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Back in the day!!!!!!!!

I certainly do Bill! I was on it from the age of 11months till just after my eighth birthday. The box was stubby and chubby in comparison with the Rapitard and Monotard which replaced it (sadly twice daily!). I think you're right about the purple. I remember sky blue rather than white for some reason, but memory plays funny tricks, especially since Insulins went through more vivid colours. I have just trawled several sites including Novo Nordisk History and not seen anything recognisable.
 
Was David Pyke in charge at KCH then? I met him in 1978, just before he retired, leaving the ship to be controlled by Peter Watkins. King's still has a very special place in my heart!
 
They were called Acetest and they turned purple if ketones reared their hideous heads!
 
Took some hard drive searching but found it.

Yeah, a bit dilapidated now.. Probably bulldozed? There has been a fair bit of development at the RUH recently..

Taken about 3 years ago as i happened to be passing through..
The kiddie ward i was admitted to for a week. (1976) & spent my time practicing "jacking up" oranges..

I was i was driven posthaste round the far side entrance of this building, like the "Sweeney" by my dad after our GP failed to recognise my symptoms.. I was DKA.
Seems I had a bed & banged on a drip in seconds of getting through the door by a concerned nurse.. Could even have been a sister?


 

LOL Penquin47210 about your hypo and hitting the Deputy Head. Years ago, I'd one of the worst hypos at Heathrow Airport as we sat there for close to six hours for a connecting flight north. Around 6pm, I took my insulin just as our meals arrived at the table. My sugar level was 7.2. God knows what happened but shortly after starting to eat, I began to get the coldness and nausea of a 'serious one'. Also, the worst feeling in the world for me began, the one you get just before you start to fit. Both my wife and I started emptying the sugar tubes into water but it was too late and off I went.

I remember crashing to the floor and fitting. I was soaking as the sugary water I'd been trying to drink was now all over me. I recall little else as my wife shouted for sugar, coca cola and anything really sweet. When I came round I was surrounded by what looked like medical screens that the restaurant used to hide me from other customers (!) and.....a man sitting on the stone floor right next to me with his face covered in blood. Apparently he ran over, decided I was having a heart attack (despite my wife telling him I wasn't) sat astride me and was about to start mouth-to-mouth when I punched him in the face. I could do nothing but apologise but his face was a mess as were his clothes.

Paramedics arrived and because I'd already regained consciousness, sat with me after checking my sugar level. They then started to treat the American. I still get uncomfortable thinking about him as he was only trying to help.

Bill
 
I’ve only had 5 major hypos in over 40 years and nothing for about 15 years.

1. I was on a high school trip from Mkt Harborough to London for a classical music event with Andre Previn. I was so low on the train back I vomited over my girlfriend and most of the carriage before being emergency stopped at Kettering and Ambulanced away - some I’ve dextrose and milk and sugar.... and a sleepy ride home with Dad.

2. I had my shot and missed breakfast before the long mini bus ride through the villages to VI form. Obviously felt low when I got there and went straight to get a hot chocolate and iced bun. Sat down next to a mate of mine ( who insisted on wearing tight drain pipe jeans to display his man bulge). Told him it was not going to be a good day and threw my hot chocolate over his gentlemen’s region as I fitted across the floor. A bit of glycogen from an almost next door ambulance station resolved the situation.

3. as a child I was a u100 test pilot. In hospital and part of a study; I told the SHO I was feeling low, very low! She said she’d get an apple immediately. I woke up to my Consultant, lots of dextrose 50 and listening to him being impolite to the SHO ;-)

4 low in the night at home. Wife was away so I had 3 young kids at hand ( asleep). Quickly to the kitchen for lots of sugar in milk and cereal. Woke up in the morning covered in blood with injuries over my chest, back and head. To find a broken cereal bowl on the kitchen floor and blood everywhere.

5 the best one.... and the last one... this was 25 years ago. I was part of the Trauma / Emergency surgical team. Beeped from my bed late on a Friday night so popped on whatever came to hand. Cowboy boots, scrub trousers and a Def Leopard T shirt. Some drug dealer in the wrong part of town had been shot in the head and chest and his arm almost hacked off. It was a long procedure. I walked downstairs and out of the A&E doors in my fashion statement. Collapsed by the Ambulances and work up after 150ml of 50% ( that’s a huge amount of your not aware ). Veins on fire... to recognise the Charge Nurse...... slowly realise what happend and the. My best mate ( still is ) the resuscitation officer stated you were in a bad way! “I was hoping for a rectal glucose flush”. (that is not a proven technique). LOL.

however nothing for 15 years... pumps are better - CGM now exists and closed loop is the next normal treatment.

Well done world.
 
I was diagnosed in 1979 and I remember the glass (heavy) syringe not easy to use if doing an injection in your arm. Having to do pee samples in big bottles having to do this before morning, dinner, tea and bedtime (waking up at 2am). After 1 month then having to take the bottles back to the hospital at my appointment. Those were the days lol. Can you also remember calling carbs - PORTIONS. Things have changed so much but we have all survived so Well Done Everyone xx
 
U

One thing I vividly remember about the old glass and metal syringes was putting it in my leg pushing the plunger and the syringe and needle separating resulting in the contents “whooshing “ all over the place , told the doc he said make sure when your injecting to keep the scale on the syringe towards you so you can see how much has gone in , still didn’t get ny new needles though.
Did we really go through all that . I look back on it and compare it to toady’ s tech and sometimes feel it never really happened , but hey got to break a few eggs to make an omelette lol
I also remember burning my fingers on the old pee test tube after “ Satan’s tablet “ had been added
 

Yes, me too. I'm sat there with just the needle on my leg. Thinking "what now..?!"

Hi @ClaireMB ,

Welcome to the forum.

That's a great example you have there.

I've dropped the case once or twice myself, either cracking the glass barrel on the syringe or breaking it diagonally?
 
Yes, I think it was over worked as my younger brother was diagnosed Diabetic at, 23 months old, so it had a hard life
 
Gosh, I've never had a disastrous hypo as you all describe them. The lowest reading I ever had was 1.6 mml, when I was planting bulbs in the front garden. I had already stopped and come in once, as I could feel BS dropping, but didn't do a test, just drank about 100 ml of Lucozade and went back to the job in hand. We were flying from Manchester airport at 3 am the following morning, so if I didn't plant the bulbs they would be dead by the time we were back. (Knew husband wouldn't do it !) I had about another 10 or 2 to plant. Worked on when I knew I was hypo. (Only time I ever have.) Finished the job, grabbed tools and returned to house. Drank at least 150 ml Lucozde, sat down, did test which showed 1.6 mml. I was a bit startled, but sat still and relaxed. After 15 mins it was 3.8 mml.

The next bit is what you'll find crazy. I had learned from experience that if I was hypo, after correcting with fast-acting glucose, if I then ate the recommended slowly-digested stuff to prevent a later hypo, my BS would spike to 22 or 23 mml very rapidly within 30 to 45 minutes. My answer was an unreasonably huge slice of chocolate cake. There was a cake in the kitchen and I really enjoyed it. Two hours later before my evening meal, my BS was 5.9 mml.

We really are all different. I have never lost consciousness, had a seizure or collapsed during a hypo. Never attacked anyone either though I do get cross - and I definitely know it! The only time I ever had a serious problem was during the night, when I was pregnant. I wonder if using animal insulin is something to do with it ?

Love your posts, Bill and yours too, GrantV. This is all a real blast from the past !
 
Hi @JMK1954 Although I have posted this before. I thought you ought to see it:
1979 At a party in Haringey, hosted by one of Helen’s predecessors: The hostess, called Julie, left for work at Harrods, with Yours Truly unconscious on a sofa. She telephoned at 12.45. “You still there?” After my baffled response, I put the phone down and tried to think about my state of affairs. I had a raging headache, my vision kept disappearing, and worryingly, I was experiencing a total memory loss. I started to pace around the stark room like a leopard in its too confined quarters. What the hell is wrong? This is not a hangover. I need to talk to someone. My father. What’s his name? Where does he work? (He retired in 1985 and I still remember his number 01 405 9222 ext 6036) Brain’s battery was completely uncharged then. As I sped around the room in increasing panic, I chanced upon a directory. With my focus looming in and out, I flipped through the pages in the vain hope I might recognise anything. Something suggested the word “assurance” and I had enough cognitive function to write it down. Minutes later I was through to some saint (female) at the switchboard. Why she didn’t think “We’ve got a right one here” I’ll never understand. She deserves recognition.
“ er, Oh God, what’s his name?”
“Don’t worry love, which department is he in?”
“Er, ....... Oh blimey I can’t think"
At this point she began reading down the list until she said:
“Job evaluation"
“That’s it!"
I’m a great believer in fate. Normally one of three lovely secretaries would have answered the phone, but for some reason my father himself answered. I must have been able to tell him my whereabouts, because I remember him giving me some chocolate in the flat. The rest is blank until 6.30 the following morning. I had been put in Johanna’s bedroom (I think she was away at college in Oxford at the time) and my father put his head round the door to check progress. He found me with the top of my head on the floor, followed by most of my torso. He managed to get me back on the bed and then tried to give me warm sweet tea. I hit him. Apparently it took both my parents to hold me against the wall and get some in. Had they the luxury of a
Glucagon injection, I’m sure they would have used it. My father did his National Service at Haslar, the onshore naval establishment at Portsmouth. He was trained as a nurse and used to give up to three hundred penicillin injections a day. Yes, every sailor loves a call girl. To this day nobody has bettered his technique in my experience.
 
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