As you know Shoot Up has a very scientific and carefully compiled monthly poll on the right hand side of the page. If you would like to suggest a new poll, then post your ideas here!
How about: If you could make any food have no effect on you in any way (BG levels, weight, allergies, sobriety, anything), what would it be?
I can think of: Beer, chocolate, bread, fruitcake, dry roasted peanuts (and a load more, but the above are currently top of the craving list!)
In this time of severe economic and financial austerity, what do you think would be the best way for diabetics to help out and save money for the NHS:
Reduce personal testing;
Reduce Hb1Ac testing;
Manage diet/exercise more effectively;
Calculate dosage so every smidgin of insulin is used;
Multiple uses of needles and lancets;
Return to bottled insulin and hypodermics;
Summarily execute all T2s.
There’s a point: T2’s cost less than T1’s as a general rule on an individual basis (as the majority take cheaper tablets than the expensive insulin that T1’s use).
Removing the effect of greedy T2s who use 3 times as much insulin as your ‘average’ T1, and also the effect of us ungrateful pumpers who also cost far more, does the greater number of T2s mean that, overall, T2s do cost more as a group, or does the greater expense of T1 treatment outweigh the greatly reduced numbers of T1s? And what happens when you add @teloz back into the mix, and the pumpers?
I’m sure the numbers are out there…
I didn’t notice the poll. But now I have, did you know that the CGM sensor leaves a small part of its coating inside you very time you remove it? That’s why i don’t use it. They say it’s harmless. but how do they know over a lifetime? And how might that affect your pump and absorption of insulin over time?
@Lizz It’s all a bit of a tightrope really – the risk of new treatment vs the risk of complications/quality of life. I would never have an islet cell transplant because I don’t think the likely side effects of the anti-rejection drugs are worth the risk, but I think the benefits I’ve seen from the CGM are worth the unknown but probably pretty small risk of long term issues from the sensors.
Well, it’s not so much the long term effects, which do worry me I admit, as the shorter term effects of having whatever it is being absorbed but present in your leg, in exactly the same layers as where your insulin is being absorbed from. What if eventually your insulin starts to be absorbed unevenly? Plus of course, having worn one for a while, I know that you start to find it difficult to find places for them both to go.
I don’t wear my sensor and my infusion sets in the same places. I tend to rotate my infusion sets around my thighs and bum and my sensor around my back and stomach. I do sometimes wear my infusion set in my stomach, in which case I wear my sensor on my back or on the other side of the stomach. I’ve been at it with sensors and sets for 4 years and so far haven’t run out of real estate (and I definitely don’t want to increase my available real estate!)
@lizz: The only stuff you’ll become impregnated with when using sensors (and infusion sets, for that matter) is Teflon – so your OH can cart you off to the cannibals’ meat market and hang a sign around your neck that reads “Teflon coated – won’t stick”
Only? I didn’t know it was Teflon. It breaks down into some pretty unpleasant chemicals. It kills birds when heated (despite the manufacturers claims, to quite low levels – they tried Teflon coated bulbs for birds and realised when they all died that the Teflon coating was poisoning the birds). It has NOT been shown to be harmless to humans. http://www.revolutionhealth.com/healthy-living/natural-health/natural-home/health-hazards/teflon
Ok, found it – it was in the warnings and precautions for patients in info about the freestyle sensors, which are very similar to Miniemd ones.
“A portion of the membrane polymer will remain in the skin each time the sensor is removed. Although no health effects were observed or reported in clinical studies, the long term effects of the sensor membrane fragments remaining in the skin have not been determined.”
It’s definitely worth knowing, but I’ll keep walking my tightrope with pump and CGM attached for now and hope that it’s not the Teflon coating that makes me fall off it to my inevitable (but hopefully a long way off) death!
Lol! Yes, I’m hoping for a very distant death too! I don’t think polymer is the same as Teflon – I THINK it’s made of polyvinyl alcohol whereas Teflon is polytetrafleuroethylene. I suspect actually that cannulas made of Teflon are pretty stable at body temperature.
@lizz: But Teflon is a polymer – made up of tetrafluoroethylene monomers; insulin (and all proteins) are polymers with amino acid monomers; starch is a polymer with glucose monomers…make peace with your polymers! (chances are much bigger that you’ll be wiped out because of over-dependence on fossil fuels)
Oh, I’m worried about fossil fuels, oh yes! Well, that and the destruction of the rainforest and the poisoning of the sea. But I also do not want stuff in my body that isn’t natural. Polymer or not, if it’s coming off inside me, I am not happy. The polymer on the sensors are going to have to be pervious to water, so they can let the interstitial fluid through to the sensor presumably.
@lizz and @ckoei – Do you think one of you two lovely ladies could drop me an email when you start talking English again? Pretty please! I had a tetrafluoroethylene monomer, but it’s leg fell off… (My spell checker has just had a myocardial infarction! Pmsl!)
When do you think the holy grail of a combined insulin pump/blood sugar monitor (electronic pancreas?) will be marketed:
2012
2015
2020
A week on Thursday
It doesn’t matter, the NHS will never fund it.
Feel free to mix, match, edit or chuck the lot in the bin revered Blogmeisters.
@teloz: Some serious competition for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” ! @lizz: Come on, I think methacryloyloxyethyl’s as pretty as light ….and it’s (nearly) capable of convincing your immune system that it really is a red blood cell.
Something on one of the other threads made me wonder… if it was possible to have your children checked as to whether their pancreas was being attacked by antibodies, would you have the test done?
There was research being carried out by Profesor Gale into whether vitamin B in large doses halted the progress of the destruction of the Isle of Langerhans if it had started, and since vitamin B is excreted I though it would be an ok study to get my children on. they were both tested to see if they had any antibodies yet – they couldn’t do my son when they did my daughter as he was too young, but when he was old enough he was done too. at the time of the test, they both had no antibodies and thus only a 1 in 400 chance of getting type 1 at that time.
But things could have changed since, although neither of them have it yet. Daughter is 23 and son 18.
So – should our children be tested throughout their lives (it is my understanding that it takes about 5 years or so from start to getting diabetes, so it wouldn’t have to be that often) and so able to get onot any research schemes should any be available?
Hmmm, intervesting! There was an article in this month’s WIRED on a similar topic, where people were having their genes sequenced to see if they had a greater susceptibility to genetic problems, such as Alzheimer’s. I’m not sure I would want to know. Or would I? This could be a new thread actually.
Having just upgraded my phone to a cheapo Blackberry, I’ve added an ICE application that shows up on the home screen and has all the contact data for my next-of-kin and doctor. Is that enough though? How much information should a diabetic carry?
A Medicalert bracelet or necklace;
A bracelet and a necklace;
A bracelet or necklace plus a wallet/purse card;
A bracelet or necklace plus an ICE app on their phone;
All the above plus a black cross branded into their forehead and a brass bell.
Having just upgraded my phone to a cheapo Blackberry, I’ve added an ICE application that shows up on the home screen and has all the contact data for my next-of-kin and doctor. Is that enough though? How much information should a diabetic carry?
A Medicalert bracelet or necklace;
A bracelet and a necklace;
A bracelet or necklace plus a wallet/purse card;
A bracelet or necklace plus an ICE app on their phone;
All the above plus a black cross branded into their forehead and a brass bell.
ooooh, I like that one @Teloz! I am always forgetting to have any ID on me at all, and it’s not til I have major hypo having forgotten sweets, miles from home, I remember…
Also, you forgot ‘discreet(!), bright red, 5×5 inch medicalert tattoo on wrist’
Discreet or discrete from his other tattoos? (I’m presuming here but I picture Teloz as almost completely covered in blue and red ink, in the same places as the gnome icon…)
I’m really sorry to burst your bubbles @lizz and @neobrainless, but I don’t have a single tattoo! I used to have a gold earring, but I even took that out when they started becoming fashionable.
Oh no! I shall have to revise my image to someone with an empty ear hole.
My son (when aged 3) told his friend’s mum that ‘the girls’ had decided his dad should have a gold stump fitted. His description of his dad’s new earring.
To be honest, my son Baldrick has more than made up for my deficiency, he has more tattoos than you can shake a stick at! He also shares my build (only bigger), and has just been diagnosed T2 at the grand old age of 43. Not only does he have the tattoos, he’s got more metal in him than the local scrapyard, some of it’s holding him together, and the rest is supposed to be decorative. He only has one nipple pierced though, he reckoned it was too painful to go for the full set! Roflmfao!
How about ‘What non-medical items would you like the NHS/insurance to pay for to make life with diabetes easier?’ Suggestions: Glucotabs, lucozade, trendy kit bags, medical id, fruit pastilles, (I’ve run out of ideas here)…
If I can have a wish list, holidays would be top of mine. Essential for getting to know your diabetes in a different environment and for relieving the stress of every day life.
It’s time for a new poll, I have one in mind but if anyone would like to suggest a topic then say now or forever hold your peace (or wait until next month, whichever comes first)
It’s time for a new poll, I have one in mind but if anyone would like to suggest a topic then say now or forever hold your peace (or wait until next month, whichever comes first)