Type 1 diabetes

Good Morning Michael,

<<a condition called “lipodystrophy”, a condition now mostly associated who injected, as I did, animal insulin with big needles. It is a scarring of the subcutaneous layer under the skin,

Its scar tissue to be certain, but the cause of it, I did not believe could be pinned down. [I never could spell that *amned word

I’m 5-6 years later than yourself, and out needles were the disposable BD ones, but despite that fact 30 years of daily injections even rotating zealously gives most of us the “steel skin” in places.

Now if I could just get it over MORE of my body I could play some kind of diabetic super hero… gotta figure out a costume though…. (Jeff mischievously toying with that silly idea… )

Jeff

Morning Jenny,

A number like “311″ can cause lots of emotional “grrrrrrrrr”. However you can’t let it make you nuts!!!! There will be LOTS of times, and LOTS of numbers you cannot easily figure out… its why they call this a disease. We were ~normal~ our body would self correct, right?

What are the POSSIBLE causes… what are the patterns? Go through your typical “list” and see what basic information you can squeeze out of it?! What and definitely WHEN were the last 2-3 doses? Any other meds on board? What was din-din? Was there snack time a bed…

Any chance its your time of the month? Any possibility you could have bottomed out in the middle of the night?

Did you have any especially vivid weird dreams? (This is a researched diabetic phenomena whereby lows cause severely wacky dreams….)

311 all by itself could be caused by lots of things. Little nightmare called the “Dawn Effect” is typically my first thought.
When precisely did you take the number… is that your typical time of day to do so?

DO NOT be discouraged, its a number and ONLY a number…. as for your MD in a week, hey they aren’t the (sic. diabetic) INQUISITION. They want to help us figure these weird numbers out too… but they won’t punish you for em… most of us do that all too well already.

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I keep upping my dose of lantus and get no where. This morning, my fasting blood sugar was 311. I’ve had some stress…but holy cow! I see my endocrinologist in a week. I want to go back on the pump!!

Jenny

–
We’re gonna win Twins, we’re
gonna score. We’re gonna win
Twins, watch that baseball soar!
Knock out a homerun, shout a hip
horray! Cheer for the
Minnesota Twins today!
–The Minnesota Twins: Back to
back Western Division Champs!

I’ve really got to get the hang of addressing group forum messages again. (Jeff…. learn to be more concise, and save board message space too).

Stacy
I was given the spring loaded injector toy maybe… a decade ago when I went to get a “tune up” (with the Joslin kittens in Boston NE Deaconess Hospital). Didn’t THINK I wanted/needed one, but one of the unit nurses checks your injection & testing procedures and asked ~…why I was taking so much time injecting…~ Apparently I was hesitating slightly. So they gave me that toy and I used it for a while until I didn’t need it anymore. I’m the fastest injector in the East these days ; D.

I can’t SEE my backside but with the “new proceedure” (ie no longer needing to check for blood we inject one way or the other), its only necessary to be sure the needle doesn’t bend while inserting it being as fine as it is…. but no alcohol is SOP now too. Don’t understand the logic w/ injections, but I get why we shouldn’t w/ the testing… <quick shrug

Kate:
You lost me. Why no rotation for you? Butt & legs sounds like rotation to me??? What’s I miss? The last CDE I saw several years back told us of the latest new knowledge that LEGS were the ideal site for injections before NOON or directly around then, and the stomach was the best location for evening, bed…
He said that preliminary information was showing the best absorption from those specific locations AT those precise time frames. There was a direct correlation, that was being indicated.

I found that wild because that concept had been around for thousands of years in Asian medical theory (and still is). That certain times of day, certain organs were the most active…. I love it when things converge so nicely.

Brian:

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Ahhhhh, sorry folks.

Need primary research materials (published articles) on Stem Cell Research (specific to diabetes). Need some references and am ridiculously limited time…. anybody know of well written articles in plain English that frames the issue(s) well?

Please send any links off-line to me, and we’ll avoid jambing the board with excessive Jeff stuff (sorry, sorry, sorry)….

Help….(: s ???

Jeff

Morning Kate,

Catching up again. (Apologies if its been covered and I merely missed it).

How do we justify our vigilance (testing) when ~many folks~ get a severe & meaningful disconnect between their A1C and the daily readings of their monitors???

For myself…. I would GLADLY turn my back on the home testing and NEVER, EVER look back, even for a micro second. I know fully well the urine testing of our youth (I preferred the test tape OR the cool chemistry set with the blue fizzy-acid tablets personally….) was worthless. But despite that fact, I would gladly return to it…. or some more modern interesting variation of it. I do all the tests but… I have no love, only disdain at best….

And consider.

There are thousands of diabetics, perhaps more who PURELY because of the fact that, it HURTS… even if only a “little” are doing anything/everything they can conceive of to cheat, scheme to avoid it like the plague….. and do so. Kids, teens, who get their friends to do it for them…. others, who know full well it’s only a little tiny, tiny procedure… and hurts for a micro second… but <gently shaking head

How do we get around the little tiny problem of the reality that any test we do is a snapshot of that single second ONLY. You alter the dosages, based on the short term (sic. 3 day) patterns…. (and that’s ~testing 101~).

The dailys & A1C’s may not agree because as we cannot possibly test sufficiently 24-7 to discover the patterns below the surface few times we do/are testing…. There are other potential causes but given that particular frustration, how would you explain testing as much as you currently do?!
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Good Morning Brian,

<<There is no sense in being militant about it.

Oh come <ggg

<Jeff imagining a syringe (the size of Philadelphia), and the ~injection ritual~ done in the manner of Japanese Samurai in the stereotypical manner of ritual suicide… ie dignified, every single thing precisely ritualized, but first and last, a public act

<<As far as public bathrooms are concerned, shouldn’t one use proper hand washing techniques, and sterilize the injection site before and after anyway? These procedures should alleviate the risk of infection.

In terms of the bathroom scenario, yes…. IMO/IME (for whatever that may be worth), if you’re using a bathroom, I might re-institute the whole alcohol swab procedure. However, I forget the precise date, however, in the last ten years the Joslin Diabetes folks came to the conclusion that the alcohol swab technique, ESPECIALLY for the blood testing skewed the readings of many people, and concluded that unless the site being tested was truly, truly dirty, that it was better procedure NOT to clean the site with alcohol swabs…

They also came to the same odd conclusion (IMHO) w/ regard to injection site. For grins and giggles they also concluded that we can use the same syringe/needle more than once too! (ie you can use the same syringe until….. ???). I think the actual conclusion was until the lubrication on the needle didn’t really work any more… I find that a bit excessive personally but… if we’re not sharing needles, and you know not covered in mud <big shrug

Jeff (wearing his flame proof PJ’s)

Morning Again Stacy,

<<Maybe it is just my twisted sense of humor, or that I have been doing this for so long,but I actually refer to my glucose tests as my “daily blood-lettings”. LOL.

<ROFLMAO

<Massive sigh

<Jeff slowly, gently knocking his head on the monitor, in suppressed contempt & disgust recollection of such I.B.M (idiot- *astard-morons) amateurs

<Knowing what other diabetics will think of this type of idiocy

PS. In the experience of the group, is it meaningfully harder (IYHE) (in your humble experiences) to be required to use a shot rather than a pen in such restaurant (public) situations? Does that method change the entire scenario/dynamic, for folks <s

Thoughts,
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Good Morning Stacy,

<<Usually, I test in public but inject in the washroom. That is primarily because a have to “drop trow” for my injections.

Quite understandable… where exactly is your injection site? Butt, belly, legs ??? (Jeff not 100% sure where his “trow” is…<wg

The primary problem w/ the bathroom/washroom/restrom obviously being that is the one room no matter whre you go that it is 100% certain to be the most germ infested… right?

Jeff

Hi Tami and Jessica, I was 11 months old when diagnosed so I have grown up with this disease. Did you know that insulin is a hormone? I think this has something to do with the highs pre and early period. I increase my dosages as soon as I notice the increase in bg. Discuss this with your doctor. It has been easier with a pump because my insulin requirements throughout the day change and this cannot be done with long acting insulin, you have only one basal rate and that can be hard to work around particularly during hormonal changes such as with periods or teenhood. Just my two cents :0).
Love&Hugs,Diana=^..^=

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