Painless breakthrough for diabetics.

29 October 2008
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Yet another article I came across today tells me there’s going to be a new method of taking your long term glucose (what I assume they mean is your HbA1c) without taking blood.

Essentially, there’s talk of ‘a machine which can detect glucose levels accurately by the fluorscence of skin under ultra-violet light‘. Said machine doesn’t actually exist yet, but clinical trials (lasting about two years) are about to kick off in Canterbury. Apparently the machine would be able to read your long term data after shining a fluoro light at your skin for a couple of minutes.

While this sounds pretty unexciting and un-imminent, (I don’t really mind having an actual blood test once every 3-6 months, and two…

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By Nic on 29 October 2008 at 12.09 pm
Posted in General
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Guest blog: Monkey bites, Bat poop and pump.

28 October 2008
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Hello again.

As you may be able to tell from the fact that I’m writing this post, I have made it back from SE Asia intact and there were no major dramas with my diabetes or the pump while I was away which was nice because I was a little nervous this being the first time that I’d be overseas with one. In fact, the pump turned out to be one of the easiest things about being away when I compare it to being attacked (properly not superficially) by a monkey, getting pooped on by bats and getting stuck in a Tuk-Tuk that was in a massive puddle which had a live power cable in it.

I’m sure that…

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By Aaron on 28 October 2008 at 10.12 am
Posted in Insulin Pumps, Travel
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“Take what you think you’ll need…. then double it.”

27 October 2008
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The above pearl of wisdom was imparted to me by my friend Jaan, referring to money for our recent trip to Japan. However after a lovely weekend away on beautiful Waiheke Island, I think the same should be said for insulin, and general diabetes supplies.

Had a bit of a close call while away this weekend…. and while I wasn’t a million miles away from home, plus was in my home town, where I speak the lingo…. but it would have been a bit of a debacle to sort out if I’d not come up with the last minute solution I did.

Basically we left for Waiheke on Saturday morning, and I knew my pump would run out of insulin,…

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By Nic on 27 October 2008 at 6.28 pm
Posted in Slice of Life, Travel
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An email from Living Cell Technologies.

23 October 2008
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I got a reply from LCT today, which Professor Elliot heads up. Will be interested to see what happens next. I feel like I’m a very minute part of a very exciting scientific break-through and it will be interesting even just to observe this moving forward.

Thank you for your email and interest in LCT.

We are delighted to be able to get clinical trials underway in New Zealand, the place where the DiabeCell® concept was initially conceived by Professor Bob Elliott.

Dr John Baker, diabetes consultant at Middlemore is conducting this trial for LCT and is responsible for selecting participants with type 1 diabetes.  We shall forward your details to Dr Baker.

If you are not…

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By Nic on 23 October 2008 at 8.51 pm
Posted in Science & Research
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5 before you drive.

23 October 2008
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My diabetes nurse has all sorts of sayings – one of my favourites is “pizza is poison” which is due to pizza being so stodgy and fattening, it can take up to seven hours to allow your BGs to return to normal. Another one she has, which springs into my head from time to time is “5 before you drive” (as in, your BG should be 5.0 or over if you plan to drive a car).

I’ve talked about the dangers of driving with low blood glucose before, here. I am getting better at detecting large swings downwards in blood sugars these days – it used to be that I wouldn’t know until I was really, really…

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By Nic on 23 October 2008 at 8.42 pm
Posted in Hypos & Hypers
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