Shoot Up or Put Up

Me vs my grandad. Yesterday

Christmas. It’s a time for family, a time for sharing things, a time for complete overindulgence. But in my family its also time for the dreaded blood sugar wars. You see, both of my grandparents are diabetic. They’re Type II, both on insulin (and my grandmother with an insulin pump) and I have to say, my grandfather absolutely adores to try and beat me in the blood sugar stakes! And usually he wins.

“What’s your sugars Sam?” he asks every morning, only for me to look at him and say something along the lines of “7.2…” or “6.3” or as it was the other morning, “15.2…” And every morning I get a grin, “I beat you. Mine is x.x”. And every single morning I growl at him and tell him how much I dislike him and his good blood sugar levels.

It usually ends up with a lot of stick beating, handbags at dawn and of course the age old favourite of a renactment of the battle of Hastings. I kid you not, it’s that bad. It happens every Christmas without fail. The blood sugar wars, whereupon I lose in a not-so-valiant way, give up and end up eating chocolate cake. The only problem with this however is that the sugars go through the roof, and I end up being laughed at by granddad, who has a much better level than me. Never mind, eh?

I have to say, I had the last laugh after Christmas dinner, when granddad’s sugars were higher than mine. I was a humble 5.6 whereas he was up at 8.something or other. Excellent! It’s all in good fun though. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of friendly diabeticesque rivalry in the Morris household! It has to be done, when the majority of people in said house are pancreatically challenged!

Although I have to say, it gets rather confusing when my grandmother has the same blood glucose machine as me…I wondered why my levels were coming out reading 100 or more. Silly French system!

Though this got me wondering, do any of you have blood sugar wars? Or play swap the numberwang? Maybe that’s just me then…

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and have a brilliant New Year!!!!!

I pushed the button and nothing happened. I pushed it again and it worked. At least when my pancreas broke it went completely kaput. After almost 3 years of uninterrupted service my battery powered pancreas was having a bit of a wobble, but was it serious enough to call for help?

I’m not really the type of person who calls a helpline at the drop of a hat. If something breaks at home I try and fix it. If my laptop is playing up at work, I’ll consult family, friends, strangers, the neighbour’s dog. If all that fails I will reluctantly go through the process of making a cup of tea and mentally preparing myself for the trauma of calling the IT helpdesk. I’m happiest when I’m self sufficient.

The other day I pressed a button on my pump and it didn’t respond. I pressed it again and it worked. That happened a couple of times throughout the day and I started to wonder whether I should do something about it. It’s hard. If my pancreas worked and one day I felt a slight twinge in it I wouldn’t go running to the Dr’s. I’d wait a couple of days, see if it got any worse or whether it’d get better by itself. With my battery powered pancreas though I’m a bit twitchier.

I felt like a neurotic over-protective obsessive when I called the helpdesk and heard myself explain that one button on my pump sometimes didn’t work first time but generally worked second time. The lady on the other end obviously deals with such people a lot as she didn’t laugh at me, said it sounded like the start of a button failure and I’d have a new pump on my doorstep the next day. Good job Medtronic, great service.

I wasn’t being neurotic, just pro-active. So now I’m wondering if I’ve been too lax over the years. Perhaps I’ve not been diligent enough with my electronic devices and I need to up my game. The vacuum cleaner made a strange noise last week when I turned it on; I should probably call the help desk about that and let them know. The fridge door squeaks too; I might give the manufacturer a call. And when I turn the TV on it occasionally flickers; I should report that to someone. I could become a professional pesterer.

I must stop there. I’ve no time to blog any more; I’ve got help desks to call.

Satsumas, a dangerous force

Satsumas are one of my favourite things about Christmas. I know it’s a shocker to hear that I prefer satsumas to traipsing round overcrowded shops and avoiding hysterical toddlers who’ve just had a traumatic encounter with a Type 2-in-waiting in a red coat with a bushy white beard but obviously I’m just strange.

Many moons ago when I was a child we didn’t have chocolate at Christmas, for obvious reasons. Instead we had satsumas and nuts that you crack. Any other time of the year I can happily let Tesco shell my almonds and brazils, but at Christmas I must do it myself.

This is where having diabetes at Christmas gets dangerous. If I simply bought a box of Quality Street and ate my bodyweight in sugar over Christmas life would be simple. Instead, I indulge in the perilous pleasure of satsumas and nuts.

Last night I nearly broke my poor husband’s nose whilst passing him a satsuma via the medium of a poorly aimed cricket throw. It appears that when a satsuma hits you in the face at speed it isn’t as soft as it looks. This wouldn’t happen if we just bought chocolate.

Then there are the nuts. There’s nothing nicer than a freshly cracked nut. Sadly when I do it we either end up with a hazelnut shattered into a million pieces all over the living room, or I do myself some form of mischief with the nutcrackers.

My inevitable conclusion to this deeply scientific study is that having diabetes at Christmas is a hazardous occupation for me and my family. Christmas pudding, chocolate and eggnog are inherently safer than the diabetic friendly satsumas and nuts. For the sake of my family I fear I must indulge.

I’m lucky in that I get to talk to quite a few pancreatically challenged people, both in the real world and online. I like to hear their views. There are a few things I seem to disagree with a few people on though and I’m sorry, but they’re things I’m not willing to apologise for.

• I can’t get excited about a cure. Many people believe I should have my insulin withheld for a week to torture me for this abhorrent view. I’ve had diabetes since I was 4. If I’d have spent all that time wishing and waiting for a cure I’d have had a pretty dull life. It’s a great marketing ploy – it’s so much easier to raise funds for research into a cure rather than research into a project to examine the best ways of helping teenagers live with their diabetes. But ultimately, it’s not something I waste much time thinking about.

• I will not feel guilty about costing the NHS money. I pay my taxes, I did nothing to bring this on myself. I don’t look at people with asthma, eplilespy, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis and think “they’re not worth the money it costs to keep them alive” so why should I think it about myself.

• I will not apologise for having an“expensive” pump and CGMS. The amount of times I get told – by a mixture of healthcare professionals and the pancreatically challenged  “pumps are very expensive”, “they’re not suitable for everyone”, “you’re very lucky to have one” is to be frank, a little tiring. Let me take those one by one.

• “Pumps are very expensive” – compared to what? Compared to a packet of biscuits they cost a fortune. In comparison to kidney dialysis they’re an absolute bargain. Compared to the cost of providing a blind amputee with the support they need to live, they’re a drop in the ocean.

• “They’re not suitable for everyone” – I agree. At which point did I suggest that the world and his wife needed a pump? I did the research and decided it was the right route for me, that’s not the same as forcing the entire country onto insulin pumps. Research by John Pickup* says about 20-25% of people on insulin would benefit from a pump, so no one is suggesting they’re for everyone. I am keen though that everyone who’s done the research, assessed the options and decided that a pump would be good for them is given the chance to use one.

• “You’re very lucky to have one” – yes, I am. And if I’d made no effort to educate myself about how to use it, or I’d got it and left it on a shelf gathering dust I should whip myself daily with a paralysed porcupine as a punishment for wasting valuable resources. As it is, I’m using it to give me good diabetes control and great quality of life. What more do you want?

So, there’s my list of things I’m really not willing to apologise for. Sorry

* Pickup JC. Are insulin pumps underutilised in type 1 diabetes? Yes. Diabetes Care 2006; 29: 1449-52

What I turn into when someone starts saying I'm unhygenic

By Samantha

Something that really bugs me is how rude people can be sometimes. It really annoys me, whether it’s someone being rude to you in the street by stepping on your feet and not saying sorry or if its someone giving you bad customer service. But what really gets on my goat is when people are rude about something they have no idea about, when they’re rude about the diabetes.

It’s happened before. I’m sure it’s happened to all of us. And in most cases it’s probably just ignorance. And after being slightly offended in those cases, I can usually get over it and move on. But sometimes there are those individuals who I am sure do it deliberately, who like to sit there and make you feel uncomfortable. And they obviously feel amazing knowing that they’ve made you feel really, really small.

Lunchtime rolls around, and I’m sat at the table surrounded by piles of permatrace whilst looking at the carbohydrate values on my shop-brought sandwich (no bread in the house…mouldy. Yum) before pulling out my insulin pen and dialling up the amount of insulin needed. A few chairs over from me, one of the builders coughs loudly. And when I ignore him he coughs even louder until he obviously gets so fed up of coughing that he bangs on the table.

“Can you not do that in here? It’s unhygienic!”

I can’t believe my ears. I’m looking at this guy and I notice the huge grin that’s plastered all over his face, as if he’s enjoying the disbelief that in turn has plastered itself all over my face. I’m sat there, my sandwich open in front of me, my insulin pen held at the ready but I can’t do anything because I just cannot believe what I’m hearing.

“Excuse me?” I manage to stutter the words, aware of everyone else in the room looking at me and this idiot.

The grin doesn’t move from his face, “It’s unhygienic. I don’t want to have to eat my dinner in the same room where you inject yourself with a dirty needle. I might get infected or something”

I begin to wonder where on earth this man has come from. Did he not go to school? Does he think I’m injecting some form of class A drugs? I glance at my colleagues who are also staring at this guy, who by the way was new to the site that morning, in complete shock and amazement.

“What do you want me to do then?” the words are spat; I’m starting to get really angry now. How can anyone think that a diabetic could infect them? I’m not infectious and I just changed the needle!

“Go into the toilets or something. Just get your dirty needles out of my face”

I flip. Surely it’s expected right? Any other diabetic in this situation would do the same. I just can’t help myself. I can’t sit there and let myself be practically called a drug user. I start shouting at the guy, ranting at him, asking him how he could be so bloody stupid. I tell him more than firmly that injecting in a portaloo is so unhygienic I would probably catch something and die (my words exactly, thank you angry rage), or would he rather I don’t inject and end up in a diabetic coma in the middle of the building site? And I am really flying off the handle, telling this guy he really needs to stop being so ignorant and learn that just because I’m injecting, it doesn’t mean I’m using class A’s or anything, and that I’m certainly not using dirty needles.

And in the end, this guy gets all uppity though knows I’m right and turns back to his disgustingly muddy lunch box. And me being my nasty horrible vengeful self decide to deliberately do my injection facing him, and watching him with the biggest grin on my face ever. It was rather rewarding to see this guy grimace into his cup of coffee.

Not that I’m psychotic or anything, but I’m sorry, if someone can really be that rude and ignorant then I will go out of my way to make sure they know how disgusted I am by their sheer presence. Take for instance the following morning. As we all know, this country now has the smoking ban, and public places, such as site huts on an archaeological/building site all have signs over them saying DO NOT SMOKE. This guy decided to ignore that. Until I walked in coughing my guts up.

“ISN’T IT AGAINST THE LAW TO SMOKE INSIDE NOW?” I yell across the site to my supervisor, “THOUGHT SO!” I turn to my friend the Muppet, “Didn’t you know that? Not only are you invading people’s personal bubble with your poisonous smoke, but it’s really unhygienic. I don’t want to eat my sandwiches in the same room as you breathing out arsenic thank you very much”

The look on his face was priceless. Normally I’m not one for vendettas, but this is personal. Luckily I haven’t had any more comments off him, but it really makes me wonder how ignorant people can be. How many more of us have had to put up with stuff like this? I really hope it’s few and far between because it gets me so angry, and I will personally come down and reign my vengeance on anyone who dares be like this to any other diabetic. I’m serious kids; drop me an email if it’s happened to you.

Not a psycho indeed. That is, until this happens. Then I start mutating and turning green……

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Samantha is Type One and regularly blogs at http://www.talkingbloodglucose.com/

Meters, meters everywhere

It’s fast approaching the end of 2009 and every form of media is crammed with lazy, poorly composed “end of the year” reviews. And, of course, your soaraway Shoot Up is no exception.

But forget those boring articles, TV clip shows or back-slapping awards ceremonies you see on the television. Who cares about comedy awards, or Baftas or even the Oscars, when you have Shoot Up’s soaraway Blood Glucose Meter of the Year award? Yes, I’ve poured myself into my dinner suit to write this article live from the glitzy surroundings of our kitchen table! Woo!

2009 has been a controversial year for blood glucose meters (actually, it hasn’t; I’m just trying – without much success – to add a tiny degree of dramatic tension to the proceedings…) with a whole range of new meters coming on the market, some of which I’ve bothered to test.

Anyway, the first that must have a mention (if only a dishonourable one) is of course Menarini’s GlucoMen LX, which was almost universally despised by anyone who’s had the misfortune to use one. Nasty, tacky and cheap, the GlucoMen LX inspired nothing but revolted disdain in this reviewer. Hopefully Menarini will try harder next time and I hope they forgive me for getting my horrible review to be the second result in Google’s search results for their product.

Moving swiftly on, the Accu-Chek Aviva Nano is certainly worthy of mention for its sexy, sleek looks and useful functions. However, it was badly let down by Accu-Chek’s crappy looking test strip that just makes the whole lot look ugly. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a perfectly good test strip – but it needs a serious redesign to sex it up.

But, in my view, this year’s winner is the pretty wonderful Abbott Freestyle Lite. It looks pretty sexy, has some of the best test strips on the market and two great features. The first is the ability to add more blood to a sample if you don’t squeeze out enough first time around, which saves wasting a strip. And also stops the utter, utter misery having to repeat a test after you’ve spent 5 minutes trying to get blood out of freezing cold fingers. The second worthy feature is a little LED that lights up the test strip when you’re testing in the dark. A simple addition – but one that’s bloody marvellous.

So there we have it – congratulations to Abbott and their joyful Freestyle Lite. Here’s to 2010 – cheers!

You can see all our blood glucose meter reviews here.

Well, it’s that time of the month where yet again we reveal the results of the latest poll (no, we hadn’t forgotten about it, thank you). Last month we asked what you thought of your local health care provider.

In general it seems we’re all pretty content, with the vast majority of respondents noting that they thought their doctors and nurses were “On the whole not bad at all” with second place going to the utterly average health purgatory option.

However, before our health care friends become too complacent, a significant number of people chose the option of using a witch doctor in preference to a modern hospital. Good luck to ‘em!

Anyway, the latest poll has just gone up and we’re asking “How involved in diabetes politics are you?” By this we mean are you the sort of person who writes angry letters to your MP and is the first to man the ramparts with a flaming torch? Or do you prefer to shrug your shoulders to diabetic issues and slump on the sofa, PS3 controller in hand? Let us know!

Those results in full:

On the whole not bad at all – 25
Neither good nor bad – health purgatory – 7
So bloody awful I may as well use a witch doctor – 7
Faultlessly brilliant. I’m in awe – 6
Needing a lot of improvement – 4

Welcome to a brand new series of articles that we like to call Diabetic Days (we don’t actually like to call it that, but we couldn’t think of a better name). Much like a low-octane and more pancreas-orientated version of 24, Diabetic Days will chart a day in the life of members of pancreatically-challenged hoard. They might be entertaining, they might be interesting and we might even learn something (maybe even all three, but I doubt it). If you fancy writing one, drop me an email.

Anyway, as a starter for ten my effort is below:

07.10 – I wake up and stumble towards the bathroom in the cold Scottish winter darkness. I check my blood glucose and it’s a reasonable 7.1 – not, perhaps, quite as low as I would want but I’m not really complaining. Stick in 8 units of humalog – I always inject ages before breakfast to smooth out my traditional post-breakfast peak.

07.30 – mmm – 50g of toasted oatflake thingies for breakfast and 100ml of orange juice. It may sound incredibly anal but I tend to have exactly the same thing for breakfast each workday morning. I can then use my breakfast to calibrate the day – will I generally have a “high day” or a “low day”. Which will it be? The excitement builds.

08.30 – trundle into work on the 44 bus – I’m currently reading Ian Flemming’s third Bond book Moonraker. I get to the bit with the high-stakes game of bridge (no, really) between Bond and the evil Drax. Coo, it’s exciting.

08.45 – arrive in my freezing cold office and set about protecting a grateful world from intellectual property infringements.

10.00 – spend the morning drinking far too much black coffee and munching on a few Granny Smith apples, which I don’t bother to inject for.

12.00 – check my glucose again and it’s a 9.1 – far too many apples obviously. I wander out into the freezing cold and pick up a sandwich from Pret a Manger (they have a handy website which gives the carb content of each of their sandwiches (they also make nice sandwiches)). That, and a bag of unhealthy crisps, equals an injection of 8 units of humalog.

13.00 – continue to defend large corporations from those that would intend to do harm against their intellectual property assets.

15.00 – have an orange which, again, I don’t bother to correct for. Accidentally squirt orange juice over my computer monitor.

15.05 – clean monitor and go back to work.

17.00 – escape from work and trundle back home on the faithful old 44 bus. Although I don’t check, my BG feels a touch low so I scoff down two fruit pastilles. Bond is now making his way to Drax’s missile base – blimey!

18.45 – I get changed; collect wife and head back into town with said Katie. It’s our wedding monthanniversary and we try to eat out at a new restaurant each month to celebrate (we like eating out!) Quickly check my BG and it’s a satisfactory 6.0

20.00 – we arrive at restaurant, having stopped to have a gin and tonic on the way (slimline tonic of course). It’s half an hour past my usual lantus time, but hey hum. I surreptitiously stick in 38 units of lantus under the tablecloth.

22.30 – after a rare Aberdeen Angus steak, some chunky chips, a few glasses of reasonable rioja and 8 units of humalog later we head home. I check the glucose again and I’m content to go to bed on 5.4 (although my DSN I shouldn’t go to bed on less than 8.0). Anyway there’s a tonne of fruit pastilles in my bedside table, so all is well and I snore my way through to the morning.

The Portaloo. My new best friend

By Samantha

So on Thursday of last week, after dragging myself out of bed at 5.30 in the am and chilling out with a nice few (four!) coffees to get myself ready for the day, I inadvertently found myself rushing like a lunatic to get everything ready and get my backside out of the door at 7.15.

Now of course, usually I’m alright at doing this and if I forget anything usually realise within moments of getting out of the door. Except on this particular Thursday, I was almost twenty minutes down the road when I realised that I had forgotten a few very important things.

First of all, the pills I take for my so called foot issues and then I realised with horror as I was nearing work that I had forgotten to put a new pot of test strips into my kit bag. I honestly wanted to slap myself across the face and yell obscenities at myself for doing so, but of course, wandering down the road in the middle of Southampton muttering to yourself isn’t exactly going to go down well is it? And I didn’t particularly fancy being carted off in a white van.

So instead I phone my other half and moan down the phone at him about how stupid I am and end up bursting into tears. It’s a scary thought, being at work without test strips or the pills that mean my feet will actually function without shooting pains. But I guess I had to deal with it. I was too far away to walk home as that would have meant being late for work, so I told myself I’d get on with it.

And I really wish I had gone home and gotten these supplies.

Up until lunch, things were relatively fine. I had enough test strips to see me through till lunch but of course, me being me I was wandering around this busy, hellish archaeological/building site having a right mooey all day. And in the end I got so fed up I went to the shop and brought myself the biggest chocolate bar I could find for my lunch. Except, lunch was my last test strip. And I was getting really concerned that I hadn’t taken this tablet too, searching frantically in my bag for anything resembling a strong painkiller. Thankfully I had something with me, and by lunchtime I needed it because I was seriously feeling the cold (thank you poor circulation) and nasty shooting pains in my feet matched up with numb toes (thank you transient peripheral neuropathy…not!).

And then, I think the hyper started. The thirst kicked in and I kept running backwards and forwards to the horrible plastic portaloo. Except I couldn’t test my blood because I had run out of test strips. Cue panic. And by this stage I had been sent to the office to do paperwork, so instead of sitting there doing ‘very important work’, I was pacing backwards and forwards trying to work out a solution to the tiny little problem in front of me.

It’s worth noting too, that this ‘neuropathy’ really sinks its teeth in when the bloods are high. And even if it looks amusing when I’m hopping around yelling obscenities, it’s really not.

Forgetting stuff. It’s something I do a lot. It’s assumed everything is always where it should be when I run out of the door, and when it’s not it feels as if that carefully built word of diabetes is slowly starting to crumble. And it’s even worse when you get out and realise that you should have changed your insulin, because now you’ve run out. But let’s be honest, I’m sure we’ve all done it and all felt like muppets when we realise. And spending the day hungry due to being forgetful isn’t very nice. I guess it happens though, we all do it.

It just makes you feel really stupid when things happen that could be avoided. And playing a guessing game with the blood sugars is just silly. I had no idea what I was running at and spent most of the afternoon feeling horrific, yet I could have been running low and have no idea about it. So one thing’s for sure, I certainly won’t be leaving the house without this stuff again in the near future. Yet saying that, what’s the betting that come next week, something else will be forgotten. Although saying that, I walked out of the house without my trowel this morning – my archaeology soul right there…and also my lunch. But that’s a different story for a different day!

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Samantha is Type One and regularly blogs at http://www.talkingbloodglucose.com/

Beer. Sweet, Sweet Beer

By Samantha

Beer. It’s brilliant stuff. It tastes nice and it gets you tipsy. However, for a diabetic, it can be pretty nasty. The thing with beer is that it shoots the blood sugar levels through the roof and then later on the diabetic in question goes hypo. And if after drinking enough beer to make yourself sufficiently drunk, stumbling home chatting about rubbish is more fun than worrying about what levels the bloods are at. Until it gets to the stage half way home where you start panicing that you’ve left the monitor in the pub, and proceed to sit down on the cold pavement and start rooting through your bag, only to look up and see a policeman gazing down at you.

“Are you ok there?” – nice policeman
“Yeah…I’m a bit drunk and diabetic and I can’t find my blood machine anywhere!”
“Oh. That’s no good. Are you feeling funny then? Let me help you find it” – nice policeman

And then, nice policeman sends you on your way, telling you to look after yourself and make sure you eat some carbs before bed. Being in this inebriated state means it can take much longer to stumble home, especially if you haven’t had any dinner. So, when at nearly midnight you stumble in and your other half decides it’s high time to cook spaghetti bolognaise, it seems like a good idea at the time. Check the blood glucose levels and they’re at 2.3mmol/l, so the policeman was right to tell you to eat something.

But of course, you start to panic, and the other half has to sit you down with a strong coffee and some rather nice orange glucotabs, and then presents you with dinner. You guess how much insulin to have, and then proceed to spill it all over yourself. Not a proud moment there eh? And then of course you realise that you really do need to go to bed, because the world is spinning. But your sugars are still low, and you can’t find your lantus pen ANYWHERE, and the search starts again. And the only one you can find in the spinny world is the old one, which doesn’t do the amount of lantus you need. So you make do, and crawl into bed where sleep, or rather passing out, comes quickly. Morning comes, and you wake up to levels that are way too high, and they run throughout the day. Ah, diabetes.

This is a story that I’ve found myself repeating on many an occasion. And each and every time I tell myself that because drink screws so horrifically with this diabetes, next time I’ll limit myself. And I never ever do. I still go out after work and knock back the beers like a trooper, panic because my sugars are up in the twenties and then panic even more when they fall through the floor.And it always amazes me how booze does that. Beer contains carbs, so it’s suggested that you need to bolus appropriately. But the alcohol in it conversely lowers blood glucose levels. So it’s a catch 22 situation. I’m not too sure of the ins and outs of the sciency stuff to do with it, but it’s interesting to say the least.

It’s a shame sometimes that diabetes seems to get in the way of going out for a night with friends in the pub. But I guess, sometimes it’s needed. And the stories that can come from it can make for some brilliant entertainment. I mean, how many people have had a policeman help them find their blood glucose machine? Not many non pancreatically challenged people let me tell you!

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Samantha is Type One and regularly blogs at http://www.talkingbloodglucose.com/