7/18/08
(Before we get going, let me first say I am not a doctor and I have had no formal medical training. Nothing you read here should be construed as traditionally informed medical advice. Any inferences are made solely by the reader and any action taken by the reader is entirely that person’s responsibility. Everything I say here is based entirely and solely on my own experiences and research, for which I will, as much as possible, cite my references. Also, it should be noted that the commercial insulins referred to herein are all trademarked products, and if you don’t see a trademark insignia, it should be assumed to be present. I also want to point out that even for a non-diabetic, I am in excellent health still, showing almost none of the usual complications of diabetes, such as retinopathy, the uncontrolled growth of blood vessels over the retina which is the reason diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in the US. This is my 1st blog and it is presently under construction, so please bear with me. In the near future I intend to post a photo of myself, showing as much skin as possible, so you can see for yourself what kind of shape I’m in. I am also going to detail how to prevent retinopathy and other measures for maintaining health, particularly beneficial for diabetics, but also for the general public. It will take probably a few weeks to get it all together.)
My name is Michael Damian Dana, I am now 52 years old. I was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic (juvenile onset) in June, 1974. This was almost immediately before starting college, and I pretty much ignored the condition, save for taking my daily insulin injections each morning. I was given no further instructions beyond that, and I ate almost anything I wanted, with the sole exception of avoiding sugar. Amazingly, it was three years before I ended up in DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis). I had actually stopped taking shots for several weeks, the previous year, while I backpacked much of the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Virginia, believing that the exercise I was getting every day would allow me to do this, as indeed, it did. I resumed shots, with no complications, when I reached my destination, visiting close friends in Glasgow, Va. Although a year after being diagnosed, I’m now fairly sure I was still in the “honeymoon” period,” that often follows the initial diagnosis, which allowed me to be more relaxed than I could be thereafter in following the usual treatment guidelines. Also, in college, I was studying martial arts three nights a week, taking archery, some dance and riding a bicycle as my principal means of transportation. So I was getting plenty of exercise. This was probably what allowed me to eat large quantities of food daily, without causing extreme sugar ‘excursions,’ as high blood sugars are referred to in the textbooks. That is not to say that they didn’t occasionally happen, but when I felt my sugar to be high, I would stop eating for a few hours, until my insulin caught up with my sugar and brought it back down. Taking care of low blood sugars was even easier, since I would quickly start experiencing the symptoms of insulin shock when my sugar dropped below 90, in plenty of time to eat some sugar or sweet food. (This is no longer the case for me, and this insensitivity to low blood sugar, called “hypoglycemia unawareness” has been one of the worse consequences of Lilly’s decision to stop making animal insulins.) During this time, my doctor at the time had not informed me there were more varieties of insulin than the 24 hour NPH (from beef and pork insulin) I was taking, probably believing that since I was doing fairly well, making me aware of faster-acting insulins, such as Regular insulin (now no longer available) which onset, peaked and offset in only 3 hours, would only result in complications.
Inevitably, this caught up with me and in spring 1977, I had my first (and last) experience with acidosis, an elctrolyte imbalance caused by the metabolism of fat for fuel by the body’s cells as a result of being unable to access the blood glucose normally used for energy. After a period of time, usually (but not always) a few days, this typically results in coma or death by cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain. While the condition progresses, the brain is unable to properly receive or transmit signals, and let me tell you, this is a truly terrifying experience. You know something’s badly wrong, but you can’t think well enough to understand what it is or take action ( like taking more insulin) to remedy it. The night this happened, I was eventually able, with my roommate’s help, to telephone my doctor and ask him if I should take more insulin. He agreed, although I now know it was probably more as a psychological aid than anything else, since the 24 hour NPH insulin would do very little to relieve my immediate condition, taking 1.5 hours to onset and not peaking for 8 hours, by which time I would see him, as I did the next morning. Fortunately, his office was only a short walk from my apartment and I was there as soon as it opened. He immediately reserved a hospital bed for me, and my roommate took me there that afternoon. With the appropriate insulin, he quickly brought down my sugar, but kept me there several days for observation.
While I was there, my food intake was measured and it turned out I was eating more than 2,500 calories a day. This may not be that much for a large person, but I’m only 5′3″ and at that time even skinnier than I am now. For more than the last twenty years, my daily caloric intake has been only around 900 calories, and after the substitution of Humulin (TM) for insulin, often far less. My weight, however has remained fairly constant, now, 128 lbs, and at that time, 115lbs.
(One of my science heroes is the late Dr Roy Walford [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Walford], whose research into gerontology, the study of aging, led me in the mid 80s to drastically reduce my caloric consumption. This reduction in food intake is one of the things that has kept me so healthy, and I believe, although I can’t yet prove, is one of the main reasons my hair is still very dark, as a result of the reduction of free radical generation). Hey, I just looked it up, and it seems I’m not alone in that opinion, check out this site:http://ask.yahoo.com/20020926.html
I was released from hospital a few days later, having been informed by doctor about the existence of fast-acting insulins, and Lente insulin, also a 24 hour activity cycle, but which allowed me to mix, if necessary, Regular and Lente in the same syringe. It was at this time, I began looking for my own answers about my condition, and I found them! Over the next few years I came to conclusions, sometimes not shared by doctors, which allowed me from then until animal insulins were removed by Lilly and Novo, the only two major manufacturers of insulin worldwide, to keep my sugar so closely under control, that when, in 1996, I was given my 1st HbA1c test (glycosylated hemoglobin, a marker indicating the attachment of sugar to hemoglobin molecules, itself not immediately dangerous [see 'Glycosylation Reconsidered' below], but which act as a marker for the control of diabetes) the doctor who examined me was amazed to find it was only 4.5%, when the normal, non-diabetic level is 4%. The word he used was ‘astonishing’. Even now, the ADA (American Diabetic Association), only recommends it be kept under 7%, in my opinion, way too high. I did discover, a few years ago, a (then) small company in England, where I was born, CP Pharmaceuticals, which continued to make animal insulins. They have since been bought out by an Indian (I believe) company and are now known as Wockhardt, UK. (http://www.wockhardt.co.uk/). Unfortunately, the US government has thrown up immense roadblocks to the importation of animal insulins from overseas (and even Canada), at at last count (this is some years ago) less than 50 of the tens of thousands of type 1 diabetics in this country that need animal insulin, have actually been able to import it. (Megan Romano, Genewatch magazine, 2003: http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/16-6romano.html.
(9/5/08 I’ve posted these links and others to follow, in the blogroll at top right)
I’m going to stop now and go to bed, but I’ll pick this up again tomorrow. In the days to come, I intend to create sidebars devoted to particular topics, with links to sites, both scientific and personal, that will provide shortcuts to essential articles. I will also state the four essential principles I believe will allow most or all type 1s to maintain their health, it’s just too late right now. This isn’t just for diabetics, anybody can benefit from these practices. One of them is the means of preventing retinopathy, another is the cure for osteopenia/osteoporosis (without having to pay for a biophosphonate such as (TM) Fosamax, a hideously expensive, and basically unnecessary moneymaker for Big Pharma ( the collective name given to the united organization of pharmaceutical companies). ( I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 2001, saw a specialist who assured me I would develop a hump (and he was a very good doctor and person, no criticism of him is implied, he just said what he’d been told was true), and yet not only do I not have a hump, but was able to replace about 4/5 of the spinal disintegration I had experienced, that is regained 2.5″ of the 3″ I had lost in height! More will follow, stay tuned.
