Type 1'stars R Us

Goodnight everyone sleepp well

porl69 said:

@Knikki and @smc4761 were you on grams of carbs when diagnosed? I can remember being given a packet of cards with different foods on and there "Portion" value. I had to have 4 "portions" for breakfast at 8am 1 "portion" at 11am 5 "portions" at 1 pm 1 "portion" and at 6pm 5 "portions" and possibly a portion at 8pm before bed. Every diabetic appointment the cards and values were changed. HOW did we survive lol

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They were called ‘exchanges’ back when I was diagnosed too.

Anyone else ever try to get a half unit from one of the plastic syringes? I used to carry a spare with me too but the markings rubbed off if I’d carried it around for too long. I remember the prescriptions were hard to get when they first came out, I used to save up and buy some as a treat.

porl69 said:

@Knikki and @smc4761 were you on grams of carbs when diagnosed? I can remember being given a packet of cards with different foods on and there "Portion" value. I had to have 4 "portions" for breakfast at 8am 1 "portion" at 11am 5 "portions" at 1 pm 1 "portion" and at 6pm 5 "portions" and possibly a portion at 8pm before bed. Every diabetic appointment the cards and values were changed. HOW did we survive lol

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Hi @porl69, yes, it was 10 g carb per portion, x portions per meal etc and it was a matter of knowing what the exchanges were, so that you could vary the food without changing the total grams of carbs per meal. But no carbs to insulin ratio, no lowering portions if high BSL.

Good morning everyone have a good day

Morning all - better overnight figures for me managed to stay in range all last night so hoping whatever bug I've had is fading, also got a new pump coming as discovered a crack on my Medtronic 640g on the back from the bottom to the top, hairline but affects the warranty so it's a change over, second cracked pump in 2 years. Never a dull moment

Morning all, have an uneventful day.

smc4761 said:

When the first blood finger test came out, maybe early 90's to do a finger test we had to use this horrendous contraption

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Yep remember those "finger prick" contraptions the only thing, other than a long bow, to drive a pointed object through a inch of solid oak.

How hum all OK over here running low 4's at the moment which is fine

Morning, have to say it again to everyone who's been dealing with T1 for so long and had to use those tools of torture and associated contraptions. You are all fantastic, take my hat off to you all.
I'm going to try hard not to talk about food or numbers or anything which might make you all roll your eyes

smc4761 said:

These new fangled plastic syringes were wonderful when we first got them after years of using glass syringes, which i remember keeping in a hard plastic tube which I had to fill with industrial methalyted spirit. The needles were the size of a small javelin.

Even the insulins has improved dramatically in recent years, from mainly Pork insulin to "human" insulin as it was first called.

When the first blood finger test came out, maybe early 90's to do a finger test we had to use this horrendous contraption

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Ouch.....I can so remember them....instruments of torture from the T1D museum of horrors


I can remember the portions BUT cannot remember 10g to 1 portion, I guess that is the joys of getting older

Mel dCP said:

Did another walk today, 3.5 miles - and dropped 3mmol with no IOB - my basal rate at that time of day is usually spot on. So if I do that again, I’ll have to lose a unit of insulin in the hour or two before I start, or just put on a 0% rate for when I’m out. Hmm. Or eat chocolate.

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I walk my hound every evening, 45 min to an hour, 3-4 miles, and I find a 0% basal for the hour beforehand does the trick. I'm still surprised that my body seems to favour glucose as its energy source after nine months on keto, but hey ho.

Knikki said:

@Colin of Kent Bm Stix? were they the ones you peed on of stuck blood drop on and wait for the colour change? I do remember using the blood ones and, my then other half, was nagging me to test, so I did and was wondering why the colour of the thing was not changing, until she noticed that I was wiping blood all over the container, not the stick, yep was hypoing

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They were, by comparison to today's fingersticks, enormous (about 10 cm long) and required about sixty times the volume of blood that today's strips ask for. Many's the time I spent what seemed like several minutes trying to (a) make a deep enough injury to yield the required quantity and then (b) squeeze and squeeze like a lemon until I'd got enough. Then you had to wait 60 seconds before wiping off, then wait another 60 before you could compare the bi-colour square to the legend on the side of the tub... and hope there was something that resembled one of them...

This picture is a lot like my first ever setup:

smc4761 said:

When the first blood finger test came out, maybe early 90's to do a finger test we had to use this horrendous contraption

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I was given one of them in hospital at diagnosis. They called it the 'guillotine' which didn't really help matters...

Morning all. A bit dull here which is not conducive to my planned painting of doors.
Re exercise- swimming, walking fast, and gym raises my sugar levels and will require extra insulin. Ordinary walking and in Bloom gardening mornings I have a lovely straight line and require neither food nor insulin. But vacuuming, yes vacuuming makes my levels plummet! Requiring immediate sugar. Go figure!

becca59 said:

Morning all. A bit dull here which is not conducive to my planned painting of doors.
Re exercise- swimming, walking fast, and gym raises my sugar levels and will require extra insulin. Ordinary walking and in Bloom gardening mornings I have a lovely straight line and require neither food nor insulin. But vacuuming, yes vacuuming makes my levels plummet! Requiring immediate sugar. Go figure!

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Its so weird isn't it as gardening really makes my sugars drop...

Good afternoon here, G'd Morning there.
I was the tender age of 27 (in 1980) when I met Stan Clarke in Sydney.
Stan was an expat Brit working in electronics. His daughter also had T1D and in response to a request from the Sydney Children's hospital he had set about and made the first fully portable, battery-operated glucometer in 1978.
Yes, he used the Ames glucostix in his device and set up a home factory to make more of these devices which cost AUD 35 back then.
It is interesting that despite his feat and winning numerous awards the America-biased history of the development of glucometers has failed to mention Stan.
Those that have read Dr Richard Bernstein's Diabetes book will recall also that he managed in 1969 to purchase a glucometer for the princely sum of USD 650. There devices were meant for doctors only.
For Australia in the late 70s, early 80s to be at the forefront with an affordable, portable machine made by an expat Brit is something for both countries to be proud of.
I kept buying Stan's glucometers as he developed his devices further and now regret having given the first one away.
Yes, my very first glucometer was mailed to a TID American friend in 1983 because according to him over there no ordinary citizen could easily afford one !!

Colin of Kent said:

They were, by comparison to today's fingersticks, enormous (about 10 cm long) and required about sixty times the volume of blood that today's strips ask for. Many's the time I spent what seemed like several minutes trying to (a) make a deep enough injury to yield the required quantity and then (b) squeeze and squeeze like a lemon until I'd got enough. Then you had to wait 60 seconds before wiping off, then wait another 60 before you could compare the bi-colour square to the legend on the side of the tub... and hope there was something that resembled one of them...

This picture is a lot like my first ever setup:

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Oh wow that picture took me back in time with a bang......soooooo much easier now

Ah, memories, memories!

I was dx'd in 1988, I don't recall grams being discussed, the DSN seemed to relate everything to Digestive biscuits!

So I'd be looking at a meal and thinking, yep, that's about 4 biscuits.

Would probably have been easier to just eat the biscuits...

Re the old colour changing strips, if anyone wants a nostalgia trip, there's a few places still selling Glucoflex-R strips. I bought a couple of packs a while back and had forgotten what a huge drop of blood they needed - practically an armful!

https://www.betachek.com/uk/store

Instruments of pain. These were the 1st needles I can remember. The pack had to last a month......

porl69 said:

Instruments of pain. These were the 1st needles I can remember. The pack had to last a month......View attachment 30547

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I'm aghast, thank whoever I managed to miss that bit! Instruments of torture sounds more appropriate. A serious question - where did you stick 1 1/2 inch needles if you were skinny?