As regular readers will know, a couple of weeks ago I was diagnosd with diabetes. Each day I have to measure my blood-sugar levels through a nifty little device called TRUE TRACK. I have to prick my finger (no jokes please) and this device tells me the level. It should be 4 to 6. Unfortunately I haven't managed to get it down to single figures yet, so there's a long path to tread ahead of me. My doctor was supposed to have given me a supply of the strips which go into the machine to test the sugar levels, but when I got here I realised she hadn't done so. Anyway, I went to a local pharmacy this afternoon and hey presto, there they were on the shelf. In Britain I'd get them free. Here, 100 of the little blighters cost me $57! However, the fact of the matter is that I managed to get them. Isn't gloablisation a wonderful thing? :) ... albeit the manufacturers are based in Florida!Footnote: I just did another test. It's 12.1. Not good, and there's me thinking I have done so well to change my diet so far!
21 comments:
I'm not surprised you could easily obtain the test strips.Derrrr...where are you? True Track comes from an American brand, Home Diagnostics Inc.The one we use 'One Touch' comes from Johnson and Johnson, another American outfit.Indeed, I believe most of the diabetic kit, including blood glucose monitors and needles come from American companies.
You WILL succeed in lowering your blood/sugar level but don't expect it to happen overnight.
Iain, you HAVE done well - I suspect that pretty soon the levels will show a sudden decrease, do not despair !
$ 57 is about £ 26, or 26p each - does this prompt any thoughts on the NHS ?
Alan Douglas
You seem on good form
12 is not good, but not untypical for someone who has just started. You should be down to 7.
A friend found out he was 23 and got down to 7. They will escalate your drugs over the next few months until you are down to the right level.
There is some horrible statistic that says you are some high percent (20%?) more likely to have a heart attack (caused by fibrosis) for every one point over 6.
You should look at serious anti-oxidants, such as NAC, green tea, curcumin, rather that vitamin C or E which don't really do anything.
Missing the NHS already Iain, isn't socialism wonderful!
Are you a friend of the Wintertons? They'll be needing your support soon.
Iain, good luck with controlling your diabetes. It's worth it in the long run.
People don't realise how much their "free" drugs, test strips, inhalers etc actually cost. The price of your test strips in the USA is certainly no more than the real cost in the UK. Blood testing machines are often given away free by the manufacturers as they know their money comes from the test strips, not the machines. The strips are intentionally not compatible with other machines so that "free" prescriptions for replacement strips can only be supplied by the one manufacturer.
There is a very strong argument for the cost of drugs to be printed on drug packaging, devices etc so that even when people don't have to pay a prescription charge they have some understanding that it is not actually "free", and that there is a real cost.
Because most people quite rightly don't pay for their medications (9 out of 10 scripts in England are free of a prescription charge), there are too many people who are oblivious as to the value of their medications, and the subsequent cost to the NHS (ie the taxpayer).
Wastage of lost or unused drugs are a huge cost to the NHS. Making people more aware of the value of their "free" medications could be one way to reduce this cost. If you left your I-player on the bus, you would claim it on insurance as you understand its value. If you leave your £60 inhalers on the bus, you ask for a "free" replacement from the NHS.
Iain this is my advice to any man how to lose weight. We all know the biggest change we have to make is in our HEADS. So this diet plan is aimed at that and that alone.
Step 1: Find out your target weight (at the upper end of the scale). If you are 5ft9=12st, 6ft=13st, 6ft3=14st.
Step 2: Buy a good quality set of scales.
Step 3: Weight yourself every morning when you get out of bed. If you weight yourself at night you will see that you lose weight at night and gain it in the day.
Step 3: Every evening evaluate whether you have eaten too much. You will know this because your weight will have gone up. You will kick yourself and know you have let yourself down. Become obsessive with understanding your weight changes, not the food you eat. Some weekends you will pork out, on other days just eat normally and by the end of the week you will come back down.
Step 4: The feedback you get everyday will tell you whether you have eaten too much. You will make your own psychological evaluation and realise that you eat too much and make the necesary adjustments.
Step 5: Keep this up - FOREVER. In one year you will be just below your target weight and will stay there. If you do not fall below your weight you are a feeble looser with no will power.
Tut, tut Iain... you should know there ain't no such thing as a free strip.
My N&D is a diabetic - followiing the birth of our children - and progressed through the following regimes: Glibenclamide followed by Metformin and ended up on insulin. She actually preferin some ways being on insulin - it gives her more control over what and when she eats - but the weight increase when she started on injections was huge :-( She tries so get her HbA1 values down to 7% but not always succeeds ....
Look out for hidden sugar, esp. in breakfast cereals, ready meals and take-aways. Fruit will also cause your levels to rise. Excercise will do the trick.
See if you can pick up some Stevia while you're there, it's a great substitute for sugar in cooking.
Iain NoW doing a hatchet job on your mate Conway.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/0302_mp_freeloaders.shtml
Write and complain to the editor.
Iain
An American friend of mine was over here and needed to get some prescription tablets for a condition he has (he'd forgotten to bring them). Our local NHS GP saw him immendiatly and for a modest consultation fee (£20 I think) checked him over and prescribed the medication which he then picked up at Boots. He had to pay the cost of the drugs of course but it wasn't too high and he was impressed by the service. That's how life should be isn't it? Minimum of bureaucracy and actions that focus on the customer...and a world without borders.
Take reading - do some exercise - take reading again. No snacking between meals. See if the readings fall - and then draw obvious conclusions.
Iain - don't say "Not good" when you've only just started treatment! With modern medincine, we want everything to work overnight.
If you are a capitalist, you cannot object to paying the market price for a treatment that a company has invested millions of dollars in developing. The NHS is a faux ami from so many angles.
Drugs are very expensive here, too, although there is a huge, nationwide company that makes analogues and they are much cheaper. But you have to go to one of their pharmacies, not just a regular drugstore and they're not always handy. Also, here, regular drugs stores deliver. Even if you just want Alka Seltzer or a pack of aspirins. All you have to do is tip the biker. You don't have to drive somewhere and park when you don't feel like it or you're too busy.
Iain, give the programme the doctor gave you time to work.
How can anyone be so consistently wrong about absolutely everything as Paddy Briggs?
That's how life should be isn't it? Minimum of bureaucracy ... Why the hell should there be any bureaucracy whatsoever in going to see a doctor and buying a pack of drugs? What is the government doing lurking in the woodwork?
actions that focus on the customer ... well, yes, if your hobby is stating the bleeding obvious ... and, of course, thrown in for no reason except to ride on the coattails of the couple of desperately dull truisms he had just stated, and a world without borders.
When the Africans are as creative, inventive, motivated, and savvy as we Westerners, Indians and Chinese, they can join the club. Until then, stay home.
I draw Iain's attention to his own rule of 'no swearing', and protest that I object to sexual insults directed at me, although certainly sexual slurs are the first weapon that men like Paddy Briggs reach for. Indeed, it's their only weapon.
Paddy Briggs, you appear to be a provincial soul and appear to become disturbed when you glimpse a wider universe of people with opinions that differ from your own.
You want open borders. I don't want any more passengers in Britain. And I don't want any more individuals dependent on an alien, aggressive, primitive religion. I see that the unelected Gordon Brown has decreed that 'multiple wives' can now get multiple benefits paid for by their milch cows, the British workers.
"Open borders" are a vile concept much depended upon by the One-Worlders as a means of controlling local populations and destroying national identities.
Many, many times I have noted that no one is responsible for how they pop out of their mother - which is why racism is ridiculous. So do not, your in your lefty, loutish manner, accuse me of racism. Can't you people come up with a new insult, by the way?
Iain,
Can I suggest that you also wear (if you're not already) a MedicAlert necklace / bracelet?
On a trip to the pub last week, we came across a chap lying unconscious on the pavement.
He'd fallen into a diabetic coma - he'd literally keeled over mid-conversation, still had his mobile in his hand - and it was only good luck that his friend came looking for him and confirmed he was diabetic.
He had all the characteristics of someone who'd had a few pints too many - even my missus (a 2nd year medic!) - thought he was drunk, and the last thing you want is someone saying "just let him sleep it off"!
When the Paramedics arrived, they saved valuable time 'cos they knew he was diabetic - but without his friend's info we'd never have known (he had no bracelet).
They're not the most fashionable items, but they could (literally) be a lifesaver!
Dear Ian
I am a doctor and I have Type 2 diabetes.
The key is EXERCISE. I can drop my blood sugar from 14 to 7 after a 30 min brisk walk.
Diet is essential but all the pills are useless if you do not excersice regulalry.
Paddy, I have deleted your comment at 5.33 following a complaint about inappropriate swearing.
I would like to recommend:
http://jennifer.flyingrat.net/
and the usenet user group alt.support.diabetes.uk for further information and discussion on diabetes, self-help and bg testing.
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