Life with diabetes - then and now!

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The other day I was grumbling about the many times I have to prick my fingers to check blood sugars, when I recalled what a trying time I had had trying to manage diabetes for the past 44 years. In fact I realized that I should not be complaining but be grateful for the so many new gadgets, which have made now monitoring and managing diabetes so much easier, and as a result have made our lives much more comfortable, than it was, say about three decades ago!

I went back into the era when there were no meters for checking blood sugars, no disposable syringes or sticks for checking urine sugars and ketones and no sugarless foodstuff to gorge. I remember the tedious time my mother and I had just checking the sugar in my urine. I had a small spirit lamp and would mix 8 drops of urine in 5 ml of benedict solution in a test tube and keep it on flame for about 2 minutes and check the colour change. If it was blue it was very good, green was good and yellow was bad and orange and brick red were really bad (that is the sugar was very high!). Now the limitation was that though blue was very good, it could mean it was lower than about 180 but one could not tell whether it was say 140 or 40 and red could mean 300 or even 500. Now we have sticks for testing sugars - just a dip in the sample of urine and a few seconds wait, and one has the result.

And as for the blood tests - I would go to the laboratory lugging my insulin and breakfast along, give a fasting sample (which was drawn intravenously and was therefore painful) and then wait for two hours to give the port-prandial blood sugar sample. And all this would give me the profile only for the fasting blood sugar and the one after breakfast, so I was clueless as to what my sugars were for the rest of the day! I recall the mornings when I would not get up and my mother would scold me, both of us not realizing that I was actually having a hypo at that time. The numerous hypos I had at the work place and outside, which could have been averted had I known which way my sugars were going, and also the many hospital stays, because of high sugars and ketones could have been avoided. When one was ill and had high ketone levels, there was no quick way of knowing except from the lab tests. Now you just dip a strip in the urine sample and know whether you have ketones or not and if so, you can take remedial action.

Now we are also lucky to have disposable syringes (which can be discarded after use) with very fine needles, therefore much less painful. These can be carried easily during travel, as there is no sterilization needed. About twenty years ago, we had glass syringes, which along with the needles had to be sterilized in boiling water after each use. I cannot imagine now sterilizing the syringes four times a day! This process was quite cumbersome during travel and during hectic schedules or exams or when a shot had to be taken at the work place, and quite painful too as the needles were thick and more painful compared to the fine needles of syringes and insulin pens these days. And of course we had to be careful that we do not break the fragile syringes. Now we also have insulin pens, which are even less painful than the disposable syringes and are very convenient to carry, during travel, meetings etc.

Now with the advent of a meter, life is so much easier and predictable. We need not go to the laboratories nor make wild guesses whether our sugar is 40 or 120 and most importantly, we know our blood sugar profile for the whole day. Whenever in doubt, we just prick a finger with the lancet and know exactly where we stand! And when we are sick and sugars are very high, we have the option to check the urine for ketones, thanks to the sticks, which are available now and this helps avert so many hospital stays as we can increase our rapid acting insulin dose and bring the sugars under control. This has helped me prevent so many hospitalization stays, as earlier whenever the sugars were out of control, I was admitted for stabilization, and it was quite often that I landed with high sugar and ketones levels! Now I also have the liberty to have variation in my food timings and quantity with the sugar results at hand. And the meter has helped me immensely in detecting night hypos! When in doubt, just check the sugar and take remedial action, it is so easy.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.