Recent Posts - DAFNE Online

Sep 25, 2009

marke 681 posts

Topic: DAFNE Graduate Group (DGG) / Second meeting

The minutes of the second DUAG meeting are here . Unfortunately I was unable to attend so can only post the minutes rather than post details of what happened. Hopefully other DUAG members will be able to provide answers to any questions posed.

Sep 25, 2009

Aidan 2 posts

Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ?

Hi David,I've just completed a DAFNE course today. We here in Ireland get all our Long Term Illness medication free so if you use a Freestyle Lite BG meter let me know and I'll send you some.

Sep 24, 2009

GLS 12 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob!

well....

three hours on I am 5.1! (was 5.6 before dinner). So it seems to have been ok. I am pretty sure I counted the rest of my meal correctly.

So I guess the packet was right really. I haven't gone drastically low so its round about correct at 3.5 CP's for the normal size corn on the cob.
As its bed time though Ill have 1 CP I think!

Sep 24, 2009

Neil Sanderson 1 post

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Glucotabs: Where they can be found?

Hello You can buy Glucotabs from bbihealthcare.com hope this helps..

Sep 24, 2009

Karen Westwood 38 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob!

I would be interested to know how you got on with counting your corn on the cob. I have always counted sweetcorn pre DAFNE because like you say there is quite a lot of carbohydrate in it. I was surprised to find from my DAFNE course that you do not need to count either peas or sweetcorn because of how these are digested by the body. I haven't counted them since and don't seem to have any problems.

Look forward to seeing whether you was affected by counting it as 3.5 CPs.

Karen x

Sep 24, 2009

GLS 12 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Mobile Feature Requests

Thanks for your reply.

Yes I have seen the save password feature pop up in google chrome.... but I am also reluctant to do this for any site!

With the carb counter on my phone, it is readable but what happens is the carb value drops to the next line, rather than being on the same line as the other details (I hope this makes sense!) But its no big problem - its still usable and so good when you are on the go!

thanks
Gem

Sep 24, 2009

GLS 12 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob!

Corn on Cob - did you know?.....

Just thought i'd share this after I had a corn on the cob for dinner!

I wasnt going to bother checking/counting this as DAFNE says not to worry too much about vegetables etc!! But I glanced at the nutrition info and it said 100g of cob (cooked) was 19.6g!

I had a 185g piece (standard sort of size from shop - but double the sort of one you get at the harvester!) and so it worked out 3.5 CP's.

I was surprised by this! I went with it, and I guess ill see later whether its right!
Gems

Sep 24, 2009

DavidJ 23 posts

Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ?

Thanks for replying. I'll see how I do next week before I unleash my Dafne educator.

Sep 23, 2009

Karen Westwood 38 posts

Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ?

Hi, I too received a letter from my DAFNE educator which explained that I would be needing extra test strips following the course. I have had no problems in obtaining the strips from my GP. I think that to make DAFNE work you really do need to be able to do at least 4 tests a day so if I was you I would make an appointment with your GP and try to explain this to him/her face to face. If this doesn't work then maybe you could ask your DAFNE contact to get in touch with your GP (as Mandy suggested) and explain how important this is.

Good luck.

Karen

Sep 23, 2009

mandyrobertson9 10 posts

Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ?

Have you talked to your GP about it. I'm quite fortunate in that my GP has always been okay about ordering anything I need. I sometimes do up to 8 tests a day so can easily get through 50 strips a week. My DAFNE educator wrote to my practice explaining what we would need to follow the DAFNE course. Maybe you should contact them and see if they will speak to your GP/Consultant on your behalf.

Sep 23, 2009

marke 681 posts

Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE BG Diaries

If you have run out of BG Diaries and need some more there are two ways of getting them.

1) Contact your DAFNE Educator who should have some as they are sent them by DAFNE Central for distribution to graduates.

2) Go to this page and select what you want to order on the forms and they will send you some.

We would like to give you the option of printing it out from this site, however the electronic version is in a format for the 'printing' company and will not easily print on a home printer. We will continue to work on this and if/when its online we will let you know.

Sep 23, 2009

DavidJ 23 posts

Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ?

Hi. I graduated from the Dafne Course in June and have had reasonable success in applying it. However, I cannot get enough test strips to do even the minimum number of blood tests that Dafne recommends (4 per day), never mind testing before exercise, when you feel hypo or when you're about to drive. The consultant told me yesterday not to bother trying just do a couple a day. I'm going to see my practise nurse next week. Has anyone else experienced this?

Sep 22, 2009

john day 54 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Simple Form to assist Meal CP Calculation

On the basis that most people probably eat a limited range of meals fairly regularily I have designed a simple A5 form which can be stapled in the front of your Dafne Diary and filled by hand at meal times to assist manual calculation of these meal CPs from the portion sizes & ingredient CPs.

As well as providing the immediate meal CP, an organised record is built up so that you can subsequently look up for example '(My) Fish and chips' and see (say) 12 CP directly, rather than hunting for the scrap of paper you used for the meal calculation!

If anybody wants to try this form, I am happy to email one for you to print out. Contact me via the message facility, including giving me your email address, to request a form as a return email attachment.

Sep 21, 2009

belindad 2 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Introductions

Hi,
I 'm Belinda and was diagnosed in the days when we had to boil our syringes and metal needles to sterilize them: when we had to use pee from a pipette with a tablet in a test tube to see if our sugar levels were high several hours ago!! I have seen many changes to management of Type 1 diabetes.
I have been fortunate to have had long and exceptional help from my diabetes specialist team who have passed on a deal of knowledge and kept me very well indeed. I have a lovely husband, a 25 and a 28 year old all are healthy and happy.
More changes. Thank goodness I have been DAFNE'd as now my marvellous consultants are recently retired.
Can I rely on all you out there to keep me well informed please as I intend to live a long and healthy life?!

Sep 21, 2009

belindad 2 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Needle Bins

Hi, I'm new here.
This is what we do in Maidstone, kent.
Sharps bins are now prescribed under the new name of 'sharpsguard'.
We register with our council, are given a telephone number to call for collections and a yellow bin bag to fill with full sharpsguards.
Every so often I ring and am given a date for collection of the bin bag from my front door.
May I suggest you do not ask to have sharpsguards until you have found out how to dispose of them. You could very soon be knee deep in them!

Sep 21, 2009

Mike White 1 post

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Mobile site released

Blackberry Pearl.
Bingo!
Good Work.

Sep 21, 2009

NiVZ 82 posts

Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development

Hi everyone,

A few people have asked how you can upload readings from your meter to the site without having to type them. I'm currently working on doing this for my OneTouch UltraEasy and UltraSmart but might try to extend it further depending how well it works.

If anyone can lend a hand please feel free to get in touch.

I'm going to describe briefly below how I've done this, and how people with other meters can contribute.

Luckily Lifescan provide the entire protocol for the OneTouch UltraEasy (http://www.lifescan.com/pdf/otdms/OneTouchUltraMiniProtocol.pdf)

This gives you the information you need to send commands to the meter and get the data back.

Next I downloaded a program called "Free Serial Port Monitor" and used this to watch the communication between the PC and the meter when running the software provided by Lifescan.

After watching the order the commands were sent, it was just a matter of being able to send the commands myself from my program and convert the values into something meaningful. I'm using a programming language called "AutoIT" but you could use any you are familiar with.

Nearly all meters work in a similar method using a USB to Serial cable. It's just a case of figuring out what commands you need to send to the meter and how to convert the computer numbers (hex) back into readable data.

Hopefully once this is a bit further down the line, some of you may want to contribute by downloading the "Serial Port Monitor" and send me the data produced when using your own meters software - this will save me having to source lots of different meters that I'll never use Smile

Thanks,

NiVZ

Sep 21, 2009

NiVZ 82 posts

Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference

Hi Johnwb & Simon,

I'm still working on the OneTouch at the moment and have got all parts of the UltraEasy working - just need to decide how much error checking I want to do for the communication between PC and meter and it should be finished. Unfortunately I've got a busy few weeks at the moment, decorating, best man at a wedding, birthday nights out, etc but I will definitely get it finished.

I looked at the UltraSmart briefly and can send commands back and forth, but figuring out the data is a bit more complicated for it Sad

I might go and make a thread detailing how I've done this so far, and how people with different meters can help since these are the only two meters I have at the moment and also so that others can add any of their programming knowledge.

Cheers,

NiVZ

Sep 20, 2009

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference

Hi John,

Thanks for your feedback - this issue has been raised before and one of our users is looking into doing this for his OneTouch Meter. I'll look into how we would go about extracting the info from the Bayer Contour meter, but this is a feature we intend to have on the site. Unfortunately it is complicated by the number of different meters and manufacturers, an the different ways they represent their BG data.

Rest assured that although it may take some time, we are working on this. Also - if anyone has any experience with this, or would like to lend a hand then please get in touch.

Thanks,

Simon

Sep 20, 2009

Johnwb 1 post

Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference

Hi Simon,
I find trend graphs very usefull but entering the data is a laborious task. I have a Bayer Contour meter that allows me to input data from the meter direct to my computor using a program supplied by the meter manufacturer to produce various graphs and lists.
Would it be possible to design the site to to accept this information from meters that have a download facility?

Thanks for a super Site, John

Sep 19, 2009

Stew B 125 posts

Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference

Simon, thanks for the graph solution - spot on! (As usual!). Stew

Sep 25, 2009 marke 681 posts	Topic: DAFNE Graduate Group (DGG) / Second meeting The minutes of the second DUAG meeting are here . Unfortunately I was unable to attend so can only post the minutes rather than post details of what happened. Hopefully other DUAG members will be able to provide answers to any questions posed.

Sep 25, 2009 Aidan 2 posts	Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ? Hi David,I've just completed a DAFNE course today. We here in Ireland get all our Long Term Illness medication free so if you use a Freestyle Lite BG meter let me know and I'll send you some.

Sep 24, 2009 GLS 12 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob! well.... three hours on I am 5.1! (was 5.6 before dinner). So it seems to have been ok. I am pretty sure I counted the rest of my meal correctly. So I guess the packet was right really. I haven't gone drastically low so its round about correct at 3.5 CP's for the normal size corn on the cob. As its bed time though Ill have 1 CP I think!

Sep 24, 2009 Neil Sanderson 1 post	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Glucotabs: Where they can be found? Hello You can buy Glucotabs from bbihealthcare.com hope this helps..

Sep 24, 2009 Karen Westwood 38 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob! I would be interested to know how you got on with counting your corn on the cob. I have always counted sweetcorn pre DAFNE because like you say there is quite a lot of carbohydrate in it. I was surprised to find from my DAFNE course that you do not need to count either peas or sweetcorn because of how these are digested by the body. I haven't counted them since and don't seem to have any problems. Look forward to seeing whether you was affected by counting it as 3.5 CPs. Karen x

Sep 24, 2009 GLS 12 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Mobile Feature Requests Thanks for your reply. Yes I have seen the save password feature pop up in google chrome.... but I am also reluctant to do this for any site! With the carb counter on my phone, it is readable but what happens is the carb value drops to the next line, rather than being on the same line as the other details (I hope this makes sense!) But its no big problem - its still usable and so good when you are on the go! thanks Gem

Sep 24, 2009 GLS 12 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Watch out - Corn on the cob! Corn on Cob - did you know?..... Just thought i'd share this after I had a corn on the cob for dinner! I wasnt going to bother checking/counting this as DAFNE says not to worry too much about vegetables etc!! But I glanced at the nutrition info and it said 100g of cob (cooked) was 19.6g! I had a 185g piece (standard sort of size from shop - but double the sort of one you get at the harvester!) and so it worked out 3.5 CP's. I was surprised by this! I went with it, and I guess ill see later whether its right! Gems

Sep 24, 2009 DavidJ 23 posts	Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ? Thanks for replying. I'll see how I do next week before I unleash my Dafne educator.

Sep 23, 2009 Karen Westwood 38 posts	Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ? Hi, I too received a letter from my DAFNE educator which explained that I would be needing extra test strips following the course. I have had no problems in obtaining the strips from my GP. I think that to make DAFNE work you really do need to be able to do at least 4 tests a day so if I was you I would make an appointment with your GP and try to explain this to him/her face to face. If this doesn't work then maybe you could ask your DAFNE contact to get in touch with your GP (as Mandy suggested) and explain how important this is. Good luck. Karen

Sep 23, 2009 mandyrobertson9 10 posts	Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ? Have you talked to your GP about it. I'm quite fortunate in that my GP has always been okay about ordering anything I need. I sometimes do up to 8 tests a day so can easily get through 50 strips a week. My DAFNE educator wrote to my practice explaining what we would need to follow the DAFNE course. Maybe you should contact them and see if they will speak to your GP/Consultant on your behalf.

Sep 23, 2009 marke 681 posts	Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE BG Diaries If you have run out of BG Diaries and need some more there are two ways of getting them. 1) Contact your DAFNE Educator who should have some as they are sent them by DAFNE Central for distribution to graduates. 2) Go to this page and select what you want to order on the forms and they will send you some. We would like to give you the option of printing it out from this site, however the electronic version is in a format for the 'printing' company and will not easily print on a home printer. We will continue to work on this and if/when its online we will let you know.

Sep 23, 2009 DavidJ 23 posts	Topic: General Discussion / How many Test Strips ? Hi. I graduated from the Dafne Course in June and have had reasonable success in applying it. However, I cannot get enough test strips to do even the minimum number of blood tests that Dafne recommends (4 per day), never mind testing before exercise, when you feel hypo or when you're about to drive. The consultant told me yesterday not to bother trying just do a couple a day. I'm going to see my practise nurse next week. Has anyone else experienced this?

Sep 22, 2009 john day 54 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Simple Form to assist Meal CP Calculation On the basis that most people probably eat a limited range of meals fairly regularily I have designed a simple A5 form which can be stapled in the front of your Dafne Diary and filled by hand at meal times to assist manual calculation of these meal CPs from the portion sizes & ingredient CPs. As well as providing the immediate meal CP, an organised record is built up so that you can subsequently look up for example '(My) Fish and chips' and see (say) 12 CP directly, rather than hunting for the scrap of paper you used for the meal calculation! If anybody wants to try this form, I am happy to email one for you to print out. Contact me via the message facility, including giving me your email address, to request a form as a return email attachment.

Sep 21, 2009 belindad 2 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Introductions Hi, I 'm Belinda and was diagnosed in the days when we had to boil our syringes and metal needles to sterilize them: when we had to use pee from a pipette with a tablet in a test tube to see if our sugar levels were high several hours ago!! I have seen many changes to management of Type 1 diabetes. I have been fortunate to have had long and exceptional help from my diabetes specialist team who have passed on a deal of knowledge and kept me very well indeed. I have a lovely husband, a 25 and a 28 year old all are healthy and happy. More changes. Thank goodness I have been DAFNE'd as now my marvellous consultants are recently retired. Can I rely on all you out there to keep me well informed please as I intend to live a long and healthy life?!

Sep 21, 2009 belindad 2 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Needle Bins Hi, I'm new here. This is what we do in Maidstone, kent. Sharps bins are now prescribed under the new name of 'sharpsguard'. We register with our council, are given a telephone number to call for collections and a yellow bin bag to fill with full sharpsguards. Every so often I ring and am given a date for collection of the bin bag from my front door. May I suggest you do not ask to have sharpsguards until you have found out how to dispose of them. You could very soon be knee deep in them!

Sep 21, 2009 Mike White 1 post	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Mobile site released Blackberry Pearl. Bingo! Good Work.

Sep 21, 2009 NiVZ 82 posts	Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development Hi everyone, A few people have asked how you can upload readings from your meter to the site without having to type them. I'm currently working on doing this for my OneTouch UltraEasy and UltraSmart but might try to extend it further depending how well it works. If anyone can lend a hand please feel free to get in touch. I'm going to describe briefly below how I've done this, and how people with other meters can contribute. Luckily Lifescan provide the entire protocol for the OneTouch UltraEasy (http://www.lifescan.com/pdf/otdms/OneTouchUltraMiniProtocol.pdf) This gives you the information you need to send commands to the meter and get the data back. Next I downloaded a program called "Free Serial Port Monitor" and used this to watch the communication between the PC and the meter when running the software provided by Lifescan. After watching the order the commands were sent, it was just a matter of being able to send the commands myself from my program and convert the values into something meaningful. I'm using a programming language called "AutoIT" but you could use any you are familiar with. Nearly all meters work in a similar method using a USB to Serial cable. It's just a case of figuring out what commands you need to send to the meter and how to convert the computer numbers (hex) back into readable data. Hopefully once this is a bit further down the line, some of you may want to contribute by downloading the "Serial Port Monitor" and send me the data produced when using your own meters software - this will save me having to source lots of different meters that I'll never use Thanks, NiVZ

Sep 21, 2009 NiVZ 82 posts	Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference Hi Johnwb & Simon, I'm still working on the OneTouch at the moment and have got all parts of the UltraEasy working - just need to decide how much error checking I want to do for the communication between PC and meter and it should be finished. Unfortunately I've got a busy few weeks at the moment, decorating, best man at a wedding, birthday nights out, etc but I will definitely get it finished. I looked at the UltraSmart briefly and can send commands back and forth, but figuring out the data is a bit more complicated for it I might go and make a thread detailing how I've done this so far, and how people with different meters can help since these are the only two meters I have at the moment and also so that others can add any of their programming knowledge. Cheers, NiVZ

Sep 20, 2009 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference Hi John, Thanks for your feedback - this issue has been raised before and one of our users is looking into doing this for his OneTouch Meter. I'll look into how we would go about extracting the info from the Bayer Contour meter, but this is a feature we intend to have on the site. Unfortunately it is complicated by the number of different meters and manufacturers, an the different ways they represent their BG data. Rest assured that although it may take some time, we are working on this. Also - if anyone has any experience with this, or would like to lend a hand then please get in touch. Thanks, Simon

Sep 20, 2009 Johnwb 1 post	Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference Hi Simon, I find trend graphs very usefull but entering the data is a laborious task. I have a Bayer Contour meter that allows me to input data from the meter direct to my computor using a program supplied by the meter manufacturer to produce various graphs and lists. Would it be possible to design the site to to accept this information from meters that have a download facility? Thanks for a super Site, John

Sep 19, 2009 Stew B 125 posts	Topic: Site Development / Graphs - now I can really see the difference Simon, thanks for the graph solution - spot on! (As usual!). Stew