Nic ‘Clumsy’ Reade.

12 March 2010
6 Comments

I’ve never been particularly graceful (my two years doing jazz dancing at 7 and 8  didn’t really make me elegant unfortunately, perhaps I should have tried ballet).

I’ve spoken before about accidents related to getting my pump cord caught on things, as well as my adoption of a Tubeguard to take the strain of me rushing about.

Tonight, though, I outdid even myself! I was getting my son ready for his bath, and quickly rushed out of his room to get the necessary bits and pieces together. As I brushed past the doorway, the pump cord got caught in the door jamb, and before I could even click what had happened, my…

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By Nic on 12 March 2010 at 6.26 pm
Posted in Insulin Pumps, Slice of Life
This post has 6 comments so far. Add yours here.

Return of the night spikes.

11 March 2010
12 Comments

The great thing about being pregnant most of last year was that the dreaded overnight BG spikes I was struggling with (which lead me to getting on the pump in the first place) disappeared. I’m not sure it was a complete win, because with all of the other pregnancy stuff all of the rest of your blood sugars go haywire… but I have to say – there is something doubly frustrating about going to bed with a perfect BG and waking up in the morning with a sky-high one. It just seems really unfair. During the day if you have a crazy spike you often blame it on food, exercise or stress (rightly or wrongly) – but I just get…

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By Nic on 11 March 2010 at 6.44 am
Posted in Hypos & Hypers, Insulin Pumps, Monitoring, Pregnancy, Slice of Life
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Last call for insulin pump funding support letters…

7 March 2010
4 Comments

Last month I mentioned Ruth Hill, who is putting together an application to the Ministry of Health for funding for insulin pumps and their consumables.

She needs as many letters as possible to submit with her application, so please write yours and send it to her at ruthanna99@gmail.com. She already has more than 121 letters, but the more she has, the more compelling her application will be.

I’ve mentioned this before, and if you’ve sent a letter already or even decided against sending one for whatever reason, please skip over the rest of this post.

However, if you believe in this lobbying, and have just not had time to write a letter, you still…

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By Nic on 7 March 2010 at 8.47 pm
Posted in Community, Funding, Insulin Pumps
This post has 4 comments so far. Add yours here.

Interesting research re insulin pumps, multiple injections, CGMS.

5 March 2010
10 Comments

I’ve just come across two interesting pieces of research.

One:

A trial done in Norway between 1995 to 2004, involving 80 kids and adolescents using both multiple daily injections (MDI) and insulin pumps. The trial was set up to study the difference in HbA1c; incidence of hospitalisation for ketoacidosis and severe hypoglycaemia; and patient preference.

It was shown that the HbA1c levels of the patients decreased over time, which also coincided with the adoption of insulin pump therapy (76% of the patients were on pumps by the end of the ten years – unfortunately it doesn’t say what percentage were using them at the start). However, the adoption of insulin pumps didn’t seem to have an effect on the number…

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By Nic on 5 March 2010 at 8.43 am
Posted in CGMS, Hypos & Hypers, Insulin Pumps, Kids & Teens, Science & Research
This post has 10 comments so far. Add yours here.

Calling on the T1 community – your advice please.

4 March 2010
3 Comments

Hi all

I got an email from a reader this week, with a few questions in it. An outline of the questions as follows:

1. Have you even been in contact with anyone around my age (26) who is using a pump that wouldn’t mind a few questions?

2. How do you start the pump process?  Do you contact your diabetes team at the hospital first (as unhelpful they may seem to be for me), or do I contact the pump suppliers first?

3. Also, what happens if I shell out all that money for the pump, and then realise it really isn’t for me?

Given that I’m no expert on things (merely an observer and player much…

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By Nic on 4 March 2010 at 8.50 am
Posted in Community, Insulin Pumps
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