11 years ago ive became a diabetic. a lot has changed for me. pump, cgm, etc. so for you what has it been like and what changes have you made and seen?
3 Likes
Congrats on the milestone AMC!
1 Like
thanks! i still have ways to go tho as we all do. but im glad to be on the pump and cgm. i dont think i could be a diabetic that well without it
1 Like
Congratulations!
In a couple week I’ll mark my 11 year pumpaversary. 
(Ironic that I’m doing a trial of Tresiba, so may not even be on a pump for that date.)
I just passed my 26 year diaversary and I’m still learning.
2 Likes
:)…now that is a new word, pumpversary :)…i like it :)…i dont know when mine was. i just know it was during the cold weather season. but cant pinpoint when. same with the cgm…i got that around the same time as the pump
thanks!
Mine was this year too! 27 in June. Also still learning!
Things are so different, I don’t even know where to start except to say I’m sometimes jealous in a way of the kids who are born into this era of diabetes care instead of when I was, but I’m sure the people way before me might have felt the same thing toward my cohort, and so it goes. I think the not having to match your food intake all day to the combo shot of R/NPH (or Lente) you took in the morning 30 min before breakfast was a major change that made diabetes suck less.
2 Likes
Yup. One shot of R and NPH in the morning is what I started with, too. Actually, I think for the first three weeks I just took one shot of NPH in the morning, but I ran ridiculously high the entire time, so they added in R (I still have that first logbook).
At least we had meters. But nothing much was done with those four daily readings except to adjust the next morning’s R/NPH dose.
Sometimes I feel like today’s diabetes, with pumps and CGMs, is an entirely different disease. Though I’m very glad for the advances and better control.
2 Likes
Also, it makes me feel old sometimes that there are so many people, maybe a majority of people in the diabetes online community, who have never used R or NPH. But I suppose those who were diagnosed before meters feel the same way about those of us who never measured glucose in our urine…
3 Likes
before meters wow. i dont know how they would know how much insulin to give themselves.or did they have meters. i dont know much about the R or NPH. i was on humalog and lantus at first and now im on novolog for my pump and if it fails i use levimir as the long acting
@amymc When my grandfather contracted diabetes they didn’t even have insulin! That was just 100 years ago.
oh boy! what on earth did they do???
They died.
It was a fatal disease before 1921, when Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered how to extract insulin from the pancreas of certain mammals and inject it into humans.
In January 1922, 14 year-old Leonard Thompson was the first person with diabetes to receive an insulin injection.
1 Like
As @Eric said, he died about eight years after diagnosis. From what I’m told it was a pretty miserable eight years.
im sure when insulin came out it was a joy for those that have diabetes. now if we can find a cure that would be another joy
1 Like
I know they didn’t have T1 and T2 classifications back then, but I would assume he was more like a T2 since he lasted 8 years?
Yes - my kid is so lucky to have diabetes. oh wait… 
I agree - the old R/NPH thing twice a day put a huge crimp in my social life as a kid/teenager.
I remember the shackles being released when I started to do R/NPH MDI in the late '90s even though I had to prebolus the R at least 1/2 hour before the meals.
1 Like
Elizabeth Hughes Gossett was diagnosed in 1918 at the age of 11. She manged to hang on without insulin until 1922.
That would be 4 years of a pretty miserable life on a calorie restricted diet.
The cool thing is she lived until 1981, which is a pretty long life for someone with diabetes in the dark ages of treatment.
You may be interested in Shoshana’s story, posted in TuD. She was diagnosed in 1936, at age 3, and died just this past January.
(this link has post from rphil2 with her history).
4 Likes