on the DLife website forum under show feed back, and the DLife people also claim the low was accidental.

I still think it was very unfortunate that they included the kids low on the show.

Unfortunately both sides have agendas on this debate. And I have REAL problems with the agendas on both sides.

For example, those who are on the embroynic stem cell side, NEVER mention what they are talking about. Therefore the vast majority of people do not realize that the debate is on embroynic only. Scientists are free do what they want with adult stem cells and blood cord stem cells. They are also free to experiment with the existing lines.

They also paint the other side with a broad brush. Obviously from the couple of posts I’ve written about it, I’m against embronyic stem cell research. I’m also firmly against abortion from a practical point, and I’m also against many fertility treatments — especially the ones that result in litters of premie babies — which by the way embroynic stem cells is a side effect off.

The practical part of being against abortion? What an absolute waste of money to have sex without conception and then pay for an abortion that you will have to regret forever. I’ve managed not to get pregnant on purpose for over 20 years. And I’ve often practiced 3 methods of birth control at once, and usually 2. But that’s off the topic. My objection to the fertility procedures are again practical. God has his plans, even if it doesn’t work out right, it’s because he doesn’t want it to happen. It’s also a great deal of money to spend when there are lots of children needing homes. (Yes, I’m hoping the Amazing Race couple will realize that they should take home some of those African children).

But all that is beside the point, back to the point.

They also paint the whole right to lifers with a broad brush. There are very few right to lifers who bomb clinics — in fact, I think we figured out it was just one, he just confessed and he’s been locked up for a while. That’s goofy too. Oh, there were a few other random fruitcases, but if it wasn’t anti-abortion, they’d find some other reason to blow things up or shoot someone.

On the other hand, I get fed up with the right to lifers when they start comparing embroynic stem cell research to Nazi Germany, there IS an internet rule of debate that states the minute that the agreement degrades to Nazi Germany, the person who brought it up loses. Wish we could pass that one across the board on public debates.

From a practical standpoint, the whole embroynic thing is an absolute waste of money until we’ve explored the adult stem cells. And of course, once you get to know me, you’ll realize that my main objective is always to spend money as wisely as possible, helping the most. That comes from working 13 years on a shoestring budget, with a low priority program.

I really DON’T believe that embroynic stem cell research is the answer to Type 1 Diabetes. It certainly isn’t the answer to Type 2. In fact, I truly believe we have only scratched the surface of both problems, and we aren’t even 10% into the answer no matter which direction you go.

We aren’t going to solve Type 1 until we understand the auto-immune process and we understand what destroyed the whole insulin process in the first place. The new islet implants (I don’t think they are true transplants, since nothing is removed) show promise, but the medical people are going to scratch their heads and wonder why it won’t work until we solve why it happened in the first place. We won’t have a cure into that happens.

I’m personally not that much into the whole Type 1 issues anyway, my problems lie more into a genetic cause (which I’ve done my part to stop, thank you very much), and the process got started way too long ago for any medical solutions to really help. I’m just buying all the time I can.

In other words, this is the last you’ll see about this issue posted on this blog unless it is in the comments.

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!