My diabolical clinic

[Rach79]

Hi there Manxangel and everyone else. Well my update is my carb counting session is going ok. My average has come down and I'm having a heck of a lot less hypos and high blood sugars so it's a good thing. I admit sometimes I'm in a bit of a hurry and I just take an estimated amount of insulin without working out the carbs but that's because a) I'm still tired a lot and b) the evening ratio to carbs eaten isn't correct so I have to speak to the dietician again. The morning and afternoon are fine though the majority of the time. The frustrating part is when foods say sugars 7% or something like that like Special K and then they don't mention the carbs so you can't gauge how much insulin to take. Also Boots foods etc. mention carbs that are in their meals but sometimes the carbs they count are natural sugars in vegetables and stuff which I'm not meant to count so it is difficult in that respect. But there are ways around it and I'm working on them.

The other day and this is totally unrelated but some diabetics might wish to know - it was really frustrating but I was lucky in my case but I'd ran out of test strips and I went to Boots to ask to buy some to keep me going until my prescription was ready. They immediately had asked me if I'm Type 1 or Type 2 to which I replied Type 1 and they said "Oh right it's just we don't tend to sell test strips to Type 2 diabetics as we don't consider it important for them to test". I replied saying that "I think it's important for both types to test" and then they replied back saying "well we don't accept it because it's the milder type of diabetes" to which I just said "oh right" because I was fed up with the lack of knowledge and attitude these supposed trained individuals have regarding diabetes and bought the test strips because 'I was allowed'. They've asked me to fill in a survey about them so I will do but during the survey I'm going to mention about the attitude regarding diabetes and the lack of knowledge they have regarding the condition and how I feel it's important that both types test. I wouldn't call myself lucky for having type 1 but in that respect it was fortunate. I just feel sorry for all the type 2's that have to go through a battle just to test their blood sugars. The test strips are £25 which is blinking expensive but to be found that as a Type 2 you aren't even allowed to purchase them is ridiculous!!

Anyway that's my recent update. Oh yes I still feel sluggish a lot of the time although my blood sugars have improved, and I'm eating healthy and exercising so I'm going to give it a bit more time but if I still feel the same then I'm asking AGAIN for animal insulin because when I mentioned it at my carb counting session they told me it was "an old fashioned type of insulin" so it might take a while for me to convince them otherwise!! :?

 

[catherinecherub]

Glad that things are improving for you Rach, keep up the good work.
Interesting about the test strips. Now type 2's have even more bias with chemists joining in the perception. Any type of diabetes is a condition and there is not a scale of severity. There are type 2's who have tried relentlessly to control by diet and exercise but have had to succumb to medication and insulin and I know that type 1's have to rely on insulin for control. All types have my sympathy The life threatening consequences of not adhering to treatment are the same for all diabetics.
Thanks for that, if I have to buy any test strips I shall go to Boots and enlighten them.
Catherine.

 

[jopar]

Hi Rache79

Glad to hear that you’ll improving your control

I once had the sales assistant refuse to sale a glucose meter to me, she explained that I could get one free via the diabetic clinic or my DSN at my surgery… which yes I am fully aware of this but on Friday afternoon when my meter is broken (I had ran over it with my car) and I couldn’t get hold of either the diabetic clinic or surgery DSN until at least Monday morning, I really didn’t mind footing the £25 to replace my very much needed meter…

But she was having none of it, even got the pharmacist to support her argument that she was saving me money etc… I gave up in the end said that I was going to wait (not) went back and sat in my car waited for a while and sent my husband in to buy the meter for me!!

But I do find some chemist pricing policies strange indeed! As from this branch of chemist the meter cost £25, but if I went into the branch that is mile further up the road connected to my surgery, then the identical meter would have cost £65, never been able to fathom this one out, as both branches are connected to a doctor surgery!

 

[Rach79]

LOL yes do. In the interim I'll try my utmost to do the same. Us diabetics know the severity of both types but unfortunately there others who do indeed need enlightening!

 

[Trinkwasser]

I've been through this cluelessness twice, once where I used to live where the pharmacy refused to sell me a meter on the grounds that "if you needed one it would be prescribed for you"

Curiously it was a pharmacist here who suggested I might be diabetic and to come and buy a meter, before the new doctor got involved.

One of the others questioned my need for strips since I was "only" a Type 2 and not on insulin. I took in my graphs to show him and haven't been questioned since. Actually I started buying them at Boots when they had dropped the price for a while and then put them back up again so I get them elsewhere now. (AFAICR they dropped the price when Boots bought out the pharmacy but this proved to be temporary, a lot of other things dropped in price, some things went up hugely and many items were taken off the shelves)

At least here they have kept the clueful staff. In more than one other Boots I've been told things like "Oh that was taken off the market" when it was available from the shop next door, or "we don't sell them" when I could actually see a whole shelf-ful of them <G>

 

[Rach79]

Hi jopar, just got your message. Good on you for getting your husband to buy the meter. Twinkwasser - interesting what you say about the pharmacies including Boots. One day hopefully these pharmacies will realise that "Only" type 2 can lead to exactly the same amount of complications as a type 1. In my opinion - it's about time they were enlightened and brought forward to the 21st century :lol:

 

[suzi]

Hi Folks,
I think most things are different here in Northern Ireland,i do know that our prescription charges fell to £3 per item in Feb, and i grabbed a yearly certificate for £25, i used to pay £36 per quater. Plus before Christmas i bought Andrew a spare monitor for my handbag cos we were always forgetting to pop one in, from my local chemist. It was an Ascencia contour, came with 10 test strips and was priced at £3.95 and at that price i didn't mind paying it (it was this price before prescription charges were reduced.) Plus the refils come in 50's. I can't fathom the prices charged on the mainland, £35-£65 is pure extortion.
Best wishes to you all, and if anyone is interested in meters PM me and i'll see what i can do.
Suzi x

 

[Jasmin]

Hi I'm angry too, only for a different reason.I spent months from August 2007 to end of April 2008
coping with different conditions, Glue ear which left me deaf in one ear,Shingles in my ear, dropsy,my eye dropped and my mouth went down (just like a stroke) I spent 3 weeks in bed with dizziness I could not stand, used my arm to prevent falling,(3 weeks later, found out it was broken) then I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes on the Tuesday and prescribed Metamorfin on the Friday, I was called back to the surgery to be told I had Myeloma Paraprotein, On the Monday to went to the Hospital to have a bone marrow biopsy.This all culminated with me being whisked onto the cancer ward for 2 weeks, The metaformin was killing my kidney, I was anaemic , needed a transfusion, could not walk, was in pain from a broken arm, which required an operation to insert a nail , (which will have to stay in,as the bone was so brittle).All was required was a in depth blood test to discover what was wrong and to save me months of illness.
Plus the fact my youngest daughter gave birth to my grandson in Kent (we live in Norfolk)in February (before I was diaganosed) but I felt to ill to go, as I had rung her every time I had something new she thought I just did not want to go to see her which has left a division between us. Regards Jas

 

[EricD]

A couple of years ago I wasn't feeling well and checked my BS on my mothers meter, it was 4mmol in the afternoon, about 3 1/2 hrs after lunch. Next day I went to our local chemist and bought a meter for £9.99. Two days later I went in and bought another one for my sister. A few months later my mothers old one started to play up so I went back to the chemist and bought another one. When I visited my parents some time later my father pushed a carrier bag into my hand and said, "have a look at these and tell me if they are any good". He bought them in Tescos or Sainsburys, can't remember exactly. I opened the bag and found 5 Aviva test meters in it. I asked him why he bought them and why so many, he just said "they were only £3.50 and we have a few spare ones if someone needs them." I've got two of them now plus a Compact Plus.

No one asked why we wanted them, no one asked what type or even if we were diabetics. Why should they? It has nothing to do with them whatsoever.

I wonder what the manufacturers would say if they found out that some shops refuse to sell their products to anyone and everyone who wants one? I don't think they'll be very happy about it.

 

[Trinkwasser]

I wonder what the manufacturers would say if they found out that some shops refuse to sell their products to anyone and everyone who wants one? I don't think they'll be very happy about it.

It's possible that the local PCT exerts influence on them, "do as we tell you or we will send our prescriptions elsewhere". There's a pharmacy at the surgery but the current agreement is that that is only for patients too far out to get to the town easily. Theoretically should they so wish they could negate this agreement and lose the pharmacy in town a *lot* of business if they were to refuse to toe the line.

 

[LenyCato]

Can I ask where you live??? I live in Nasebyy Northants and the diabetic care is awesome!
We're due to move to Oswestry and I am a bit fearful the care there is not as good as here.....

 

[wpaisley]

Only one way to get good treatment. Teach yourself how to treat diabetes (lots of info on the web) and then tell your doctor what you need. I have had nothing but idiot doctors and nurses who allowed my HbA1c to rise even to the point of a foot ulcer. I dictate my treatment now because I will be the one who diabetes kills in the end not my idiot doctor.

 

[pedro606]

Wpaisley,

I have to say that I tend to agree with you. I have had nothing but aggro from my Health Centre. Some of my comments are on:-
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6663&p=57665#p57665

Pete

 

[Natalie]

Hi Rach,

Although I was told about carb counting by a nurse, I don't think you fully get enough information and get some confusing readings sometimes etc so the best source of info is the web I reckon, this website is one of my "carb checkers":

http://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/sites/diabete ... ingRef.php

You can also test yourself to see how much insulin you need per 10g of carbohydrate, it's very useful and something I only discovered on the web:

http://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/sites/diabete ... tMeals.php

Hope this is helpful in the quest for successful carb-counting!

x

 

[pedro606]

Fantastic sites-- very very helpful.

Thanks,

Pete

 

[chris_h]

I have been under a diabolical clinic and hospital, saw my GP nurse the other day and she suggested for me to ask the Dr to send me somewhere else, between me and the Nurse we found a new hospital, I rang and asked them if they would take me on and to my delight the answer was yes. Dr agreed and has referred me there, so hoping this will be the start of something good. Will find out when I attend for the first time next week. Will let you know how I got on, in due course.

 

[pedro606]

Hi,

I look forward to hearing how you get on.

I have recently been diagnosed T2 and have a pathetic Health Centre/Surgery. I never though we could request to be put under the control of a hospital. Any more info or advice on that.

Cheers, Pete

 

[Natalie]

I also got transferred from my local surgery clinic to a hospital one - got absoloutely appalling treatment - was taken off fast-acting insulin and put on tablets, left with readings in the teens and twenties for 8 months, then was eventually taken of ALL insulin and put on Byetta...all because my "expert" nurse was convinced I was Type 2! As I and everyone else suspected, I'm Type 1 and was in hospital within 24 hours with severe DKA.

While I was in hosp they offered to take me on at their clinic, and told me that I could have contacted them and asked to go there instead (wish I'd known that!), because my readings were so bad - hba1c was 16.5!! So I think if you contact the hospital and explain why you want to change they might well take you on. They're prob all different but worth a try for good treatment

As a side note, I'd like to mention that I complained to the surgery in a letter that detailed everything I'd been told wrongly, ignored about, neglected on, etc...mostly 'cos I was really bitter that I'd had to spend my 21st bday in a hospital bed! Obviously I thought something should be done but I didn't really expect anything to come of it except apologies, just wanted to vent my anger! But went to the docs recently and found out that because of that complaint, they've completely changed their clinic, and have replaced my nurse with a doctor who actually knows what he's talking about! The nurse in question can no longer alter treatment or prescribe now, because they actually took it seriously!!

Just wanted to say to everyone that sometimes complaining about your **** treatment IS worth it, it doesn't always fall on deaf ears and you might be able to change the services to prevent other people being in your situation

x

 

[pedro606]

Nathalie,

Many thanks for that. I will look into getting transferred if things don't improve.

As regards complaining-- I do agree but not always with the same results expected. After my GTT last December 2008 I was diag T2 with a reading of 11.1
The result was sent to my sugery a few days later. I heard absolutely nothing from my surgery at all. Back in mid January I had to contact the surgery to make an appt for a full blood count prior to my attendance at a cancer follow up clinic. Whilst on the phone I just tought I would mention about the results of the GTT. A nurse rang me a couple of hours later and told me I was a diabetic. Of course, I was stunned. A message is always given out on a phone call prior to speaking to a receptionist advising us NOT to ring for test results as the surgery will contact us if necessary. I assumed I was in the clear.
To cut a very long story short I complained via the Local Health Board. I received a reply from the Health centre/surgery manager the other day telling me that following my complaint they have changed their system of actioning results by the GP. They told me that the GP will action results between 4 to 6 weeks provinding their workload allows for it.

Now can you honestly believe the incompetance of the surgery!!!! 4 to 6 weeks!! And ONLY if they are not too busy!
Of course, I am not letting them get away with it. The Local Health Board did get back to me the other day to tell me that the directive from the Medical Director is that GP's should action received results within 24 to 48 hours NOT days as it looks as though the surgery thinks!

A 'team' are ging to investigate the 'working systems' of the surgery with my complaint in mind. How long that will take is anybody's guess!

 

[wpaisley]

I tried to get under the care of the hospital but by the time I got an appointment I had discovered what my GP was doing wrong and informed him what medication I should be on. My hospital appointment confirmed that my GP did not know the difference between metformin and gliclazide. At the end of the consultation I was discharged back to my GP as my diabetes was now well controlled. I dispair about how diabetics are treated. The majority of diabetics that I meet and who know the value of their HbA1c all have a value greater than that which is recomended by NICE and Diabetes UK.