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 show up. I’d dialled down my dose after waking up hypoglycemic every morning for almost a week but I was still struggling with hypos. Tresiba keeps very stable blood sugars when the dose is set right, but it has the disadvantage that it’s not very flexible in day-to-day life.
\n\n\n\nWhile waiting for the lower dose to take effect, I took less mealtime insulin, following the principle that high is better than low. After all, high blood sugar can take your foot or your vision away, but it happens over time, while low blood sugar can leave you dead on the spot. That is what almost happened to me the other day. I had lunch at work, chicken and salad, and when the salad was caked in balsamic vinegar I got a bit too trigger-happy with my insulin pen.
\n\n\n\nHalf an hour after eating I started to feel hypoglycemic and drank a bit of apple juice. You should always sit down when your blood sugar is low, but the pub was busy and I figured the juice would do the trick. I was wrong. The last thing I remember thinking was that the room was swinging, and then reality slipped. Everything went black and I fell down with a loud bang. I only lost consciousness for a couple of seconds, probably thanks to the apple juice, because I remember hitting the floor. My manager also heard the bang and came running. He helped me sit up and got me another glass of juice. Within fifteen minutes I’d recovered and was back to work. Hypoglycemia is a strange beast. One moment you’re flat out on the floor and the next you’re going about your day as normal. Physically, I was fine.
\n\n\n\nMentally, it changed me. I’ve been diabetic for almost four years and never had a serious incident from overdosing on insulin. My hypos have always been resolved with small amounts of carbohydrates and as a result of following a low-carb diet, I’ve managed to stay off the rollercoaster that so many diabetics struggle with. The fall left me with a pulled muscle in my neck and a bruise the size of a grapefruit on my left bottom cheek. The bruise on my soul is far greater. I thought I’d nailed my diabetes and had it under complete control. If passing out from hypoglycemia taught me anything, it’s that the beast still lurks under the surface and sometimes comes up to show its ugly face. It’s humbling, but also terrifying.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/182/black-1072366_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2023-01-23T14:56:00+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/back-in-the-good-old-days.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/back-in-the-good-old-days.html", "title": "Back in the good old days", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nThe 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 mode. Where’s your backup, you ask. That was it. Since Czech pharmacies don’t stock testing strips and the orthopedic shoe shop that does, had closed on the 20th in a surprise move I was on my only meter. At 8 pm on New Year’s Eve, there aren’t a lot of options open for diabetics in dire need of testing their blood glucose. Nor will you find many, if any, places open the following day.
\n\n\n\n
I was in a state of panic. I test a lot, sometimes ten times a day. You have to if you want to stay on top of diabetes. For me being without a meter is like trekking through the jungle unarmed. You know there are tigers that might eat you, but there’s no way to keep them in check. Then I remembered the ketone strips I got to investigate the carb limit for exiting ketosis. They flag many other things, like protein, urobilinogen and glucose, which are not supposed to be in your urine. The method isn’t very accurate, you pee on strips and compare them to a colour chart. When glucose is negative the test medium is yellow but when blood glucose goes above 10 mmol/l (180 mg/dl) it starts to spill into your urine and turns the medium green. You get some idea of how far above 10 mmol/l you are by the darkness of the shade of green. Obviously, a method that only lets you know when you’re above 10 mmol/l isn’t ideal but it’s better than nothing.
\n\n\n\n
The real problem is that there’s no way to detect low blood glucose other than the obvious symptoms like lightheadedness, blurry vision, and a general sense of doom. Since I have poor hypoglycemic awareness, I had to be really careful not to send myself low. I peed on strips for two days. They went green quite a few times and by interpreting the shade of green I could inject insulin to keep me below 10 mmol/l. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a happier customer than me when they opened up the orthopedic shoe shop on January 2nd. While peeing on strips is far from ideal, it at least offers you a way to stay out of diabetic ketoacidosis when no other method is available. They’re cheap so I’d recommend keeping them around in case of the unfortunate event that your meter and backup meter fail.
\n\n\n\n
A few days after my meter incident, I read an article in The Washington Post about a 92-year-old woman who’s lived with diabetes for eighty years. Back in those days, you measured glucose by boiling your urine and observing colour changes after adding a chemical mixture called Benedict’s test. My urine strip method was far more high-tech. It wasn’t until the 1980s that home use of devices that tested blood glucose with finger pricks became common. Once again, I’m very grateful to be a 21st-century diabetic who can rely on the marvels of modern medicine. Not knowing my exact blood glucose drove me up the wall and I was thrilled to stick the tiger back in its cage.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/183/20230207_0007.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2023-01-07T15:09:00+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:26:49+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/pay-us-or-die.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/pay-us-or-die.html", "title": "Pay us or die", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nI 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 the end of last year. Only yesterday, the proposal was stripped away by Republican senators.
\n\n\n\nWhile the proposal that limits the cost of insulin for Medicare patients to $35 was left untouched, the price cap doesn’t apply to uninsured American diabetics or those on private medical insurance. They’re stuck paying the list price, which for many comes to more than $1000 a month. People go across the border to Canada to access cheaper insulin or ration insulin which has already led to a number of deaths from diabetic ketoacidosis.
\n\n\n\nWhen the original patent was sold to the University of Toronto for $1, we shouldn’t even be having this discussion. Banting and Best, who came up with injectable insulin in the 1920s, considered their discovery too important to be turned into a for-profit pharmaceutical. Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened. Insulin should be affordable for all and not a moneymaker for the pharmaceutical industry. If you’re diabetic you have two options: pay for your insulin or die.
\n\n\n\nI feel sad to live in a world where capital gains take priority over human life. Once again. Because of course it does.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/181/skull-1800770_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-08-09T13:28:27+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/diabetes-in-the-summertime.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/diabetes-in-the-summertime.html", "title": "Diabetes in the summertime", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nSeveral 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 my diabetes journey, I figured out that pre-bolusing insulin, injecting it 20-30 minutes before meals, was crucial for preventing any blood sugar spikes from carbohydrates. Recently this strategy hasn't worked at all. I've become hypoglycemic while eating, stuffed myself with jelly beans for a quick sugar fix, and gone high later on since all the insulin got used up during these panic feedings.
\n\n\n\nMy new injection strategy for hot weather is to inject when I eat and it seems to work much better. So why does hot weather increase the risk of hypoglycemia? The pitfall is a higher rate of insulin absorption, which happens because our blood vessels tend to expand in the heat. On top of that, it can be harder to spot the symptoms of hypoglycemia, such as sweating and brain fog, when it feels like you're walking around in an oven.
\n\n\n\nBeing diabetic is tricky as the circumstances are constantly changing. Ideally, you should be retired with a solid day-to-day routine, follow the groundhog diet, avoid any forms of stress, and be a teetotaller. Also, make sure you get enough sleep and try not to get sick. As if that wasn't enough, don't forget to keep an eye on the weather. All that sunshine might trigger an insulin coma.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/180/ice-cream-1274894_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-07-07T18:41:12+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/how-long-does-tresiba-last.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/how-long-does-tresiba-last.html", "title": "How long does Tresiba last?", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nTresiba 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 tend to split their dose in two to prevent it from tapering off towards the end of its lifecycle. The advantage of Tresiba is the stability it offers in blood glucose, but due to its long duration, it offers little flexibility to make dose adjustments if you have variable basal needs due to for example exercise or alcohol consumption on certain days.
\n\n\n\nThe 42-hour duration length does however not mean that you have full coverage during this period. If you miss your dose your blood glucose will start climbing. Since being on Tresiba, I've forgotten to take my morning dose twice and both times, my blood sugar has been high in the afternoon. While the insulin may have blood glucose-lowering effects beyond 42 hours, it doesn't carry over until the next day if you miss a dose in my experience.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/179/DSC03637.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-05-29T12:55:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/the-pizza-effect.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/the-pizza-effect.html", "title": "The pizza effect", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nWhen 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 crisps when the high-fat content causes a slow release of the carbohydrates. Typical of this is that you'll check your blood sugar two hours after eating dinner, get a good reading, go to bed and wake up to an unpleasant surprise when you're blood sugar's gone through the roof.
\n\n\n\nRecently, I've been straying from my low-carb diet and introduced some carby treats. It's included small bowls of crisps (50g of carbs/100g) and naan bread (50g of carbs/ 100g) with curry. As a result, my blood sugar has become volatile. Take yesterday's dinner, a Kadai chicken with half a naan bread. I usually eat just the curry, with a split-bolus dosing 4u of insulin before eating and 2u after eating for the protein in the chicken. I always stay below 7 mmol/l (126 mg/dl). This time I added a couple of units for the bread, and when I tested my blood sugar two hours after eating, it was perfect at 4.8 mmol/l (86 mg/dl). I thought I nailed it. This really wasn't the case because five hours later my blood sugar hit a whopping 13 mmol/l (234 mg/dl). It was the revenge of the naan bread.
\n\n\n\nDiabetics try to get around the pizza effect by using a split-bolus for the carbs, taking half the insulin before eating, and the rest sometime after the meal. In my experiments I've tried this method, but even when eating just 50g of crisps, the results have been unpredictable. In the past two weeks, where I've used the DAFNE (Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating) approach a lot, my average blood glucose has gone from 5.3 mmol/l (95 mg/dl) to 7.2 mmol/l (130 mg/dl). I've seen sharp spikes above 10 mmol/l (180 mg/dl) and had more severe episodes of hypoglycemia. In comparison, when I follow a strict low-carb diet and get all my carbs from vegetables, my blood sugar rarely goes above 8 mmol/l (144 mg/dl). My money is on the low-carb diet.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/178/pizza-1344720_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-05-27T12:13:13+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/pasta-is-blood-glucose-kryptonite.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/pasta-is-blood-glucose-kryptonite.html", "title": "Pasta is blood glucose kryptonite", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nThe 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 turn dinner into a scientific inquiry. The question we ask ourselves is: What kind of blood glucose spikes are normal in non-diabetics after meals? The answer is that it entirely depends on how many carbohydrates the meal contains.
\n\n\n\nWhen the bear eats a reasonable amount of carbs (less than 70g) his blood sugar always stays below the recommended levels of 7.8 mmol/l (140 mg/dl). On most days it's a lot lower than that. It is what you'd expect in a non-diabetic with fasting blood glucose of around 5 mmol/l (90 mg/dl).
\n\n\n\nHowever, when he eats more than this his blood sugar spikes. I once tracked a Burger King meal with 150g of carbohydrates that left the bear with a blood glucose of 10 mmol/l (180 mg/dl) at the one-hour mark. Beer is also notorious for triggering an initial spike before the insulin response catches up. Another food that many of us enjoy every morning is breakfast cereal. A study from Stanford University fitted 30 healthy individuals with continuous glucose monitors and recorded that 80 percent of participants spiked after a bowl of cornflakes and milk.
\n\n\n\nSo, what about pasta? The bear ate a proper-sized bowl, but I wouldn't say it was any larger than your typical restaurant meal. I estimated the carbohydrates at around 110g, and at the one-hour mark, the blood glucose spiked to 8.5 mmol/l (153 mg/dl). After two hours, it fell back to safe levels at 6.5 mmol/l (117 mg/dl).
\n\n\n\nYou can make of that what you will. I would say that even if you're not diabetic, it's worth keeping an eye on those carbohydrates. Many of us eat high-carb foods for most of our meals, starting the day with a bowl of cereal and pizza or pasta for dinner. Occasionally spiking your blood sugar won't do you any harm - we're resilient like that - but if you eat a lot of carbohydrates with every meal your body has to produce more insulin. Elevated insulin levels over time lead to insulin resistance which is one of the markers of type 2 diabetes.
\n\n\n\nThere's no reason not to enjoy a bowl of pasta, but it's worth keeping in mind that high-carb foods elevate blood sugar and increase insulin production. Roughly one in ten Americans are now diabetic, and 90-95 percent of them have type 2 diabetes.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/177/pasta-3547078_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-05-03T14:14:01+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/how-to-fix-hypoglycemia-unawareness.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/how-to-fix-hypoglycemia-unawareness.html", "title": "How to fix hypoglycemia unawareness", "summary": "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.", "content_html": "\nI 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 so many hypos was that I lost my hypoglycemia awareness and wouldn't notice that my blood sugar was low until I went below 3 mmol/l (54 mg/dl).
\n\n\n\nThere are a few dangers to this. First off, if your blood sugar goes too low you pass out, and if there's no one around to inject you with glucagon there's a chance you might not wake up again. There's also something called dead-in-bed syndrome, where diabetics die in their sleep, most likely from hypoglycemia that triggers disturbances in the heart rhythm. I didn't use to worry about this as I would always wake up, but as I now sleep peacefully through my hypos and only notice when I test in the morning, it's become a real concern.
\n\n\n\nWhile we know that diabetic complications occur from high blood sugar, we know little about what persistent hypoglycemia does. My guess is that it's not good for you to spend extended periods low as the blood sugar in non-diabetics probably stays around 5 mmol/l (90 mg/dl) for a reason. A cell starved of glucose can't perform its basic functions, so it could lead to errors in DNA replication, and who knows where that might land you. A minimum of hyper- and hypoglycemia is ideal but not always easy to achieve when injecting insulin.
\n\n\n\nSo, how do you regain hypoglycemia awareness? The reason you no longer notice low blood sugar is because the body adapts to it. The adrenaline that's secreted as a warning - the body's fight-or-flight response - doesn't work anymore. That's why you no longer sweat and get a racing heart when the blood sugar runs low. In other words, you need a reset. The way to do this is to avoid hypoglycemia for an extended period by setting a higher target range.
\n\n\n\nI used to strive for 4.5 - 8 mmol/l (81 - 144 mg/dl), which is a very tight range. To regain hypo awareness, I've increased it to 6 - 10 mmol/l (108 - 180 mg/dl). That means intentionally underdosing insulin for meals to avoid potential lows. It also means taking a glucose tablet when my blood sugar is at a perfect 5 mmol/l (90 mg/dl) to nudge it up to 6 mmol/l (108 mg/dl). Both these things are difficult to do for an obsessive-compulsive diabetic like me, but I'd rather see my HbA1c go a bit high than pass out at work or leave my partner alone in the world to care for our deranged cats.
\n\n\n\nIt's been a couple of weeks and so far, I haven't had many hypos. Yesterday I felt a bit dizzy and sweaty after dinner, and when I tested I was at 3.4 mmol/l, so it might be that my hypo awareness is coming back. I'm keeping my target range high for another couple of weeks to see how it goes. I'll update this post when the experiment to fix hypoglycemia unawareness is complete. Hopefully, I won't go blind or lose my feet before then.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/176/trees-358418_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-04-13T14:34:24+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/never-a-day-off.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/never-a-day-off.html", "title": "Never a day off", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\n
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 on the bedside table. It's the last thing on your mind before you drift off to sleep. The constant grind wears you down at times. It would be nice on a day of a hangover to eat a bag of crisps and a tub of chocolate ice cream without thinking about insulin doses. It's been three years since I had ice cream. I miss Reese's peanut butter cups.
When these depressive spells hit me, I try to think positively. I'm not in an open war zone. I have plenty of diabetic supplies, which makes it possible to manage my condition well. Above anything else, I'm in control and can live a normal life. Most diseases have debilitating consequences, whereas diabetes simply means that you have to constantly monitor and inject. And if you want to avoid roller coaster blood sugars, trim down the carbs to a minimum.
\n\n\n\nI remember my first weeks with diabetes. It seemed so complicated. I had to weigh everything I ate to count out the carbs and inject insulin. I was scared of needles, so the food often went cold as I hesitated to stab my abdomen. I had some epic hypos where I almost passed out on the kitchen floor. What I couldn't imagine was how life would ever be normal again.
\n\n\n\nThen a few weeks passed. I started to pre-bolus insulin, which really helped with post-mealtime spikes. I discovered Bernstein's method for normalizing blood sugar through a low-carb diet. While I could no longer eat anything I wanted, life went back to being pretty much the same as before. Always testing and injecting insulin became second nature. When I get tired of diabetes, I think of how much easier things got because, at first, there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
\n\n\n\nStill, there are times when I'd like a day off. I'd have toast with orange marmalade for breakfast, spaghetti carbonara for lunch, and pizza for dinner without a thought of what it did to my blood sugar. I'd snack on peanut butter cups and have a tub of Ben & Jerry's phish food for dessert. I guess everyone fantasizes about something. Three years into diabetes, an insane carb feast of a day is mine.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/175/meeting-1453895_1280.png", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-03-03T16:03:45+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" }, { "id": "https://ocdiabetic.com/murder-by-insulin.html", "url": "https://ocdiabetic.com/murder-by-insulin.html", "title": "Murder by insulin", "summary": "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…", "content_html": "\nIn 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 at night. The couple had been married for eleven months and lived together with Kenneth's 10-year-old son from a previous marriage.
\n\n\n\nAccording to Kenneth's story, his wife had felt tired after dinner and gone for a rest. When he went to bed around 9.30, she'd vomited on the bed. They changed the sheets, and Elizabeth, who felt warm and sweaty in her pajama, decided to take a bath. Kenneth went to sleep as the bathwater was running. When he woke up at 11.20 the bed was still empty, and he found his wife submerged in the bath. Kenneth, a state-registered nurse, emptied the bathtub and tried artificial respiration before calling for help. The family doctor soon arrived and confirmed that Elizabeth was dead from drowning. Due to the circumstances, he found it necessary to contact the police, who brought along forensic pathologist Dr. David Price.
\n\n\n\nThe death looked suspicious to Dr. Price from the start. It was rare for a healthy 32-year-old woman to drown in a bathtub. Also, there was a small cupful of water left in the cavity of the crook of Elizabeth's arm, which contradicted Kenneth's story that he'd tried to resuscitate her. Dr. Price also noticed that Elizabeth was eight weeks pregnant.
\n\n\n\nThe police team was convinced that Elizabeth had been rendered unconscious before she drowned. They considered the possibility that she had been injected with insulin, which was consistent with the dilated pupils and excessive sweating before she died. When examining the body, they found two hypodermic injection sites in each buttock. The crude tests available at the time showed that the samples contained 84u of insulin, which is the amount I take in three days as an insulin-dependent diabetic.
\n\n\n\nWhen Elizabeth didn't have diabetes, the police confronted Kenneth with their findings. He claimed that he, with her approval, had injected her with ergometrine to induce an abortion. Further, he denied knowing anything about the insulin injections. He pleaded innocent to the murder charges brought against him, but the court found him guilty, and he spent 26 years in prison. In the months leading up to the murder, he'd boasted to colleagues that it would be easy to kill someone with insulin since it would be undetectable in the body after death.
\n\n\n\nWhile Elizabeth Barlow didn't die from the insulin overdose, it played a crucial role in her death. The amount injected into her was enough to render her unconscious, but whether it would have killed her will never be known. A probable scenario is that her husband expected her to die faster than she did and instead decided to drown her. Had she been left in bed, she might have died overnight or suffered irreversible brain damage from the insulin overdose, which would have been absorbed into her bloodstream and destroyed. Thus, no murder charges would have been made, and the death would have been ruled to have occurred from natural causes. In other words, the perfect crime.
\n", "image": "https://ocdiabetic.com/media/posts/174/assassin-3690300_1920.jpg", "author": { "name": "Nilla" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-02-11T14:05:33+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T18:16:23+02:00" } ] }