Living with Diabetes

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  • Oh NO!

    I’ve actually noticed some “weird” stuff using the food database, but nothing really seemed to affect the final numbers.

    Guess I’m getting a different pump.

    Animas Corporation – CORPORATE INFORMATION – Press Release

    And whoops, the phone number listed seems to be a fax line.

    I’m guessing that the best thing to do is to ignore the food database.
    Animas Announces Voluntary Recall of IR 1250 Pump, Increases Revenue Guidance.

    And yeah, this page explains what to do:
    http://www.animascorp.com/products/recallnotice.shtml

    Basically you reboot the pump and don’t touch the database.

  • Stem Cells

    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.

  • I’m finally better.

    I haven’t had a day where I can just sleep out, and probably won’t get that until next Saturday because of the dog show this weekend.

    However, I’m feeling better, and finally building back. For example, I actually got through most of the school day without needing something to eat and finally broke down and got some pretzels out of the vending machine.

    Here’s what happened for those who haven’t been paying attention … about a month ago, I got some really hard to take news about my job, and I started not sleeping.

    Basically I’m staying at the same school but am doing a drastically different teaching assignment which affects my identity. I’ve been a computer science teacher for 13 years. At the beginning I taught only 1 section and have built the program over the years. HOWEVER, our school is a NCLB school, basically our families can leave. We’ve had a hard time getting experienced core curriculum teachers, so most of the people teaching non-core curriculum classes are getting moved to core curriculum. So I’ll be teaching math full time.

    I’m not good at change, especially when it is forced on me. It still really bugs me but I’m getting used to it.

    On top of not sleeping I went to Europe. I took my CPAP machine with a battery pack on the plane, but couldn’t sleep because the air was just too dry. It got so dry, I couldn’t stand the mask any more. Finally when I got to the hotel, the converter I brought blew out the first night. It blew out all the circuits in the room.

    At this point I hadn’t slept for 5 days. I freaked and came back instead of going to our final destination. I’m glad I did as I came back I started feeling better. In all of this, the gum infection the dentist and I were trying to avoid flared up full blast.

    Somehow in all this, I managed to make an appointment with my sleep doctor. The intent was to get a replacement mask, but I ended up getting a travel humidifier so maybe I can sleep when out of town.

    While I saw him, he noticed my temperature was up, and decided I probably was on the edge of a sinus infection. I think it was the gum infection but he could be right.

    However, between not sleeping, being stressed out, and on the edge of sick, I started eating more and more and it got harder and harder to exercise and work out. I finally decided to give myself a break when iShape gave me 50 minute workouts a day for a week.

    The good news, is that the uncontrolled eating finally stopped. And I got back on the treadmill today. It all seems a lot better.

  • DLife

    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!

  • Test

    testing moblog
    —
    From my Treo

  • Sleep thing is still driving me nuts

    I’ve taken a break on everything and focusing only on the sleep problem. I am doing an agility trial with both dogs this weekend, so I won’t get a chance to sleep out.

    Fortunately I’m not having trouble going to sleep, or going back to sleep when I get up, but I’ve got a silly beagle who has gotten upset two nights in a row because there is something in her yard. I think I’ll leave my husband an email and have him put both dogs in my room with the door shut before he goes to bed. That might help.

  • Continuous Monitoring

    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 Security

    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.

  • Sleeping

    Sleeping worked the best so far, but as my husband put it “Marcie decided to be a beagle last night”.

    For some reason, Marcie was disturbed by something in our backyard and desperately wanted out. She made sure everyone knew it.

    So I had to lock her in my bedroom, which meant I had to make sure that Maggie was also locked in my bedroom. Lately, Maggie has been taking to sleeping in my computer room and wouldn’t come when called.

    So I had to retrieve her from behind my computer desk, as she would eventually pitch her own fit if locked out of my room.

    Getting up is STILL hard, I hate daylight savings time.

    Love the new humidifier though. It seems to be at the perfect temperature right now, and I have yet to have a rainout problem.

  • PDA program with IOB feature

    Haven’t look at this much, but I read an notice about this that the 1.3 version does something they call Insulin Activity Feature.

    That’s an Insulin On Board feature for those of us who are Animas users. I neededt this.

    UTS Diabetes Palm PDA software : from Pilot to Tungsten and Treo

    UTS Diabetes Palm PDA software