BeingDiabetic.co.nz » Medical Services

A bit of a worry.

Nic — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:44:38 +0000

I got this email from G a couple of weeks ago (sorry G) who is a type 2. Whatever type of diabetes you have I reckon you’ll probably agree with what he points out…. got any other stories like this?

Quick story:

I signed up to a new doctors the other day (we’ve just moved) and went in and had my introductory check up with my new doctor.

We get talking, I had low B12 for a while, doctor asks if I was a vegan or vegetarian. I said (hell) no, but Metformin is known to reduce absorption in some cases.

Doctor says she’s never heard of that in her however-many-years of practicing and I shouldn’t believe everything…

Thursday Poll: Are we behind the eight ball?

Aaron — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:00:05 +0000

I dunno about you guys but when I was a kid (less so as an adult now) I got the distinct feeling that here in NZ, we were very, very behind in the treatments, technologies and knowledge from a diabetes perspective.

Lantus has only just been subsidized in NZ compared to at least 6 years ago in Europe, we didn’t seem to get blood testers anywhere near as fast as North America or even Australia did and Analog insulins had to be fought hard for back in the 1990’s so that we had the luxury of not having to wait for 30 minutes after taking a dose of Actrapid which along with monotard was pretty much the only choice of treatment I…

Stickler for the rules.

Nic — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:33:39 +0000

Maaaan I dislike people who stick to all the rules for no good reason. I’ve just moved house and thus moved pharmacies. I knew my old pharmacist was good and really helpful but it never actually struck me just how easy things were (apart from the fact that said pharmacy had very short opening hours).

Now, I’ve moved to an area where there’s even a pharmacy which is open til 10pm – perfect for someone who works nearly full time like me. However it seems the new pharmacist is a stickler for the rules. He would not – very clearly not – provide me with my full script at once. I mean, SERIOUSLY. What am I going to do with…

Support group for T1 pregnancy.

Nic — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:26:01 +0000

We’ve talked about this group before on the blog but I was sent this article about it and thought I’d give it another plug.

In short, a group has been set up in Auckland on the last Monday of every month for T1 women planning a pregnancy, who are currently pregnant or who’ve been through a T1 pregnancy. It’s run by a specialist diabetes psychologist and a specialist diabetes midwife (both of whom I’ve met and both of whom I rate very highly).

Unfortunately I work on Mondays as I’d love to go along and give a little back… but I would have been doing whatever I could have to get the time off work…

Diabetes radio, and help a parent day.

Nic — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:38:27 +0000

Hi everyone – I got an emails from two readers last week which I would love your input on please.

ONE:

My mum is hosting a radio segment in New Plymouth which starts up soon about diabetes…along with the medical team up there and has been asking me for a name for her segment. Wondered if you had any ideas on a name and some topics you think would be important to cover? They will be talking about all kinds of things to do with diabetes and interviewing medical people on the show.
Can you help this BeingDiabetic reader out? Questions:

- what should her Mum call the show?

- what topics would you want covered in a radio…

Pharmac takes over hospital meds.

Nic — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:00:12 +0000

Hi guys, hot off the press news for you all (thanks to Lisa and Chris for sending me info) – an announcement was made yesterday that Pharmac is now going to take over the buying and managing of hospital medications/equipment – they previously only did “community pharmaceuticals”.

The most interesting part of the article (link below) is the part where they say they’ll take on insulin pumps first:

Ryall also said Pharmac would have a role in the new Shared Services Agency in the management and procurement of medical devices, starting with insulin pumps.

Full article here:

http://tvnz.co.nz/health-news/pharmac-takes-over-new-responsibilities-3669595

What are your thoughts, people? I suppose my take on it is that we shouldn’t get too excited, because it’s not like…

Now Diabetes Southland stands to lose?

Nic — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:32:25 +0000

Thanks to Candice, who sent me this info. Apparently if you live in Queenstown you may now lose the one and only diabetes nurse in the area. If you wish to lend your voice to the campaign you can join the Facebook group, here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=130667010290322&v=wall#!/group.php?gid=130667010290322&v=info

“Guys… I need your help, PLEASE read and join this to help me and my family… Please send on to anyone you know of who could support us too, it’s really important. Take two mins to read this:

For those of you who don’t know, my sis has Type ONE diabetes (also called insulin dependent diabetes or juvenile onset diabetes mellitus) which is the GENETIC form of diabetes, an inherited autoimmune disease…

Man bags and HbA1cs.

Nic — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:31:46 +0000

I got an email from a reader about her son this week and thought I’d throw the question out to the community to see if we can get any other ideas (Aaron has already contributed a few). Can you guys help with this please?

T is 14 and when we go out, his supplies are in a bag that gets slung over his shoulder – well, his Dad’s shoulder actually. But he is now at that age when he doesn’t want to have to carry a ‘man bag’ with him. I guess it is just not cool.
But there is not way I let him go off with his mates without his jelly beans and meter.

Aaron, as an…

Aaron: My endo made my day.

Aaron — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:30:23 +0000

I was at the diabetes clinic a couple of weeks ago (twice in a week actually) to see the diabetes nurse and my then endo as happens once a year for the Dr and bi-annually for the nurse like the rest of you.

After twenty years of these visits and numerous Drs, nurses, dieticians others I had reached the point more than once of being quite fed up with it all. That said, I have to say that the team I have at the moment from the dietician to the specialist and the nurse are absolutely fantastic. I’ve not seen them that much yet because they are all relatively new and I only go once a year but what I…

Aaron: CGMS, here I come.

Aaron — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:30:35 +0000

I was at the outpatients clinic recently to see my diabetes nurse for our 6 monthly catch up and it couldn’t possibly have been better timing I have to say.

At the time I’d had a couple of rough weeks due to a lot of stress from various things that had been going on (which lead to this post) so it was good timing to be meeting with the diabetes nurse to be able talk over the hiccups and what might be going on to cause them. Lots and lots of highs had been causing me no end of problems and I needed to talk through some strategies to get things back on track.

One of the options…