Is Glucagon Ready for Primetime?

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Northerner

Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
If you’ve ever been given glucagon, chances are you weren’t focused enough to see how it was reconstituted. Considered the counterweight hormone to insulin, glucagon is typically only given in emergency situations to quickly treat extreme lows. It’s an invaluable tool to help people with diabetes, but not a convenient one. Glucagon quickly degrades with water, so it usually is kept in powder form and must be quickly mixed with water during an emergency, says Doug Baum, CEO of Xeris Pharmaceuticals.

“Glucagon is a poster child of a drug that does not do well with water,” says Baum.

http://insulinnation.com/treatment2/medicine-drugs/is-glucagon-ready-for-primetime/
 
Now that does sound promising.
 
Nooooooo!

It's like putting you on one drug to sort something then sticking you on another to deal with the side effects, if they cracked CGM instead of doing this, you wouldn't need it would you? Cos they are after all, talking about it only in a closed loop pump therapy situation.

OTOH, if we could have it in the jab form as we currently have, it would be easier if it didn't have to be mixed. I'd rather keep it separate frankly.

It should ONLY be for emergency use so I don't regard it being separate as any kind of issue.

I can't imagine mothers of diabetic kids would get any more sleep either - you are just gonna worry and be scared if you got lulled into a false sense of security, that would be exactly the time when there would be a blip and it wouldn't work.

Of course, one should bear in mind that being as the Pod itself s the cannula on an Omnipod, and you sling that every 3 days, you'd throw masses of the stuff away, wouldn't you? instead of once every 4 years when it goes out of date.
 
I thought that taking glucagon is likely to make you very sick, another reason to use it only in an emergency, or are they going to start handing out anti-emetics to use with it as well?! 😱

I wouldn't want to use glucagon just to treat a "normal" hypo, if you are capable of swallowing then what's wrong with lucozade or jelly babies!

Don't know how it works in an artificial pancreas though, presumably it would only give tiny doses? Then maybe you don't get sick.
 
I just think it's dodgy to do that though Sally - I mean does your liver DO that if you aren't diabetic, and does it stop when you have 'just enough' - or would Mr Pancreas deal with that as and when?

Cos we know for T1s, it doesn't flipping stop. It just lobs a boatload in and I've never seen anything which suggests 'how much at a time'.

And what long-term effects might it have ? Might not matter too much for me at this juncture cos I'm 64 - but if you are a baby now and you do it for the next 50 years ....... or 10 or 20 .............

Wouldn't you have the 'high/low' see-saw scenario on a miniature scale, but much more often?
 
Oh and yes, projectile vomit. Lovely. You and yours are aware it will happen but it's usually considered a minor point and does at least mean you are alive .......
 
I never thought about that, I've had the stuff inflicted on me in hospital in the past but don't have any clear recollections of the event. I just thought if they could get an artificial pancreas that can manage all aspects of the process then that had surely to be a good thing.

Perhaps the vomiting reaction to Glucagon is because of it's instability?
 
trophywench said:
I just think it's dodgy to do that though Sally - I mean does your liver DO that if you aren't diabetic, and does it stop when you have 'just enough' - or would Mr Pancreas deal with that as and when?

Cos we know for T1s, it doesn't flipping stop. It just lobs a boatload in and I've never seen anything which suggests 'how much at a time'.

And what long-term effects might it have ? Might not matter too much for me at this juncture cos I'm 64 - but if you are a baby now and you do it for the next 50 years ....... or 10 or 20 .............

Wouldn't you have the 'high/low' see-saw scenario on a miniature scale, but much more often?
Click to expand...

The very first article I ever saw on a prototype artificial pancreas said that it consisted of an insulin pump, another pump containing glucagon and a CGM linked to the two, so that if you start to go high it gives you insulin and if you start to go low it gives glucagon. Therefore you just eat and do what you like and the system adjusts itself accordingly just like a non-D body would. I also remember reading something about glucagon being so unstable that if you had an artificial pancreas you would have to replace the glucagon in it every day.

But I tried to search for artificial pancreases recently and coluldn't find either of the articles I remember reading before, or anything to do with glucagon at all. Just an insulin pump attached to a CGM and with a bit of extra programming so that the pump reacts to the CGM by itself without you having to intervene. So now I don't know whether glucagon is involved with the artificial pancreas or not - I know I didn't imagine the first two articles though :confused:
 
Yes BUT THE BODY DOESN'T GIVE YOU TOO MUCH INSULIN when you aren't diabetic, does it? Unless you suffer from hypoglycaemia that is and I've only ever met one person that did. She was as thin as a lath.

I mean, I will sit corrected and be a wiser woman if a normal body does do that. Just I've never heard it said or read it anywhere - and I'm sure I'd remember it.
 
I don't know what a non-D body does with glucagon - maybe that's why I can't find anything any more about glucagon and artificial pancreases - I think the one I read about was a very early prototype so maybe it's since been decided that the glucagon isn't needed. I know I didn't imagine that article but can't remember where I read it and can find nothing about it in Internet searches now.

In general I agree that glucagon should be for emergency use only 🙂
 
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