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Jun 11, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Hi Michael. I too used to inject in the filthy toilets and sterilise my blunt steel needles and glass syringes in boiling water before going to school. I quickly realised that most people today in shopping centres simply don’t look or even care. They have more important things on their mind such as KFC nuggets.It’s interesting your comments about urine testing once a day. It was never a stable method of testing blood sugars due to the sugars in the urine being held in the bladder for long periods, yet better than nothing. It’s also fascinating how one can test once a day and hopefully remain alive after many years. I have never heard the advice to test once a day from any doctor over 50 years? It appears some Type1 diabetics for unexplained reasons can minimally test and have minimal damage from long term high blood sugars yet most of us pay the ultimate price. Are you one of the lucky few? |
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Jun 8, 2019
michaelj
45 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Many years ago I was criticised for doing an injection in a restaurant and told I should do it in the toilets. My response was, Next time you go to your doctor for a jab tell him you want to do it in the toilets and see what he says. Personally as long as you are discreet about it most people will not even notice.As regards blood sugar levels Whden I was diagnosed on 1961 there were no blood sugar testing devices only a very haphazard urine testing system which although better than nothing didn't tell you a lot. Regarding sugar levels my doctor just said as long as you get one decent reading a day yuo'll be fine a principle |Oi have lived with since. |
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Jun 7, 2019
marke
681 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Spam thanks, but we both work in IT and know what the issue is. Sadly it is harder and harder to stop. The spam we are getting is generally NOT automated. We do have catchpa's etc, but all of these measures are relatively easily bypassed. There ARE ways to reduce SPAM but until ISP's and big email providers take the issue seriously and implement them it's very hard to block SPAM, especially on a site run with no finance to pay for filtering packages. |
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Jun 7, 2019
marke
681 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Hi, I'm with everyone else ( I guess would be :-) ) don't worry about it. The most interest thing I have is I am now lucky to enough to have a pump. No public injections just questions about my weird little device I play with at Meal times.The only time I expect looks but never seem to get them, is when I go through Airport security. i take the pump off and put it through the scanner, then collect it the other side. i stand there and re-attach what look like wires to my body and no one has ever really paid any attention or questioned me !When I had to do injections I just got on with it and didn't make a fuss and generally no one took any notice. I appreciate that it is easy to say don't worry about it, but I always found it was an opportunity to explain about Diabetes, what it is and why I had to inject. People are usually interested and sympathetic and rarely judge you..... |
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Jun 6, 2019
NottsKnots
10 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dafne Diary
If marke hasn't been able to get back to you, I have a PDF version. The font is a bit small, but hopefully you know what all the boxes are for by now, and it leaves more room to write in the data  . PM me with your email address and I’ll send it across.Edit: I’ve put it on OneDrive, so this link might work? First time I’ve tried sharing, so let me know if it doesnt allow you access. https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmkuNF75s3tIghUj_M0VaQZg1nQX |
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Jun 5, 2019
NottsKnots
10 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression I lost any inhibitions 25 years ago whilst reading about a girl who was traveling around Africa; there werent really any facilities that she could use, so she injected through jeans! I dont think anyone these days would recommend that, but if she could do that in public, then what the h3ll was my problem.Be discrete - if you have loose clothing a belly jab can be done almost invisibly behind a table whilst sitting (at a restaurant or at a work desk). If you are wearing a jacket (suit or coat) then its an easy shield. Heck, I even do it on planes, and I cant hide that from the person sitting next to me. I find that getting the test kit out for a BG measurement tends to diffuse any thoughts they may have. Get a snazzy insulin pen - no druggy has a designer pen, so that also tends to make anyone who notices less concerned. Its more and more common to see people, and I always mention diabetes to colleagues - for safety reasons, in case I ever have a bad hypo and need help. That way everyone knows whats going on and pretty much ignores me after day 1 (and being a contractor, I work for a lot of different clients). I try to spread the word far and wide, so more people become aware anyway. As already said, no-one else really cares or notices what you get up to; the more observant in society tend to be the more intelligent and have some idea of the difference between medication and abuse. So, do it and dont worry about it: give it a few weeks and you’ll forget all about it. NEVER miss the dose for something as daft as that: avoiding the complications of diabetes is WAY more important to you than a little perception of someone elses thoughts (that they are probably not having - its almost certainly in your head only, so banish it). Good luck. |
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May 29, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Spam This continuous spamming of our great forum is destroying the validity of our site!I have copied ways of minimising this crap. Maybe others have suggestions. It’s our site! Spam is the scourge of the internet and can do significant damage to your community if it is left unchecked. There are two kinds of spammers to worry about: spambots and human spammers. Bots are unintelligent software programs that automate the posting of spam and can usually be easily defeated since they are rigid in their behaviour. Human spammers present a greater challenge since they can bypass the traps that catch bots and can quickly change their behaviour. Spam post in forum Why would humans be spamming your forum and how can this make money? Most forum spammers aren't trying to get you to buy something, they are attempting to get higher rankings in search engines by creating lots of links from your pages to their own site. Here are some suggestions on how to defeat the spammers: 1. Make sure links in your forum are set to ‘nofollow’. This tells search engine crawlers not to follow the links and therfore, SEO spammers will derive no benefit from spamming your forum. (Vanilla’s links are nofollow by default.) 2. Make sure registration includes a CAPTCHA. Captcha’s are those slightly deformed images of words and you see on sign up pages. Captcha’s do a pretty good job of keeping out spam bots. 3. Require email confirmation before allowing someone to post. Bots and humans can get around this but it's an extra bit of efforts that most real people won't mind. 4. Enable anti-spam plugins. These plugins can automatically detect suspected spam based on links, IP addresses, email addresses and the comment itself. Keep in mind that these plugins are not 100% effective and do sometimes return false positives. 5. Don’t allow editing of comments after a few minutes have passed. A frequent trick used by spammers is to create a comment that doesn’t look out of place (For example: "This is a great post, very insightful.") and then will come back after a couple of weeks and edit the comment to include spam links. 6. Get the whole community involved. Ask members to help out moderators and flag spam. In Vanilla, this can be done with the Spam Reaction. 7. Be ruthless. Moderators and admin should review the spam queue on a daily basis, ban spammers and delete all their content. 8. Only allow members that have proven themselves and have a reputation to be allowed to post links. In Vanilla, it’s possible to prevent members with a low Rank from posting links, editing comments, etc. Ranks are earned by accumulating reputation points or making a certain number of posts. 9. Provide information on advertising and partnering opportunities you might offer and make it clear in your community guidelines what is and what is not acceptable promotion. This can help with accidental spammers who are trying to legitimately sell something to your audience. While spammers are always looking for ways around your defences, following these suggestions will help to eliminate spam. |
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May 27, 2019
sjohno
37 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dismal Hba1c levels
Hi torana Just had the recent Hba1c results back, the last one was 6.3 in Sept 2018, May 2019 is 6.5. I'm happy considering I had 6 weeks just sitting .
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May 26, 2019
Carolyn81
1 post
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Topic: General Discussion / Dafne Diary Do you still have a link available Marke. |
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May 25, 2019
alturn
78 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Inject with pride - it's other people who might have a problem.I've never had an issue injecting/testing in public, if anybody is nearby and curious I would just explain. And I would never consider using a toilet unless had to inject other than in stomach. |
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May 25, 2019
sjohno
37 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Hi MichaelI used to have the same thoughts as you but now I very happily test my BG and inject my QA whilst sitting in food places. You'll notice that your surrounding audience are involved/engrossed in their own social activities. If anyone does catch sight of you injecting and they're brave enough to voice their opinion (alot aren't and wouldn't) it is at the end of the day none of their business and you have an excellent explanation if you were ever questioned lol. I wouldn't inject my BI as I do this in my bum...........I do go to the loo to do that  Good luck, you will be fine. Sarah |
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May 25, 2019
Michael Bortoft
1 post
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Anxiety and depression Hi all new to the diabetes I am type 1 and inject my bi 2 times a day and my QA ever time I eat at the moment I am finding it hard to come to terms with injecting in public before I did the DAFNE course I would just avoid taking my insulin if I was out I seem to have this overwhelming fear off people watching me and judging me thinking am some sort of druggie Advice would be gratefully welcome
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May 24, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Valid criticism or comments are always useful for improving any organisation, especially DAFNE yet there is a lack of research on long term CGM readings leading to lower HBa1c levels. CGM manufacturers’ research suggests that continuous glucose readings lead to lower Hba1c levels in the short term yet other recent research has highlighted that 92% of Type1 diabetics, with or without new technologies, are outside the normative Hba1c range. This seems to compare to the huge profitable weight loss industry where there is also an intense initial educational program with positive expectations, yet the failure rate as we all know is a mammoth 95 per cent in the long term. Yes, we need to question DAFNE in that there may be also initial success but in the long term, statistically, we are tempted by our takeaway culture and the difficulties in juggling the huge number of Type1 variables. No doubt, this reality, no matter how dismal or complex, should always be a foundation for discussion. |
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May 23, 2019
Warwick
423 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Flash and continuous monitoring I use CGM most of the time (Dexcom) and I find that it is quite compatible with DAFNE. I completed the OZDAFNE course in 2012 and have been using CGM since 2015.I'm not sure what additions to the course I would make to include CGM. If my BGLs go high, then I inject and if they go low, then I eat. But that is standard stuff anyway that you do if you take a BGL meter reading. I love seeing patterns on my CGM and it certainly helps with working out if my basal dose is correct or not, but it is just another tool that helps. |
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May 23, 2019
marke
681 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Flash and continuous monitoring Hi, I should point out that this is a totally personal point of view and does not reflect the DAFNE Programme view OR necessarily Dafneonline.So with that out of the way, I would say the people lucky enough to have Flash or CGM's are unlikely to be typical DAFNE graduates by a long way, they are likely to be a minority at best. They are of course entitled to their opinions however the vast majority are not going to get access to this technology anytime soon , so why invest a huge amount of effort adjusting the course for a few people. Wow controversial I know but reality I think. As it happens I was chatting yesterday with my Consultant and she told me if I wanted to get the Freestyle Libre on the NHS I needed to test 8 times a day for a month. Apparently the Libre is then cheaper than test strips for the NHS and she can prescribe it. Great logic huh ? She was not convinced it was the best CGM anyway. Apparently Medtronic are just releasing a new pump a 670 ( I have a 640) and it will have an integrated CGM. The sensors for it will cost around £450 per year and are more accurate than the Libre. However again she/we would need to convince the NHS to pay the extra £650 on the base cost of the pump. Then again I guess the majority don't even have pumps so again maybe not relevant. There is a new DAFNE Course and it will probably include a device to make getting readings into a system easier probably via bluetooth. However I don;t know what stage they have got to with it and again personally I think they are chasing the wrong idea but such is life,,,,, |
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May 23, 2019
MIke P
8 posts
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Does anyone know if there any plans to update the DAFNE course to take account of the dynamic readings from Flash and continuous blood glucose monitors? I ask because I’ve read some recent critical FB posts from recent graduates saying how out of touch the course feels to those who have been using this technology. Is the need for change recognised and if so, are training needs now being addressed? |
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May 19, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / changing to levemir- advice please Hi Marke,It’s not only annoying. It’s highly devious, deceptive and delegitimises honest threads made by DAFNE members. The deleted thread was by “allbpurcbd” and it’s evident by the inclusion in the title that CBD is a focus of sales, not just flowers. Many members, may have tried CBD tablets for whatever reasons, yet now how can we believe their forum threads, in that they may be just a part of these pop up shops and members of sales teams infiltrating our pages. You do fantastic work, yet like many of us it’s hard to juggle all of life’s responsibilities by yourself against these time wasters and “users” in the literal sense. Maybe, other DAFNE members have suggestions to eliminate these “users.” |
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May 19, 2019
marke
681 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / changing to levemir- advice please Hi, I know its VERY annoying. I keep deleting these accounts when I spot them but they keep creating new ones.... |
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May 17, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / changing to levemir- advice please Hi everyone,Something has to be done about these advertisements appearing constantly on the DAFNE site! The above thread by allpurcbd appears to be a graduate however dumps this trash regarding flowers on the same site related to someone’s diabetic health problems on insulin. I have a suggestion that we widen the net to eliminate these self serving users. Why not have a number of trustworthy members that can eliminate these advertising threads as they appear on our site instead of leaving the onus to one person? |
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May 7, 2019
torana
53 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dosage auto-calculation in apps Hi Simon Well done on the site. It would appear that the DAFNE app to upload blood glucose information is widely used and appreciated by members. I make this assumption because most members online have no posts against their names and hence would most probably be only accessing the app.I have one suggestion for the app that the location of the injection site on the app includes both the left and right side of the stomach. I alternate stomach sides weekly, using the top half for my quick acting and the lower section below the navel for the long acting insulin. Most diabetic educators have stated to me that the stomach is the most reliable area for the needle. |
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May 2, 2019
Simon
578 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dosage auto-calculation in apps
Still, this is difficult for some people - and I don't see why they should be belittled for that. Switching gears a bit, what was the constructive feedback you had about the app? |
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May 2, 2019
jh0
16 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dosage auto-calculation in apps
You can understand why. The App is offering 'medical advice' when it's not actually doing this. Importantly, given the direction that this discussion has gone in, people seem to think that it's ok to be considered literate even if they're innumerate. Basic arithmetic, barely number crunching. |
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May 2, 2019
Simon
578 posts
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Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Pulling BG from Apple Health Would people use this feature? For me I use a DexCom G6 which pushes my BG reading to Apple health every 5 mins. Given the right permissions the DAFNE Online app could pull your latest BG from Health and populate that in the editor when you're adding a new entry. If that's useful then I see it happening a couple of ways:1. A button on the BG row of the editor itself to pull the latest reading from Apple Health 2. A popup when you're adding an entry asking if you want to add BG manually or from Apple Health 3. Other suggestions welcome Let me know your thoughts. |
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May 2, 2019
Simon
578 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Dosage auto-calculation in apps Just to clear up some definitions:Illiterate - unable to read or write Innumerate - without a basic knowledge of mathematics and arithmetic It's an unfortunate truth that Type 1 Diabetes doesn't choose to only affect those who are good with numbers. The dosage calculation in the app was intended to help those out with the number crunching needed to follow the DAFNE principles correctly. It did show all the working out that were performed so people could verify these themselves. As we have already described we were told to remove it as it meant that the app was classified as a 'medical device'. Thanks for the messages of support on this thread - it's great to know that there's people out there still getting value out of the app and site in spite of features needing to be removed. As ever if there are any specific features you'd like to see or feedback you'd like to share (ideally more specific than the App needs improving considerably) then don't hesitate to get in touch. |