How being a diabetic changes: 62 years with type 1.

[Grant_Vicat]

This will bring back memories:

Iwas Type 1 from 1959-2013. Yes modern technology is amazing!

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Anyone remember Clinitest?

Oh yes! See 8 posts below

 

[lovinglife]

T2 diet controlled here, I’m finding it fascinating & I’m in total awe of you long term T1 who had to go through such stuff. I remember a boy in my class 50 years ago having “a life or death” condition- we were never told what it was, but his mum used to come into school every break & lunch time and he would leave the class for about 10 minutes. I remember us all being jealous because he could have an orange & 2 biscuits on his desk. If only we had known what he had to go through then maybe we wouldn’t have been quite so envious. It’s funny how things were brushed under the carpet in those days

You all are truly are T1 warriors!

 

[Still_Here]

Its an inject a gun that my parents used on me and my sister back in the 70s.....oh happy days!!

Been there and tried that along with the clinitest chemical experiment and boiling glass syringes. Worst thing about it was that when used with a glass syringe and disposable needle - they tended to part company while injecting .... Quickly gave up

 

[Fairygodmother]

Oh I remember that kit @Grant_Vicat, and boiling those old syringes and needles to sterilise them. It was a huge step forward when home use blood sugar tests arrived, though the first I was given involved comparing the colour on the strip to a chart on the container. The first lancets that went with them were just that, lancets, no applicator, just stab your finger.

 

[Phaid]

I had one of those but was too scared of it to use it.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Oh I remember that kit @Grant_Vicat, and boiling those old syringes and needles to sterilise them. It was a huge step forward when home use blood sugar tests arrived, though the first I was given involved comparing the colour on the strip to a chart on the container. The first lancets that went with them were just that, lancets, no applicator, just stab your finger.

I used to boil my syringe up in what I guess was an aluminium Victorian lidded milk saucepan, about as wide as a breakfast bowl. It belonged to my great-grandmother apparently. Sadly I boiled it dry, melting a hole in the bottom and finding a cracked glowing Everett corpse. I still have the lid! King's College Hospital, due to my extremely poor control and health, lent me an Ames testing meter which was just like this:

Picture courtesy of https://www.mystrategist.com/blog/article/in_medtech_history_blood_glucose_monitoring.html
Strips were prohibitively expensive, but King's generously made sure that I had them, being a student!