How annoying are movie/TV diabetics!

Paul wrote
Do films have to be so wrong. Baddies rob a bank and take hostages. One of the hostages is diabetic! He doesn't have his insulin with him (really?). He needs the insulin in the next two hours or he will die! Over the next hour of the film he goes grey, sweaty and unconcious. Now I may be wrong here but unless he is being force fed Lucazade hyperglycemia is not going to do him in quite that quick (as they have no food) and if its a hypo I'm not sure an Insulin injection is going to help much

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Yes it's possible that the above can happen, Once DKA starts you've got very little time to turn things around if you've become unconscious, then you are in dire straights big time...

I use an insulin pump, brilliant piece of kit, downside is that it only uses quick acting insulin, so at any point of time I have 2 hours worth of insulin on board, anything goes wrong with my pump, I have 2 hours to start injecting insulin otherwise I'm going to be in serious trouble very quickly!

Paul wrote

Later that evening I watched Touch on Sky One. Keifer Sutherland finds a guy unconcious on the floor and calls his friend. His friend says he's diabetic! Fortunately the answer is to go to the fridge and get his huge syringe of insulin to inject. Keifs bashes the whole lot in and he wakes up no worse for wear. Now again I might be wrong here but if you find an unconcious diabetic I would suggest injecting a load of insulin without checking his BG might not be the best thing. Expecially if you don't worry about dose and put it all in

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As I understand it, the syringe was from a Glucogen Kit, yep these are large and dumpy affairs...


But at the end of the day, diabetic will moan and point out details are wrong.. Does it effect any no it doesn't because all the detail etc... Will go straight across the top of the head of the standard viewer if they can remember the scene, the won't be able to tell you any of the detail about the scene!

Even programmes like Casualty where they have medical advisers get it horribly wrong sometimes, I don't get wound-up by these things anymore but it does give the wrong impression to the viewing public when a script is not accurately portrayed.

I saw that episode of Touch as well and it did my head in!!! Haha :lol:

I mentioned it to my husband who was sitting there watching it with me (he is type 1 and I am type 2) and he wasn't bothered - he always says i have no imagination and can;t just pretend for the sake of a film or a programme!

As mentioned above, when a insulin pump malfunctions things can get very bad very quickly.

Whacking a load of glucose in is not great either is it?

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Well... if testing equipment is not available, it is somewhat safer to assume that it's hypoglycaemia; a glucagon injection will result in a rapid improvement but won't make hyperglycemia much worse.

The only movie with diabetes being mentioned at all that I've seen lately (possibly at all) was an episode of The Mentalist... twist was that the wine had been tampered with, so they figured out that it had to have been the diabetic because only she'd have had the needle necessary to do it...

Edit: Was already out of the door before noticing this... shame on me

unless he is being force fed Lucazade hyperglycemia is not going to do him in quite that quick

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Force-feeding someone luzozade will not result in a diabetic coma. Lack of insulin results in DKA and high BG (lack of insulin => cells can't get energy => liver makes tons of glucose thinking that there isn't any => high BG) , and may lead to a diabetic coma but high BG is a symptom. Inducing this symptom will not induce the underlying condition.

Paul, sorry it didn't mean to sound like I was putting you back in a box...

Oh cool do Novorapid do poison capsules for the pens then? I'm not sure my 4mm needles would get through the cork though so I'm above suspicion.

The perfect crime....

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Wonder if that's why insulin pens, and a lot smaller needles have been developed! (should have seen the original glass syringes and mega needles... Would send the shudders down the bravest of spines :shock: )

Another thing I wonder though...

We pick when diabetes is portrayed wrongly... But I wonder what else that we watch that is also portrayed wrong and we haven't got a clue!

I do miss a lot of them though, as I don't watch much telly

I expect they are just as ignorant about any long term condition.
I just read the article in BALANCE about the care taken to get things right in "Steel Magnolias"
So some people are a bit thoughtful
Hana

thetallerpaul said:

I'm not sure my 4mm needles would get through the cork though so I'm above suspicion.

The perfect crime....

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:lol:.....the 4mm needles are great aren't they Paul?....I just changed over in the last couple of weeks and can highly recommend them!

DKA can come on and consequently kill within a matter of hours. My last - and worst to date - I was fine slightly high bg due to infection at 1pm - in resus, with ph of 6.7, bg off 33.7 at 5pm...I was minutes away from a coma

TV rarely if ever get things right about anything, it all about the story and a sort of poetic licence, I used to really enjoy Silent Witness but the current series is just rubbish three pathologists that have now turned into full time detectives its just laughable and I cant watch it any longer. My wife works in a hospital and cant watch hospital soaps like Holby for the same reason, what hospital wards always have consultants and two or tree doctors mincing around, none that I have ever been in thats for sure.

No its all about telling a story and facts just dont enter the equation, so if a program gets diabetic stuff so wrong that you get upset then use the remote and vote with your finger, thats what its for.

The thing that most upsets me at present is the BBC's insistence on pronouncing French presidents names with a French accent, STOP IT, NOW. Sarrr-co zee instead of Sarcosy and now the new president Hollande is being pronounced 'Oland-ay, they dont pronounce Paris as Par-reee so why pretend to have a French accent when talking about the president?? Oh yes they do it with Newcastle too always pronouncing it with a geordie accent, like Newcassle, its ridiculous, STOP IT NOW!!!

And breath

jopar said:

We pick when diabetes is portrayed wrongly... But I wonder what else that we watch that is also portrayed wrong and we haven't got a clue!

I do miss a lot of them though, as I don't watch much telly

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Two days before my first son was born, I had to catch a black cab. Don't worry luv, says the driver, if you go into labour, I seen what to do onna telly....I know just what to do. I know how to catch the baby and everything....I seen it on 'Angels' He put the fear of God into me, I kid you not. Hands like hams and they were manky too.

Having said that, I remembered James Herriot delivering a breech kitten - that came in handy when our cat had a breech.

Ju

Sid Bonkers said:

The thing that most upsets me at present is the BBC's insistence on pronouncing French presidents names with a French accent, STOP IT, NOW. Sarrr-co zee instead of Sarcosy and now the new president Hollande is being pronounced 'Oland-ay, they dont pronounce Paris as Par-reee so why pretend to have a French accent when talking about the president?? Oh yes they do it with Newcastle too always pronouncing it with a geordie accent, like Newcassle, its ridiculous, STOP IT NOW!!!

And breath

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I like it :lol:

they dont pronounce Paris as Par-reee so why pretend to have a French accent when talking about the president?

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Supposing you met him, would you use your (obviously correct) pronunciation of his name after he introduced himself using his (clearly incorrect) pronunciation?

In contrast, I'd argue that place names are generally translated (think "in front of the station"), and it just so happens that the English name for Paris is "Paris" (contrast, for example, with Nürnberg). It's sensible to use the English term in an English conversation.

I had to stop watching Touch. Someone said it was the new 24Hours - each episode felt like a month with crummy acting, crummy story.

AMBrennan said:

they dont pronounce Paris as Par-reee so why pretend to have a French accent when talking about the president?

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Supposing you met him, would you use your (obviously correct) pronunciation of his name after he introduced himself using his (clearly incorrect) pronunciation?

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I would address him in my usual English/South London dialect, I am not French, dont have a French accent so would not put one on just to pronounce his name. The only French proper name that is pronounced by the BBC in a French accent is the presidents name, nothing else, its stupid and condescending IMHO. Would the BBC put on an American accent to pronounce Obama's name, of course not it would be stupid, would they put on a Russian accent to pronounce Putins name, never.

As far as |I am aware it is just French presidents and Newcastle that seem to insist on a 'local' pronunciation of their name, and Ive never heard a Geordie put on a voice like a Londoner to pronounce London have you?

jopar said:

But at the end of the day, diabetic will moan and point out details are wrong.. Does it effect any no it doesn't because all the detail etc... Will go straight across the top of the head of the standard viewer if they can remember the scene, the won't be able to tell you any of the detail about the scene!

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Just because the average viewer might not take any notice doesn't mean that people complaining about these inaccuracies are just 'moaning' about it for the sake of it.
This is a real life example: (this quote being a reply on another forum on the same topic of 'Touch')

Unfortunately, TV shows aren't really that interested in accuracy, they want something that's easily understandable and dramatic. Think it's bad this show did something like this? I know someone who had this happen to them in real life - very bad hypo caused them to start slurring their speech and stumbling. They tried to reach in for their pockets for glucose tablets but they were all fumbly. They managed to say they had diabetes before they sorta lost the ability to talk, and so of course, some superhero reached into their pocket, found their Novorapid pen, promptly dialed it all the way up to 40 and jabbed it in their arm. That person was EXTREMELY lucky as that was nearly a murder.

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So television and films getting these things wrong CAN make the general viewer think "Oh now I know what to do if I see someone in the same emergency." erm, no you don't.

It's really not difficult for the TV/Film companies to get these medical details correct. They're just too lazy to do so, or they deliberately make the mistakes to fit what type of scene they are wanting to show and don't actually care that it's factually wrong. Acceptable? Not in my opinion.

Ignoring the subject of Movie/TV diabetics, imagine whilst waiting inline at JFK immigration, which just seems to get worse and worse, a lady collapsed in the queue in front of me, one of Virgin Atlantic's staff were amazingly calm, and given there was about 1000 people queueing, probably didn't even know for sure that she was one of their passengers.

They arranged the line around the situation, and engaged with JFK stewards. The female staff member questioned diabetes, but commented that there were no hints, e.g. no insulin, test kit, or the like, then commented "as we are were off the plane we don't have access to any glucagon..." so this lady is out cold, and they started trying to pour "Coca Cola" (from a 2litre bottle) into her mouth!! So at this stage, they don't know if hyper, or hypo, yet "guess"... I asked whether they had contemplated hyper/hypo and the female flight attended said "oh yeah, I remember, check the breath for pear-drops" so thankfully had received some training, but clearly not enough, though I guess where do you draw the line on which are likely customer complications to know about.

Perhaps I shouldn't have engaged, but given this lady had no visible signs of knowing she had diabetes, and paramedics not arrived yet, I offered to test her glucose. So took some surgical gloves, did the pin-prick, and tested - the result said 0.9mmol, clearly WAY WAY below the "below 4, you're about to hit the floor". Thankfully the paramedics were close behind, and hopefully this lady's life was saved.

Clearly, regardless of whether it is TV or other "little knowledge" people's first assumption is low (which may be the more frequent), but still risky to assume.