Recent Posts by marke - DAFNE Online

May 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / injection technequie and body deformation

Hi, I pinch some sites and not others. The basic issue is you want to avoid injecting into muscle, firstly because it will hurt Sad

and second because the absorption profile is different to fat/subcutaneous. This is what the diagram above is trying to show, If you, as I do, inject into your rear-end there is plenty of cushioning however the abdomen is a bit different and in some of us has areas with more fat than others Laughing

Of course needles are a lot shorter nowadays as well which makes life easier. It seems unlikely that pinching has caused deformations, although anything is possible.

May 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / New Graduate in DAFNE

As others have said, welcome and please feel free to ask questions, there is never a shortage of opinions or people happy to help. Doing DAFNE is the start of the journey and there are still plenty of interesting places to left to go Very Happy

May 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Exercise

I'm with Warwick, although I would say that your BG can be lower for upto 48 hours it doesn't necessarily equate to hypo's it just means be aware you may need less insulin than usual. In all the years I went to a gym I never once hypo-ed during exercise, it made my BG higher than normal a few times but never too low, so I wouldn't worry about hypo's or masked hypo awareness. As stated as well the DAFNE Handbook has a section on exercise that provides the basics.
I think the over-riding message is , don't worry ! enjoy the exercise it has loads of benefits and really is good for you. The benefits far out weight the negatives Very Happy

Apr 17, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Figure 17

Hi, can we avoid stuff like the last post please or I will just delete offending posts. This is a diabetes website not a bash other users website. Last time I walked down an english high street at night, there were plenty of people with a strange approach to class and sophistication Sad

Apr 13, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Faulty meters

Hi, its not all lifescan meters just the verio models. I have a couple of life scan meters and neither are effected by this issue.

Apr 8, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Injections

hmm maybe I should ban you for mentioning a brand Very Happy

only joking, the site is run by graduates and apart from the costs of having the site on a server which is paid for by the DAFNE Programme ( thank you !) we are totally independent and so hold no allegiance to any one or brand. So mention who you like.
As to the slow inhjection theory, I'm not sure I'm convinced by that one. However I don't think it will do any harm, I'm just not sure it provides a benefit. I just
count to ten and whip it out Wink

Apr 4, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / High BG

Hi, We probably need a bit more info to give sensible advice. What are your BG's normally in the morning and at lunchtime ? Have you tried a carb-free day ?
The idea is if you don't eat anything then your BI should hold your BG at roughly the same level. I appreciate a carb free day is not always easy but it will help to identify what the issue is. Given that all your ratio's are the same at 3:1 it does suggest your BI in the morning might not be enough for you, although this is not definately the case. Generally people find their insulin requirements are higher in the morning rather than the evening. It seems you are going high in the evening which is the opposite.
The alternative to carb free is to keep increasing your BI as you are i.e 2 units every 3 days, which allows the change to have an effect. Don't worry too much that you haven't got it just right yet. It can take a while even with all the extra knowledge DAFNE gives you, just keep at it and let people on this site know how you are doing. You will always get plenty of advice if you ask for it Very Happy

Apr 3, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS

I think that sums it up nicely, 'we have all got to master our own particular version of it'. DAFNE gives you a set of guidelines NOT a set of rules that work in the same way for everyone. Protein is one of those areas where it is just not a simple case of X = Y, which is why it is not covered in the Course in believe. Most of the medical stuff I have read on the subject relates to the levels of insulin available and how these 'interact' with protein. However like the rest of us, I am not an expert in the theories and research I'm just a lab rat running round and round the wheel Laughing

Apr 2, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS

Jwo can you explain why you think Protein affects blood glucose ? Some references etc, I'm not sure I agree with your statement. The reason DAFNE ( not just the UK as far as I am aware) do not
count Protein is it is a very complex area that is not straightforward. This is why I am cautious about stating it as a 'fact'.

Mar 27, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / The Book of Getting Better - Insulin Pumps

welcome aboard gary, I didn't realise when you were asking about pumps that you have been through such an ordeal. Fortunately I have never had an experience like that, mind you I haven't been skiing since I was diagnosed Laughing

As NuMo says a number of us have got the Your Diabetes Science Experiment book , sadly I have not got past the first chapter yet, but I will one day, honest !! DAFNE is all about realising you DO have control over your Diabetes and you can live a life relatively normally, these books help with practical examples of how to understand what your body is doing just as DAFNE gives you tools to do the same thing.

Mar 18, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Carb counting & how to lose weight?

Just ordered the book too, I like experiments Very Happy

and reading the extract on amazon it seems to be an interesting read by someone who has experienced it first hand !

Mar 15, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / iPhone app carbs list

Hi, I have now been sent version 10 of the Carb book that apparently came out last year but didn't get sent to us. This increases the carb value of a Jacket Potato to 10.5 from 10, it doesn't decrease it to 7 !! I am told there is a version 11 being worked on for release later in the year, Either way no one has ever told me its actually 7. When you say they gave you 'changes' where these printed and by whom since the course literature is supposed to be fixed and controlled by DAFNE Central which is why we can only publish what they send us. Any changes would have to come from them not from local HCP's making their own changes, thats not how its supposed to work.

Mar 15, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Improving DAFNE online manual

Hi, sorry but the online handbook is an electronic version of the one given out on the course ,we cannot add or change it in anyway, we are not allowed to do so. We are also not allowed to make it available in PDF format because it could be shared to non-DAFNE Diabetics. The section on insulin injections is here its in the section on insulin. I'm not sure what your comment 1) means, as previously we cannot 'add' anything to the handbook. This response is all I can do, which tells you where to look.

Mar 3, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / SPLITTING Q/A INSULIN DOSES

Hi, the handbook has a section on what you are talking about i.e Glycaemic index you can find it here .
If you want more information on the GI of particular foods then just type 'Glycaemic index' into google and you will get loads of results. For us to put any kind of list on the website we would need to get it agreed by HCP's, since we are just graduates running the site and are not in a better position than you to advise on what are slow and what are fast GI foods.

Mar 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / iPhone app carbs list

Annette, the current carb book (which is Version 9 and was issued in 2010) was changed from 7 to 10. It was previously 7 in older versions. We can only publish the information we are given and that is the current published value. The app doesn't need serious updating, the source information may do !
There will be yet another update to the course material this year I think so maybe they will change it then. If you would like it updated sooner then raise it at a DUAG meeting so that we can get the DAFNE Programme Team to look into why updates are not being provided if they are being 'provided' to DAFNE Educators to advise Graduates.

Feb 21, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / CP's by weight

Hi, the carb entries are taken from what your respective carb book ( each country has its own) says. This is the information checked and approved by DAFNE Dieticians. You can of course add your own entries to the carb counting pages and put things like spoon etc. I'm afraid the site is run by DAFNE Graduates who have no more idea than you about 100 grams verses cup,spoon etc. We just work with what we are given, sorry Embarassed

Feb 19, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Iphone app help

Hi, sorry but our system doesn't agree with you. It thinks the password in the app is incorrect, I suggest you change your password to something short and simple to tes this out. Try the app with the simple password and if it still doesn't work let us know. If it does work, then change the password to something much more secure and try it again in the app. There is no reason it shouldn't work and we have many users whose password works fine. Its always possible that it is some character in the password that is causing the issue, hence the suggestion of a simple password. If you do find it stops working if you have a 'strange' character in your password, let us know what the character is and we will try to work out why.

Feb 19, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / email reminders

It was generally felt that people would use the site more often if they were sent reminders. ,it was also felt we could send reminders of DAFNE principles such as sick day rules although obviously these could only be sent to DAFNE graduates.....
Not necessarily my view however I am interested in what others think. We are always happy to listen to what people want.

Feb 19, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / email reminders

All, I have been asked several times to raise this, so now I am Laughing

It has been suggested that this site should send out email reminders about things to registered users. The idea being to remind you the site is here and that you can use it. This has not been done up until now because the site developers both work in the IT industry and spend their lives trying to stop the constant stream of email that floods their inboxes Crying or Very sad

However we have been asked to look into providing this as an option so this post is to try and gauge if users would like this facility or not. If we did do it we would obviously provide an opt out option, so that YOU have the choice of recieving the emails or not.

Can people please respond to this post with their views on the matter so that we can make an informed choice on what our user based WANT us to do.

Feb 19, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Iphone app help

Ann, Yes we did resolve Claire's issue as we will resolve yours. I have checked our logs and there has been no attempt to connect to the site from your app. This means you have not configured it to try to talk to the site. Open the app, go to the settings tab, enter your username and password,
scroll down and set 'Diary Upload' to on. Now add a new entry into the app and it will try to upload all entries that have not been uploaded before. To do this you obviously have to have a signal on your phone or be connected to WiFi so that the app can talk to the site. If this does not work, tell us the error you get OR the day and approximate time you tried to do it. We can then look at our logs to see if we saw a connection from you.

Feb 10, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / T1 Diabetes cured in dogs, study suggests

I think the research does mean something, however applying it to people AND ensuring its safe and doesn't have side-effects is sadly a long slow process. Eventually they will have a 'cure' for Type 1, but will it be in our life time ? Who knows, we can only hope.

Feb 10, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / T1 Diabetes cured in dogs, study suggests

Sorry but it looks to me like the usual 'press' reporting of some research. I can't read the full original paper without paying but the abstract on the Diabetes Journal site that the article referenced above quotes says it is the first proof of concept in a large scale mammal. This means they did some research on some dogs and got some favourable results. However since their proof of concept took 4 years and further trails on dogs etc would be necessary before they even start to look at a trial on humans we are looking at 10 years plus even if it appears to work.
I wouldn't throw away your blood meter just yet Sad

Feb 7, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / Until I start a DAFNE course

Hi, you can access everything except the online handbook, because we are not allowed to give access to this unless you are a graduate. If others give you advice that is outside of our control Wink

With regards to the online carb book , you can add your own entries and eventually they get verified and approved by Health Care Professionals. Again the 'verified' entries in the carb book come from the standard course carb book I'm afraid. If you want a bigger list of carb values there are books around usually aimed at people dieting however if the contain carb values then they are just as good. I have two at home but can't remember the names of them, will try to remember to dig them out and post the names and ISBN of them later.

Feb 7, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Figure 17

Gentlemen, thank you for spotting this. It was the Australian sick day rules that you were trying to access, however the image was not working. I have recently uploaded the 'new' Oz handbook and had not noticed that some of the images did not work. They are fixed now.
Novarapid boy the link that you should be looking at is http://dafneonline.co.uk/hbook_topics/188 these Australians have their own ideas
about DAFNE which are very similiar but not identical. I should probably block access to another countries handbook, once I work out a way of doing it of course Wink

Feb 7, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Greggs baguette sandwiches

I have updated the link to Greggs on the carb links page in the carb counting section to reference the new PDF above. Please do add links to the links page as and when you find them

May 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / injection technequie and body deformation Hi, I pinch some sites and not others. The basic issue is you want to avoid injecting into muscle, firstly because it will hurt and second because the absorption profile is different to fat/subcutaneous. This is what the diagram above is trying to show, If you, as I do, inject into your rear-end there is plenty of cushioning however the abdomen is a bit different and in some of us has areas with more fat than others Of course needles are a lot shorter nowadays as well which makes life easier. It seems unlikely that pinching has caused deformations, although anything is possible.

May 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / New Graduate in DAFNE As others have said, welcome and please feel free to ask questions, there is never a shortage of opinions or people happy to help. Doing DAFNE is the start of the journey and there are still plenty of interesting places to left to go

May 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Exercise I'm with Warwick, although I would say that your BG can be lower for upto 48 hours it doesn't necessarily equate to hypo's it just means be aware you may need less insulin than usual. In all the years I went to a gym I never once hypo-ed during exercise, it made my BG higher than normal a few times but never too low, so I wouldn't worry about hypo's or masked hypo awareness. As stated as well the DAFNE Handbook has a section on exercise that provides the basics. I think the over-riding message is , don't worry ! enjoy the exercise it has loads of benefits and really is good for you. The benefits far out weight the negatives

Apr 17, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Figure 17 Hi, can we avoid stuff like the last post please or I will just delete offending posts. This is a diabetes website not a bash other users website. Last time I walked down an english high street at night, there were plenty of people with a strange approach to class and sophistication

Apr 13, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Faulty meters Hi, its not all lifescan meters just the verio models. I have a couple of life scan meters and neither are effected by this issue.

Apr 8, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Injections hmm maybe I should ban you for mentioning a brand only joking, the site is run by graduates and apart from the costs of having the site on a server which is paid for by the DAFNE Programme ( thank you !) we are totally independent and so hold no allegiance to any one or brand. So mention who you like. As to the slow inhjection theory, I'm not sure I'm convinced by that one. However I don't think it will do any harm, I'm just not sure it provides a benefit. I just count to ten and whip it out

Apr 4, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / High BG Hi, We probably need a bit more info to give sensible advice. What are your BG's normally in the morning and at lunchtime ? Have you tried a carb-free day ? The idea is if you don't eat anything then your BI should hold your BG at roughly the same level. I appreciate a carb free day is not always easy but it will help to identify what the issue is. Given that all your ratio's are the same at 3:1 it does suggest your BI in the morning might not be enough for you, although this is not definately the case. Generally people find their insulin requirements are higher in the morning rather than the evening. It seems you are going high in the evening which is the opposite. The alternative to carb free is to keep increasing your BI as you are i.e 2 units every 3 days, which allows the change to have an effect. Don't worry too much that you haven't got it just right yet. It can take a while even with all the extra knowledge DAFNE gives you, just keep at it and let people on this site know how you are doing. You will always get plenty of advice if you ask for it

Apr 3, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS I think that sums it up nicely, 'we have all got to master our own particular version of it'. DAFNE gives you a set of guidelines NOT a set of rules that work in the same way for everyone. Protein is one of those areas where it is just not a simple case of X = Y, which is why it is not covered in the Course in believe. Most of the medical stuff I have read on the subject relates to the levels of insulin available and how these 'interact' with protein. However like the rest of us, I am not an expert in the theories and research I'm just a lab rat running round and round the wheel

Apr 2, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS Jwo can you explain why you think Protein affects blood glucose ? Some references etc, I'm not sure I agree with your statement. The reason DAFNE ( not just the UK as far as I am aware) do not count Protein is it is a very complex area that is not straightforward. This is why I am cautious about stating it as a 'fact'.

Mar 27, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / The Book of Getting Better - Insulin Pumps welcome aboard gary, I didn't realise when you were asking about pumps that you have been through such an ordeal. Fortunately I have never had an experience like that, mind you I haven't been skiing since I was diagnosed As NuMo says a number of us have got the Your Diabetes Science Experiment book , sadly I have not got past the first chapter yet, but I will one day, honest !! DAFNE is all about realising you DO have control over your Diabetes and you can live a life relatively normally, these books help with practical examples of how to understand what your body is doing just as DAFNE gives you tools to do the same thing.

Mar 18, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Carb counting & how to lose weight? Just ordered the book too, I like experiments and reading the extract on amazon it seems to be an interesting read by someone who has experienced it first hand !

Mar 15, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / iPhone app carbs list Hi, I have now been sent version 10 of the Carb book that apparently came out last year but didn't get sent to us. This increases the carb value of a Jacket Potato to 10.5 from 10, it doesn't decrease it to 7 !! I am told there is a version 11 being worked on for release later in the year, Either way no one has ever told me its actually 7. When you say they gave you 'changes' where these printed and by whom since the course literature is supposed to be fixed and controlled by DAFNE Central which is why we can only publish what they send us. Any changes would have to come from them not from local HCP's making their own changes, thats not how its supposed to work.

Mar 15, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Improving DAFNE online manual Hi, sorry but the online handbook is an electronic version of the one given out on the course ,we cannot add or change it in anyway, we are not allowed to do so. We are also not allowed to make it available in PDF format because it could be shared to non-DAFNE Diabetics. The section on insulin injections is here its in the section on insulin. I'm not sure what your comment 1) means, as previously we cannot 'add' anything to the handbook. This response is all I can do, which tells you where to look.

Mar 3, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / SPLITTING Q/A INSULIN DOSES Hi, the handbook has a section on what you are talking about i.e Glycaemic index you can find it here . If you want more information on the GI of particular foods then just type 'Glycaemic index' into google and you will get loads of results. For us to put any kind of list on the website we would need to get it agreed by HCP's, since we are just graduates running the site and are not in a better position than you to advise on what are slow and what are fast GI foods.

Mar 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / iPhone app carbs list Annette, the current carb book (which is Version 9 and was issued in 2010) was changed from 7 to 10. It was previously 7 in older versions. We can only publish the information we are given and that is the current published value. The app doesn't need serious updating, the source information may do ! There will be yet another update to the course material this year I think so maybe they will change it then. If you would like it updated sooner then raise it at a DUAG meeting so that we can get the DAFNE Programme Team to look into why updates are not being provided if they are being 'provided' to DAFNE Educators to advise Graduates.

Feb 21, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / CP's by weight Hi, the carb entries are taken from what your respective carb book ( each country has its own) says. This is the information checked and approved by DAFNE Dieticians. You can of course add your own entries to the carb counting pages and put things like spoon etc. I'm afraid the site is run by DAFNE Graduates who have no more idea than you about 100 grams verses cup,spoon etc. We just work with what we are given, sorry

Feb 19, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Iphone app help Hi, sorry but our system doesn't agree with you. It thinks the password in the app is incorrect, I suggest you change your password to something short and simple to tes this out. Try the app with the simple password and if it still doesn't work let us know. If it does work, then change the password to something much more secure and try it again in the app. There is no reason it shouldn't work and we have many users whose password works fine. Its always possible that it is some character in the password that is causing the issue, hence the suggestion of a simple password. If you do find it stops working if you have a 'strange' character in your password, let us know what the character is and we will try to work out why.

Feb 19, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / email reminders It was generally felt that people would use the site more often if they were sent reminders. ,it was also felt we could send reminders of DAFNE principles such as sick day rules although obviously these could only be sent to DAFNE graduates..... Not necessarily my view however I am interested in what others think. We are always happy to listen to what people want.

Feb 19, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / email reminders All, I have been asked several times to raise this, so now I am It has been suggested that this site should send out email reminders about things to registered users. The idea being to remind you the site is here and that you can use it. This has not been done up until now because the site developers both work in the IT industry and spend their lives trying to stop the constant stream of email that floods their inboxes However we have been asked to look into providing this as an option so this post is to try and gauge if users would like this facility or not. If we did do it we would obviously provide an opt out option, so that YOU have the choice of recieving the emails or not. Can people please respond to this post with their views on the matter so that we can make an informed choice on what our user based WANT us to do.

Feb 19, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Iphone app help Ann, Yes we did resolve Claire's issue as we will resolve yours. I have checked our logs and there has been no attempt to connect to the site from your app. This means you have not configured it to try to talk to the site. Open the app, go to the settings tab, enter your username and password, scroll down and set 'Diary Upload' to on. Now add a new entry into the app and it will try to upload all entries that have not been uploaded before. To do this you obviously have to have a signal on your phone or be connected to WiFi so that the app can talk to the site. If this does not work, tell us the error you get OR the day and approximate time you tried to do it. We can then look at our logs to see if we saw a connection from you.

Feb 10, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / T1 Diabetes cured in dogs, study suggests I think the research does mean something, however applying it to people AND ensuring its safe and doesn't have side-effects is sadly a long slow process. Eventually they will have a 'cure' for Type 1, but will it be in our life time ? Who knows, we can only hope.

Feb 10, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / T1 Diabetes cured in dogs, study suggests Sorry but it looks to me like the usual 'press' reporting of some research. I can't read the full original paper without paying but the abstract on the Diabetes Journal site that the article referenced above quotes says it is the first proof of concept in a large scale mammal. This means they did some research on some dogs and got some favourable results. However since their proof of concept took 4 years and further trails on dogs etc would be necessary before they even start to look at a trial on humans we are looking at 10 years plus even if it appears to work. I wouldn't throw away your blood meter just yet

Feb 7, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / Until I start a DAFNE course Hi, you can access everything except the online handbook, because we are not allowed to give access to this unless you are a graduate. If others give you advice that is outside of our control With regards to the online carb book , you can add your own entries and eventually they get verified and approved by Health Care Professionals. Again the 'verified' entries in the carb book come from the standard course carb book I'm afraid. If you want a bigger list of carb values there are books around usually aimed at people dieting however if the contain carb values then they are just as good. I have two at home but can't remember the names of them, will try to remember to dig them out and post the names and ISBN of them later.

Feb 7, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Figure 17 Gentlemen, thank you for spotting this. It was the Australian sick day rules that you were trying to access, however the image was not working. I have recently uploaded the 'new' Oz handbook and had not noticed that some of the images did not work. They are fixed now. Novarapid boy the link that you should be looking at is http://dafneonline.co.uk/hbook_topics/188 these Australians have their own ideas about DAFNE which are very similiar but not identical. I should probably block access to another countries handbook, once I work out a way of doing it of course

Feb 7, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Greggs baguette sandwiches I have updated the link to Greggs on the carb links page in the carb counting section to reference the new PDF above. Please do add links to the links page as and when you find them