Dealing with Diabetes

Please check with your doctor before proceeding on this because doctors advice is the best.

Conventional way of administering insulin is using a disposable syringe. The insulin has to be kept in refridgerator to retain its potency. Its painful to inject using normal syringe and psychologically the person migh feel low(SUBJECTIVE).

I had a feeling which I have described above. Doctor suggested to go for NovoPen. Just contacted Novonordisk. And within 3 hrs time received a call from the sales person who came with the device, needles, insulin catridges.

The cost would be

1. NovoPen device - 600 Rs

2. Catridges(Mixtard 50% - insulin 300 Units) set of 5 - 1100 Rs.

3. Needles - 9 Rs. each

The NovoPen device body is naturally cold - The sales person explained that its made of some alloy which keeps it relatively cold. I didnt quiet understand this mechanism. But it is cold atleast to an extent. The catridege and needle needs to be fitted to this pen. With a little practice anyone can do this easily. Once the catridge is fitted to the pen refridgeration is not required. The spare catridges need to be stored in the fridge(but not any where near the freezer compartment). Now everytime I use the pen its relatively less painful compared to the normal injections. One needle comes to almost 8 or even more injections. Once you get pain you can change the needle.

The sales person gave a very nice demo and clear instructions about the device.

Please check with your doctor before proceeding on this because doctors advice is the best.

Notes on Diabetes treatment:

I had spoken to some doctors and paramedics on treatment for diabetes

One of the discussions were on whether to go for Oral drugs or Insulin

The following points might be helpful

1. Oral drugs are easy to administer. While insulin has to be injected.

2. Insulin is natural substitute to what our body produces. So zero side effects compared to oral medicines

3. Oral medicines dont contain insulin. They stimulate the pancreas’ beta cells to produce more insulin. Eventually on the long run pancreas can get tortured due to this.

4. Most doctors supported insulin. But only thing that needs to be kept in mind is hypoglycemia. This can happen with oral drugs too.

If slightly more insulin dosage is taken(more than what doctor prescribed) or if one forgets to take food on time the person can undergo hypoglycemia or low sugar. This can be dangerous. So the person can as a precautionary measure carry some high sugar food all the time like a chocolate bar, bananas etc. Just in case if low sugar happens the person can have a high sugar food immediately(symptoms can be - unusual sweating, hands shaking, feeling hungry suddenly, not able to talk properly(stammering, blabbering) etc.). In severe case person can go unconsious and can be fatal.