Maryanne says 'Hi'

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Maryanne29

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Type 1
This is my first time on the site! I am a type 1 diabetic of 54 years so an old-timer.🙂
 
Welcome to the forums Maryanne 🙂. My son has been type 1 for 8 years but there are times when it feels like it's been 54!
 
Hello Maryanne I'm new as well big welcome to the site.I'm type 2. The site is brilliant and so supportive I'm so glad I found it xx
 
Welcome to the forum Maryanne29 🙂
 
Welcome from me.............

Diabetic for a while eh!!

How has it been?
 
Hello Maryanne ! 47yrs for me . I know you know about the pannel pin days (needdles) 😱 Welcome !!
 
Welcome to the forum
 
Feels like forever

After 54 years as Type 1 it is normal life for me. Everything is OK now but when I was a child / teenager it was a bit grim with all the restrictions and awful injections.

But after all this time I am waiting to talk to the consultant about changing to a pump and am looking forward to this as I struggle to find injection sites. I had hoped to have a pump with continuous glucose monitoring as my fingers are now struggling to give me any blood to test and moving to my arms for this causes huge bruises - due to other medication I take. I am disappointed to find our local hospital only supports the insulin pump alone though. Does anyone else have a pump / monitor arnd if so do you feel it helps you?
🙂
 
Hi Maryanne

You won't find a hospital that routinely dishes out CGM I'm afraid. There is still no technology appraisal for CGM, so getting funding on the NHS is rare, and requires more than a little effort and particular 'individual case' circumstances that you can use to build a case. That and a supportive Consultant, of course!

Welcome to the forum! Good to have you here. You must have seen some changes in your 54 years!
 
Maryanne29 said:
I had hoped to have a pump with continuous glucose monitoring as my fingers are now struggling to give me any blood to test and moving to my arms for this causes huge bruises - due to other medication I take. I am disappointed to find our local hospital only supports the insulin pump alone though. Does anyone else have a pump / monitor arnd if so do you feel it helps you?
🙂
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Hi Maryanne,

It is very hard to get CGM funded on the NHS, though a number of children have been fortunate enough to be prescribed them. You could look at self-funding if you are in a position to afford this. When my son got his Medtronic pump in April 2008, we had the option to pay for a CGM transmitter at the same time as the pump was ordered (the transmitter cost a one-off ?750 at that time). The transmitter only comes with a 6 month warranty, but ours still works ok after 5 years of occasional use. Sensors cost ?55 each and last for 6 days - some users restart the sensor at the end of the 6 day period and can get more than double the life out of them, but my son's skin gets sore and inflamed if we leave it too long. He is now prescribed 10 sensors per year, and though I would love him to wear them full time I can't afford it (in the process of divorcing).

The sensor is useful for two things - real-time instant information and longer term data. The sensor samples the interstitial fluid every 5 minutes, and displays it on a graph on the pump screen. You can see at a glance if your levels are rising or falling, and how rapidly, e.g. if it's showing 5.6 with a steep downward trend, it's time to check BG and prevent a hypo. You can set alarms to alert you when your BG drops below a certain level or rises too high, and if used with the Veo you can set a level below which the pump would suspend insulin delivery (very useful indeed for nocturnal hypos if you don't wake up). After the 6 day period, you can download the data to the Medtronic careline website and print off all sorts of useful reports, focussing if you wish on different times of day. It gives you data on the % of time you have been within your target range, and your standard deviation from that range - great for making basal decisions too. As a mathematical type and a bit of a control freak, I love all this stuff, and I'm certain my son's overall control would be improved if we could afford to wear them continuously. But it's still useful to have them for occasional use, e.g. exams week, school trips.

One note of caution - it's not the case that if you have CGM you don't need to do fingerprick tests. At least 2 per day must be done to keep the CGM calibrated, and the protocols are that if the CGM shows a high reading, you should always confirm with a fingerprick test before correcting with insulin, as the glucose in the interstitial fluid differs from the true blood glucose. My son does maybe a couple fewer tests when he's wearing a sensor but that's it. It's value lies in the trends rather than the spot results, ie. you're getting the full story not just the chapter headings!

Sorry for the lengthy post, hope this helps!

P.S. I doubt I can give you any tips after 54 years, but just in case - have you tried ear lobes for BG testing?
 
Hi Maryann, I got my pump a few years ago after problems with big "D", It is the best & gave me a new life. If you are out & about & want to have somethig from a shop etc. A couple of pushes of buttons & sorted 😎
 
Thank you

Thank you all for your help and support, I am really glad I found this site. After 54 years as Type 1 I am having to relearn a few things in the hope I do get a pump! 🙂
 
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