Sometimes your need for basal insulin, the long-acting variant that counteracts the liver’s constant release of glucose into your blood, changes. It can happen because you’re more active, or, as is often the case with diabetes, it happens just because. I take Tresiba, which is ultra-long-acting, so any changes you make take several days to…
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The year ended on a rough note. After working what was possibly the worst shift of my life in the Irish pub, someone knocked over a drink which left my blood glucose meter swimming in vodka tonic. No surprise that it broke. A couple of error E-11 messages followed before it went into zero response…
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I just went to the pharmacy to pick up my insulin for three months. The price without medical insurance in the Czech Republic where I live? Just over $100. It’s something most of us could afford for lifesaving medication. It’s also the price cap suggested in a bill by the US House of Representatives at…
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Several factors affect your blood sugar levels when you’re diabetic, including stress, sleep, and alcohol. This time, it’s the weather. It’s been incredibly hot where I live in Central Europe which makes keeping stable blood sugar levels a challenge. My problem is with the bolus insulin, NovoRapid, that I take at mealtimes. Early on during…
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Tresiba is an ultra long-acting basal insulin that according to the manufacturer Novo Nordisk has a duration beyond 42 hours. It differs from other long-acting insulins, such as Lantus and Levemir, which have a shorter duration of up to 24 hours. While Tresiba is taken once a day, many diabetics who take the shorter-acting variants…
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When you eat a meal that is high in both carbohydrates and fat, blood glucose can spike hours after eating it. This phenomenon is known as the pizza effect when pizza is a prime example of this type of food. You’ll also see this effect after eating a curry with rice or a bowl of…
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The other day the bear had a large bowl of spaghetti bolognese for dinner and I pestered him into testing his blood glucose before and after the meal. Most of the time I let him carb binge in peace – one of the perks of not having diabetes – but from time to time we…
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I went through a period recently with a lot of hypos. My basal insulin dose needed adjusting, so many of the hypos were prolonged and happened during the night. The need for insulin doses fluctuates, so what works one day might not work the next. It’s a topic that needs constant revisiting. The result of…
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It’s been three years since I got my type 1 diabetes diagnosis. While it’s not the worst thing that can happen to you, there are days when it’s overwhelming. Diabetes never goes on holiday. There’s not a single morning when you wake up without thinking “What’s my blood sugar?” and pick up the testing equipment…
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In reading Neil Bradbury’s A taste for poison: Eleven deadly molecules and the killers who used them I came across an interesting story. It dealt with the first documented murder by insulin overdose. The event took place in May 1957 when Kenneth Barlow alerted the family doctor after finding his wife Elizabeth unconscious in the bathtub late…
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