Wednesday, November 25, 2009

What would happen if there was a cure tomorrow...


What would happen to the pharmaceutical companies that make millions on Diabetes supplies? What would happen to the pharmacies that get hundreds of dollars each and every month from lifelong customers like our family? What would happen to the companies that make insulin pumps that cost over $7000 each plus supplies to be able to use it?

I have a pretty good idea of what would happen to our family since I dream about a cure quite a bit, but what would happen to all the other people mentioned above who do not play the Type 1 game themselves but a good portion of their paycheque comes from the people who do? How would a cure affect the world's business economy?

Since the discovery of insulin in 1921 by Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best, the Type 1 Diabetes treatement has essentially stayed the same - inject insulin to keep the person alive by preventing blood glucose from rising too much. Most advancements have been in developing tools to enable Type 1 players to have a better chance of keeping their glucose levels closer to normal. And most of these advancements are not even close to being affordable for the middle-class player with no insurance.

How fast could a cure be found if every single person on this planet really, really wanted one?

As far as our own Type 1 game these days, Adele was a bit high this morning (11.9). Her CGM had one arrow up meaning that her sugar is trending up. This is expected since her pump was disconnected from her infusion set when she woke up. She said that she remembers the pump tubing being caught in her blankets and that she had to pull on it to get it "unstuck". I'm not really sure when that happened but she wasn't getting any insulin after her pump accidentally got disconnected which caused the high sugar. We reconnected, ate breakfast and sent her to school. Her sugar climbed up to 20.1 one hour after her breakfast, not the best way to start the day. Apparently the insulin debt from the time that she was disconnected was greater than I thought. Time to rethink our game plan for today and try to bring things back under control...

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