I felt a bit nervous this morning as I went to the pharmacy with my prescription. It was the first time since I got diabetes two and a half years ago that I would pay for insulin. I lost my Czech medical insurance, which also covered prescriptions, along with my job in the pandemic. What…
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When Frederick Banting discovered insulin in 1921, he refused to put his name on the patent. He felt it was unethical for a doctor to profit from a discovery that saved lives. Co-inventors James Collip and Charles Best later sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for just $1, as Banting proclaimed that…
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I’ve been reading Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, which is overall a wonderful experience. There’s a story in it about a girl whose soul sits in an ice cube. She’s terrified that it will melt, so every night before going to bed, she checks her refrigerators to make sure that her soul…
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I have the flu. Or at least something similar that left me in bed with splitting headaches and fever for the past four days. I’m not sure how I managed, considering the lock-down where I don’t see anyone and my only social outings are trips to the supermarket. But then anything is possible. After two…
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Charles de Gaulle once asked how you can govern a country that has more than 246 varieties of cheese. He seemed to do alright. Cheese is not only a good source of protein, but it’s also excellent when you’re trying to keep blood glucose stable. Due to its high-fat content, it slows down the absorption…
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All the negative things I’ve been reading about McDonald’s made me crave a cheeseburger. It’s strange, I know. I hadn’t had a meal in McDonald’s since before my type 1 diabetes diagnosis two years ago. Now I was having dirty food fantasies about egg mcmuffins, chocolate shakes, and cheeseburgers. I limited myself to a single…
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The food we eat has three macronutrients – carbohydrates, fat, and protein – plus some micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. A lot of the energy goes to power our large mammalian brains. We estimate that the brain needs 130g of glucose, the end product of all carbohydrates, per day. We also draw the line for…
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Since I was diagnosed with diabetes two years ago I’ve taken three basal insulins: Lantus, Toujeo, and Tresiba. For me the winner is Tresiba. I started on Lantus with 12u every night at 11 pm. The problem that soon became evident was nighttime hypoglycemia. I woke up sweating in the 3 mmol/l (54 mg/dl) range.…
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When I first got diabetes, I found it weird that we don’t deal in milliliters or milligrams as we do with most other drugs. What was the story with the insulin unit? A unit of what? As it turns out, we’re talking about rabbit units. When Banting and Best were experimenting with insulin in the…
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My love affair with zoodles continues. One thing I really missed after going on the keto diet was spaghetti bolognese, and zoodles is a tasty low-carb substitute for spaghetti. The best thing is that they don’t spike your blood sugar the way pasta does. Zucchini is a low-carb vegetable with 3g of carbs/100g, and a…
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