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The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

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Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#281

Post by kelp »

mathstuf wrote: post #277
kelp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife has t1d and when we were dating we backpacked the Lost Coast trail. She was pretty paranoid of bears, so made sure we didn't have any food in our tent and did a good job of hiding our bear canisters some place where any bears couldn't move them around if they got to them. She'd had a bad experience with bears pushing bear canisters off a waterfall. So she had a low in the middle of the night, in the middle of…

Oof. For finding my bearcan, adding conspicuity tape (the red/white reflector tape used on tractor trailers) makes them stand out like a beacon with a headlamp (which, so far as I know, bears have not learned to make use of). It also has adhesive good enough to stick to their slick plastic.

This is a great idea, thank you! If I can get myself into shape for it by late June, I'm going to try doing the JMT this year. This tip may come in handy. Thanks.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#282

Post by parrellel »

savant_penguin wrote: post #57

I find it really curious that evolution didn't get rid of such nasty condition. Too much sugar you die, too much insulin you die. And that affects you since birth. How is it possible that something so deadly (that I assume is genetic) still exists?

It's an autoimmune condition that needs to be triggered by "something" where something is thought to be some random unknown subset of mild childhood illnesses.

Functionally, it means every generation or three you lose "a" kid at age 1 or 5 or 11, that isn't too much in the way of evolutionary pressure, especially given how many kids people used to have, and how many other ways there were for them to keel.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#283

Post by Guidii »

shadowtree wrote: post #141
Trasmatta wrote: post #8

I'm a type 1 diabetic, and this was a helpful post at showing non diabetics why it is so. hard. Non diabetics typically think the difficult thing must be the shots and the finger pricks, right? Not really. The majority of diabetics get used to those things quickly (of course there are some of course that deal with a major major needle phobia that can make it even harder). The hard part is that it never ends. Almost e…

Non-zero chance you might see a cure for type-1 in your lifetime. https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/analysis/vertex-stem-cel... It's a stem cell therapy, in human trials (not the usual "in mice" crap). A single patient already had their diabetes disappear: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/vertex-diabetes-cell-t... The downside of stemcell therapy is that it is essentially an organ transplant, aka requires immu…

I'm a T1D for 45 years, and since my first diagnosis there has always been a cure that would be available "within the decade". This is the way.

That being said, every decade has seen life-changing therapies introduced. The introduction of long-lasting insulins. At home testing for glucose and ketones in urine. Mixing insulin formulations together to reduce the number of injections at a time. Thinner needles greatly reduced pain from injections (this one happened almost every year.) Moving from urine tests to blood glucose tests! Introducing shorter-acting insulins that reduce onset time. GLUCOMETERS! Moving from needles to pens allowed crazy-simple and virtually painless injections. Moving from pork formulations to human formulations of insulin. Carb counting: previously we used fixed diet - eat the same thing at the same time every freaking day. INSULIN PUMPS!!! Crazy fast-acting insulin formulations cutting onset down to 15 minutes. CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITORING!!! Tracking and alerting for low glucose, overnight and remote. CUSTOM-BUILT CLOSED LOOPING!!! Reliable/medical grade CGM. Approved closed looping systems.

Many folks have worked very hard to make my life more livable, and I thank them for it. Today is, without a doubt, the best time to be a diabetic.

That being said, I still wouldn't recommend it;)

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#284

Post by chrisdotcode »

jacquesm wrote: post #272
chrisdotcode wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I know jacquesm is a very well-respected poster, but unless he's got diabetes himself, he's providing his opinion with absolutely no real-world-experience vs someone who has been managing diabetes with keto for two decades. Even if keto "isn't for everybody" (and KetoType1 should have put a disclaimer), I'd certainly much rather take advice from someone with skin in the game.

By this reason any doctor that doesn't have the disease they help curing should be disqualified as well. Maybe think a bit longer and realize that expertise can be gained in more ways than experience alone. I've posted a pretty good link below from a respected source if you don't believe what I wrote and whether or not I have diabetes type 1 is not relevant.

Of course you're not immediately "disqualified" from providing meaningful information if you don't have skin in the game. However, the current state of pretty much any science-related-to-food is woefully inadequate (remember the food pyramid? and how fat was evil and going to kill you? And don't even get me started on carcinogens and meat). At this present moment in time, people who are actually trying and living on keto (, in particular those with diabetes) are actually on the bleeding edge of food science.

I personally have friends who manage Type 1 & 2 diabetes with little-to-no insulin on Keto, and I'd hate to see people being turned away from at least researching a lifestyle that could significantly benefit them because a well-respected member of the community said it was "dangerous" (and often, deferring to doctors can be not helpful for reasons mentioned above - I wish people would at least research for themselves).

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#285

Post by parrellel »

go_blue_13 wrote: post #169

>A CGM can cost $400 a month What in the world? $5k a year? How on earth are those things so expensive? 2 fully spec'd macbook pros per year? Surely they aren't that complex. Am I missing something?

Medical equipment rules and price gouging. More medical equipment standards for the CGMs. More price gouging for the now $300+ vials of humalog.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#286

Post by Guidii »

kelp wrote: post #207
idealmedtech wrote: post #172

Hi, I'm an artificial pancreas developer! Our device has been approved for human trials which we're going to begin shortly, probably near the end of this quarter. One thing that the article (which is very well researched, by the way, kudos!) does not quite get right is that the insulin sensitivity _changes_ hour to hour, day to day, month to month. It changes nonlinearly with exercise, stress, sleep, diet, and in a m…

I just looked at your profile and saw what your company is working on. Very interesting! My wife and I were recently in a situation where I'd wondered why the hospital didn't have such a thing! My wife has T1D and we just spent 3 days in the hospital for the birth of our daughter. The most scary and frustrating part of the whole process was my wife's diabetes management. She uses a Tandem T:Slim and a Dexcom G6, and…

Sorry to hear about hat - it must have added a huge amount of stress.

I had a similar experience thirty years ago, after being hospitalized for ketoacidosis. (Fun fact: As a DKA patient, I found myself next to an attempted suicide, and noticed that med staff treated us both with disdain. Seriously bad way of managing health outcomes. But I digress.)

The experience in question was a doctor-prescribed insulin injection that the nurse insisted on injecting. I objected, but was unable to be heard. I calmly demanded that the nurse return at 11PM with orange juice to counteract the reaction that was inevitably coming. She did, and the crisis was averted. The next day the doctor prescribed that I could manage my own dosage.

Diabetes management is remarkably complex, and few medical folks know how to do it.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#287

Post by steveklabnik »

pimeys wrote: post #221
steveklabnik wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's abit like monitoring traffic load and adding more servers as you go, except too many servers kill you. Not even just that, but with fairly primitive monitoring tools. The built-in stuff for Dexcom can only alert on highs or lows, not on things like the rate of change, which would be much more useful IMHO.

There are open source apps such as xdrip that can alert on a trend change, and androidaps that turns off insulin delivery way before you get to a hypo. The official one from Dexcom is not very good.

Yeah, if you're technical, there's options. But if you're not, it can be harder.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#288

Post by dot1x »

Trasmatta wrote: post #8

I'm a type 1 diabetic, and this was a helpful post at showing non diabetics why it is so. hard. Non diabetics typically think the difficult thing must be the shots and the finger pricks, right? Not really. The majority of diabetics get used to those things quickly (of course there are some of course that deal with a major major needle phobia that can make it even harder). The hard part is that it never ends. Almost e…

A solution to this (from a non-diabetic) would maybe to always be eating a keto-like diet. It's not easy, but far easier than having to constantly juggle 100s of carb combinations.

"Diet" might even be the wrong word, more like a lifestyle.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#289

Post by jacquesm »

chrisdotcode wrote: post #284
jacquesm wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this reason any doctor that doesn't have the disease they help curing should be disqualified as well. Maybe think a bit longer and realize that expertise can be gained in more ways than experience alone. I've posted a pretty good link below from a respected source if you don't believe what I wrote and whether or not I have diabetes type 1 is not relevant.

Of course you're not immediately "disqualified" from providing meaningful information if you don't have skin in the game. However, the current state of pretty much any science-related-to-food is woefully inadequate (remember the food pyramid? and how fat was evil and going to kill you? And don't even get me started on carcinogens and meat). At this present moment in time, people who are actually trying and living on…

And I spent the better part of a month deeply embedded in safety materials regarding diabetes type 1. It's simple: if you start experimenting like that without guidance from your doctor then that's asking for trouble. Giving medical advice with such a high chance of risks materializing for the takers of such advice is irresponsible to put it mildly. You can't just dump blanket statements like that in a forum and expect a positive outcome.

Telling people to research a lifestyle is completely different than providing ready made recipes paired with unqualified statements based on a sample of '1'.

Re: The Unreasonable Math of Type 1 Diabetes

#290

Post by chrisdotcode »

jacquesm wrote: post #289
chrisdotcode wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you're not immediately "disqualified" from providing meaningful information if you don't have skin in the game. However, the current state of pretty much any science-related-to-food is woefully inadequate (remember the food pyramid? and how fat was evil and going to kill you? And don't even get me started on carcinogens and meat). At this present moment in time, people who are actually trying and living on…

And I spent the better part of a month deeply embedded in safety materials regarding diabetes type 1. It's simple: if you start experimenting like that without guidance from your doctor then that's asking for trouble. Giving medical advice with such a high chance of risks materializing for the takers of such advice is irresponsible to put it mildly. You can't just dump blanket statements like that in a forum and expe…

That's true- I even stated that I thought KetoType1 should have put a disclaimer.

At the same time, I do encourage people to take charge of their own health, and to make calculated and appropriate risks. My primary concern was people only reading your name, the word "dangerous", and being put off from further research about keto in general because of that. Some physicians used to recommend rice- and grain-heavy diets for diabetes, so some healthy skepticism (EDIT: in the "trust, but verify" sense) is warranted, even towards one's doctor.

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