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.

Devil in the pantry.

7 March 2010
5 Comments

I was shopping at Pak n Save today (yes, it’s all glamour in my world), and heady with the thought of all the savings I was making as opposed to my usual shop at Countdown, I made a spontaneous decision to buy a jar of Nutella. Now – I’m not actually sure I’ve ever had a jar of Nutella in my house, and I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I actually ate it (must have been yeeeears ago, I’m thinking probably on a crepe in Europe somewhere). However, nearly all Nutella enthusiasts I know say they can’t actually have a jar in the pantry, because it’s so addictive they will keep going back and back…

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By Nic on 7 March 2010 at 12.00 pm
Posted in Food, Slice of Life
This post has 5 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
Tagged as
This post has 3 comments so far. Add yours here.

Rules are there for…. following. Harrummph.

3 March 2010
2 Comments

Woah, woah, woah. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a T1 day I’m ready to forget, what a nightmare!

I knew I had a really busy Tuesday ahead of me, so after getting back from pilates on Monday night, I set about getting everything ready in advance. Clothes laid out in the bathroom, sandwich made, wrapped and stowed in the fridge, baby toys and feeding stuff all clean and set up…. and, being a complete nerd I had even written a ‘run sheet’ of the things I needed to do, at what time.

Basically, I wanted to fit in an exercise class (BuggyTone) up the road at 10am because a friend of mine has just started it and I wanted to support her…

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By Nic on 3 March 2010 at 7.04 pm
Posted in Hypos & Hypers, Insulin Pumps, Monitoring, Slice of Life
This post has 2 comments so far. Add yours here.