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Balance - 250th issue

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JoeFreeman

JoeFreeman

Well-Known Member
Morning - I hope you all had a good weekend.

I thought I'd share this with you all. The Jan/Feb issue of Balance is on its way to members (as usual I look forward to reading Northerner's review!) and it's our 250th issue.

We went through some of the archives to have a look at how the magazine has changed over the years and thought we'd share some of the pictures.

Anyone remember many of these?!
 
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Balance has certainly changed over the years.

I am in a good position to check back issues if I want to as I work in a major reference library and can ask to have issues sent to me at any time...🙂
 
Hi Joe,
I sent you an email just before xmas did you recieve it, as I had no reply?
 
I remember the the 1970's balance mag 😱
 
Just double checked - no, sorry. No email there. When was it sent? Could you possibly forward it again and I can read and reply? Thanks.
 
JoeFreeman said:
Just double checked - no, sorry. No email there. When was it sent? Could you possibly forward it again and I can read and reply? Thanks.
Click to expand...

done via pm
 
I certainly remember the Andrew Cruickshank one - June 1972 (Whisht, Janet, said Dr Cameron, away wi' ye - and telephone to Mistress Niven immediately!) - and also your one celebrating would it be 50 years of DUK, or 50 years of insulin? - horrid photos. As I'd only been recently diagnosed and a colleague of my husband's had sent me a pile of Balance's, upset me no end that one did.

I haven't been a member for the entire 40 years and had every single copy though - cos I've had to stop a few times in the past due to lack of personal funds. And it did go through the doldrums a few times too, when I really didn't find it at all interesting. Much improved recently though!
 
Join Diabetes UK, 6 a year free with every membership, in the post - or if you go on their website, there are usually some previous ones you can download.
 
Another thing that's interesting is to see the pace of change (or lack of).

For instance, the August 1977 cover has a report on an 'artificial pancreas', which I'm assuming is what we'd now call an insulin pump.

I love the very retro-future quote that sounds more like it's from the Onion: "Professor Alberti predicted that in the long term the pancreas will drop from its present filing-cabinet dimensions to the size of a pocket calculator".

But also, isn't it just fundamentally depressing that 35 years after this all happened, pumps still aren't a regular treatment method in the UK despite their widespread adoption in other comparable countries?
 
Well Deus - depends on how you want to pay for your healthcare I expect? LOL

I know it's us that land up paying for it anyway, but at least it's a shared burden in UK. (well in theory LOL)

It's very nice not having THAT to worry about at least, when you are on your beam uppers otherwise ......
 
Hey Deux
I thought you were very much of the opinion that pumps were unnecessary for the majority of insulin users (as I remember from another forum)

I think it's sad generally in the UK that cultural/ social/ educational factors often prevent patients from taking full ownership of their condition, whichever tool is being used to manage it

As an aside I'm currently on a pump break ( fed up of wearing it, building up scar tissue etc etc) and back onto twice daily levemir as my basal. Too early to say whether it's going to work well or not- first week hypo after hypo resulting in cutting back to homeopathic doses ( not sure if it was hormonal or body going into shock due to re introduction of long acting insulin) and then Christmas, inactivity, overeating etc etc. DSN said "give it a month and see how you get on" but in reality I think I need to give it 3 before I know it it's working well..
 
I thought you were very much of the opinion that pumps were unnecessary for the majority of insulin users (as I remember from another forum)
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I certainly don't think a pump is essential for good control and it is possible to get good A1Cs on injections. And I also wouldn't be interested in a pump for myself because I don't think it'd suit my lifestyle. But I do believe that we should be given the full range of options to develop treatment regimes that suit us - that goes from having the full set of animal insulins all the way up to the latest pumps.

Well Deus - depends on how you want to pay for your healthcare I expect? LOL
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I know, but it's such a false economy. Not a day goes by without the Express reporting that people with diabetes are going to cost the NHS billions in treating complications or that T1s are all going to die of heart attacks before they're 50. You'd think that it would be clear that investing in quality control methods would ultimately cut long term costs dramatically....then again, we are dealing with a health service that can't quite get its head around why regular BG testing will save them money in the long run.

Also, on the subject of health care system payment and insulin pumps - I've got some very old, out-of-date 2003 stats that show that pump usage is around 0.25% in the UK and 8% in the US...but 12% in Sweden and 10% in Germany. The latter two all have state-funded healthcare systems, like the UK.
 
Well of course Deus; people like us - ie folk who are interested in helping ourselves and are prepared to go and get the information that isn't just handed to us on a plate - will always (or should) fare better than those who hand their illnesses to the NHS and say 'Here - your problem, YOU sort it!'

Our local DUK group have the podiatrist from the hospital address us from time to time and she's great, very funny. She's shown us slides of feet generally, as well as the things you expect her to eg Charcot's and ulcers etc. Some people generally don't even WASH their feet before turning up there. Dis Gusting.

And you could try to educate a person like that till the cows come home and it would ALL be money straight down the drain, methinks. She says when she discovers that anybody hasn't tried to do anything whatsoever to help themselves and furthermore has no intention of doing so she feels like saying Well OK then, just take your feet off and leave em over there, I'll see if I can sort em out for you when I get round to it, so give me a ring in a month - if you want to ......

And then there are those who COULD learn but have never been taught.
 
I certainly don't think a pump is essential for good control and it is possible to get good A1Cs on injections.
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With respect you can have a fantastic A1c, but at the expense of a lot of hypos.
This is due to not having a basal pattern that matches any of the basal insulin's on offer.
Thus a pump is the only option. Each to their own though 🙂
 
Pumper_Sue said:
With respect you can have a fantastic A1c, but at the expense of a lot of hypos.
This is due to not having a basal pattern that matches any of the basal insulin's on offer.
Thus a pump is the only option. Each to their own though 🙂
Click to expand...

What you really need to be able to do is not need a basal insulin at all...😉 😱 🙂
 
Well, from reading my copy of Balance today it seems that in some areas strip restriction for type one's is still a problem, And one long term type one wrote in stating that his/ her DSN was trying to cut him/ her from 3 tests per day to only one!
Suspect this is a practice nurse who has studied the 1980 edition of Noddy's Guide to diabetes
Scary stuff as it seems that in some areas type one's are being denied referral to secondary care
At least my local health board has a diabetes care pathway with monitoring guidelines advising that insulin users on basal bolus may need up to 200 strips per month.
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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