Recent Posts by marke - DAFNE Online

Aug 27, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS

The 'warwick' part was my understanding of the Diabetes Experiment book i.e generally your body will only breakdown protein to glucose if it has no other option i.e no carbs to convert. I believe that protein conversion is also slower than standard carb conversion i.e like a low GI food. I think it is excluded from DAFNE because it is too complex an area for most people to try to get their heads round especially as a lot of people may have just been introduced to catb counting and a lot of other new ideas.

Aug 23, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / Centrizine Hydrochloride and an affect on insulin sensitivity

can't say I have ever noticed this effect. I used to take truck loads of Cetirizine and never really had any side effects, however we are obviously all different and what happens to me may not happen to you and vice-versa. Its not a published side-effect of the drug, but for most drugs the published side-effects are those widely observed in a number of people not individuals.

Aug 6, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Insulin Pump Bug

Yes, but the article does not provide any details of what actually happened, it sensationalises the issue without providing any real details. All medical devices do go through a lot of testing and its hard to believe as you say they did not test for this, Without all the facts its easy to look at the worst case scenario. As
you say having an kind of technology doesn't move the responsibility away from the user to ensure correct operation. The article says HE mistakenly infused himself with the wrong dose, unless it gave a completely wrong BG reading why did he do this ? It makes no mention of this.

Aug 3, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Message Inbox

You can already share your diary with another user, the instructions for doing this are here

Aug 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / Help

As Warwick points out the thing you have to understand is the effect of exercise. It has a number of effects both shortish term and longer term. The shortish is exercise can have an effect for 24-48 hours after you do it. It does vary from person to person but will definitely have an effect the day after you exercise. You need to bear this in mind when adjusting both pre-exercise and after it. There is not really a magic formula although the handbook does give some guidance.
In the longer term exercise will help your body in the process of converting sugar into energy with less insulin. Regular exercise should mean you need less insulin overall. Again there is no magic formula you just need to keep monitoring you BG and looking for changes. Your description of going low mid-morning the day after exercise is exactly my experience when doing a gym session the night before, however knowing what might happen I tended to check mid-morning the next day as well as making adjustments because I knew what might happen and so was ready to treat it if necessary.

Aug 1, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Interesting Finding

Hi, I changed the post above to make the link clickable since it IS an interesting article, although as always caution is needed. Currently they have only trialled it on mice and not people so any commercial offering is more than a few years away. Still it would be a very useful component in 'curing' T1.

Jul 22, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Can you download to a Blackberry

sorry there will not be an app for the blackberry, its a niche market that gets smaller and smaller with each phone they release. Android based phones are 60% of the market, apple are 30-35% and then there are the rest. We really don't have the resources to develop an app for a platform that in all probability won't be there any more in a couple of years. If someone volunteers to produce one we would be happy to work with them, however unless that happens there will not be one produced. Sorry but we are just a bunch of graduates not a professional company with a lot of people to do the work.

Jul 9, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Questions ? / Hyperglycaemia in early hours of the morning

A few things. Firstly, it is generally believed by the experts that run DAFNE that rebound from night time hypo's is a myth. They believe that if you wake with high BG's its either Dawn P or something you did the evening before. Secondly if it is Dawn P you would not normally expect it at 2am, it is a hormonal process to ready your body for starting the day thus you would expect it from 4am-ish onwards. This is obviously not set in stone since we are ALL different but its not generally the case. One option to consider is switching to Levemir and having a split dose, obviously you should do this in consultation with your Diabetes Team not off you own back.
You might also try reading 'Your Diabetes Science Experiment' as mentioned in other forum posts. This is a book written by Diabetic who is also a power-lifter so she understands and explains the effects of different types of exercise on your body.
Good luck if you want to try injecting into muscle, ouch, I would guess its painful and not a recommended method for injecting insulin...

Jul 5, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Regular email with synopsis of all changes: posts, news, handbook updates etc...

Hi, generally when suggestions are made we see what support they receive. We are just two people doing the site in our spare time with finite resources, therefore if you don't get a response its not necessarily that its not feasible, merely that we are waiting to see what the demand is for a feature, If it is something we think we should do there will still be a delay for us to actually implement it.

In theory your idea sounds simple, however its not, not all changes to the site are date tracked and so pooling them together for an email is not that straight forward. Also the emails could potentially be quite large in some cases causing issues with delivery. This would create a lot more admin for us. So at them moment its unlikely to happen unless their is more demand for it.

Jun 28, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / New to carb counting

The centres in NI are:

Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
Lagan Valley Hospital
Lisburn Health Centre
Castlewellan Health Centre
Downe Hospital, Downpatrick
Ulster Hospital, Dundonald
Northern Health and Social Care Trust

If any of these are familiar speak to your doctor and consultant about being referred to a DAFNE course.

Jun 28, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / New vaccine! Should we get our hopes up?

As ever, I think you need to bear in mind this is a small trial at an early stage. A vaccine that can be used commercially is probably at least 5 years away. Not that it isn't a promising line of research its just these things take time. As we all know everyone is different and the effects of modifying the immune system need to be fully understood before we start pumping it into large numbers of people.
Still as an existing Type 1 I'm more interested in something that will make me produce insulin again and stop me having to stare glumly at BG results on a machine whilst thinking 'how did that happen' Confused

Jun 23, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / popcorn heaven

Hi, sorry Anele46 I had to delete your post that shows a page of the DAFNE handbook and I would suggest you also remove it from the link you pasted. The course handbook is copyrighted and you cannot post its contents onto the internet, you are breaking the law, You definitely cannot post it on here as we had to sign a legal agreement to host it and that agreement says we cannot make it available to 'general users'

Jun 14, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / NHS Medication Changes: Are you affected?

Hi I might try speaking to my PALS people, if they can't comment on the CCG then why do they still exist ? What is the point of an advice service that doesn't give advice ?

Jun 12, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Android - adding entries with no wifi connection

As far as I am aware it works the same as the iPhone app, which is you add entries at anytime then when you do have a wifi connection the app compares what is in you app with the website and adds entries that are missing. So yes you can add entries with no wifi.

With regards to using the 3G connection it depends on where you are going. If its outside of the country you will be charged a minimum of Â£1.99 per day probably more depending on the phone company. Better to use wifi if possible, there are loads of free wifi points all over the world now,

Jun 3, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Paleo - reduced carbs diet and type 1

Hi do a search on the forums for 'my diabetes experiment' an excellent book that covers a lot of what it sounds like you want to do. It builds on DAFNE in that it goes further in areas such as weight loss and exercise. I found it very interesting although I have yet to do any of the 'experiments' in the book, there is a lot of info about the difference between burning fat to lose weight and burning sugar and muscle. It should also help with BG control as well. It's written by a diabetic so it has a lot of realism in. I.e what we want to do is not always what we actually do, it expects a degree of failure when you try to achieve the experiments.

May 25, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / NHS Medication Changes: Are you affected?

Alan, the freestyle optium strips are about Â£15 for 50. Now I'm not a mathematician but even I can work out that's not Â£2 per strip, I'm surprised you are getting this attitude from you GP I suspect its not CCG policy. I am working with the CCG's in East Kent and its definitely NOT the policy there. There is still a PALS in your area their email is [email protected]. Contact them, tell them what your GP told you and ask if its policy, they should be able to resolve the issue.

May 21, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled

sorry not sure I understand your question/request. You mean you want to be able to print just the graph and not the rest of the page that surrounds it ? Could you do this before ? I'm afraid that Simon usually takes care of this part of the site and I have never tried to print the graphs before....

May 21, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled

All, I think I have fixed it !! Let me know if the graphs are STILL not working for you. The graphs do NOT use flash, unless Simon tells me otherwise, they are ALL Java based. This is because Simon is an Apple-Fanboy and would never dirty his hands with something like flash Very Happy

May 19, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled

hi, I don't think its a flash issue, its more likely to do with version of java and the programs we use to draw the graphs. We ARE aware of the issue, however Simon is out of computer access at the moment and I am trying to get my test version of the site back upto date so I can properly investigate this. Since we do the site in our spare time and I have stuff I need to do today i'm afraid its unlikely to be fixed before then, sorry.
Try turning your computer on and off again. It won't fix the problem but it will give you something to do while you wait Very Happy

May 16, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Thinking of upgrading iphone 3GS to a Galaxy. Anyone got any views on this?

Hi the app will work on both, in terms of the app you are unlikely to see much difference between the 3GS and a galaxy. The galaxy will be faster generally because it is newer but so will an iPhone 5. as the O2 Ad says there is always a better, faster phone around the corner. Its personal preference at the end of the day and I don't want to get into that debate Confused

May 16, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / iBGStar

no they don't, however in future who knows. There have been suggestions but we haven't yet got to the 'discussion' stage. We will let you know if things move forward in this area.

May 16, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / Date/Timestamp of posts

Ok, the first point. re-dating posts would potentially cause problems, if people comment on a post and the posts are re-ordered based on dates then the comments would be out of context. Ideally you shouldn't be editing posts very often, its more of an exception than a rule. If you want to update a post just post again referencing the original post.

With regards to removing diary entries, I would say don't put them on in the first place, or at least think carefully about what you are putting on the forums for general consumption. Recently people seem to be posting large amounts of Diary entries in posts. Personally I think this overwhelms people and reduces the number of comments. We can look at allowing the removal of Diary entries from posts however as with the comments above if you do that then peoples subsequent posts on the Diary entries won't make sense if they are removed.

May 16, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Fundraising Walk for Diabetes

I should also point out on Leighton's behalf that the DAFNE programme are trying to help with this by providing his team with DAFNE tee-shirts etc. I hope we can all get behind this effort. He is also helping to provide the online petition for Diabetes Structured Education at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk which seems to have stalled a bit at the moment Crying or Very sad

May 16, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: General Discussion / CareSens meters

Hi, I cannot comment on the CareSense, I have seen one briefly but never used one. I think you suspicions are correct with regards to motives though.
I attended a meeting organised by my local NHS people before Xmas regarding the selection of 'preferred' meters , this was promoted as being to make
giving advice about them more straightforward if local Diabetes Nurses only had to work with a few. However it was also about cost reductions. For your
info the CareSens strips cost Â£12.75 approx and the OneTouch Ultra strips cost around Â£15.07 so that is potentially a large saving. However in my area the 'rationalisation' of test strips was for Type 2's only and T1's are to continue using their current meters without change.
Its not at all good that you are being asked to change your meter without a proper meeting and explanation of the reasons and if told if you are actually being given a choice about changing. Change is not necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be done in the right way. I know some areas of the country have just imposed change without consulting the local Diabetics, however that has not gone down very well and most areas seem to have learnt from this mistake.

May 3, 2013

marke 657 posts

Topic: Site Development / DAFNE Online iPhone application - help with content/design needed

Hi, I can see in the logs that you ARE managing to login via the app fine, so that is not the problem....
Why do you say it doesn't do a lot ?

Aug 27, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / ACCURATE BG READINGS The 'warwick' part was my understanding of the Diabetes Experiment book i.e generally your body will only breakdown protein to glucose if it has no other option i.e no carbs to convert. I believe that protein conversion is also slower than standard carb conversion i.e like a low GI food. I think it is excluded from DAFNE because it is too complex an area for most people to try to get their heads round especially as a lot of people may have just been introduced to catb counting and a lot of other new ideas.

Aug 23, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / Centrizine Hydrochloride and an affect on insulin sensitivity can't say I have ever noticed this effect. I used to take truck loads of Cetirizine and never really had any side effects, however we are obviously all different and what happens to me may not happen to you and vice-versa. Its not a published side-effect of the drug, but for most drugs the published side-effects are those widely observed in a number of people not individuals.

Aug 6, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Insulin Pump Bug Yes, but the article does not provide any details of what actually happened, it sensationalises the issue without providing any real details. All medical devices do go through a lot of testing and its hard to believe as you say they did not test for this, Without all the facts its easy to look at the worst case scenario. As you say having an kind of technology doesn't move the responsibility away from the user to ensure correct operation. The article says HE mistakenly infused himself with the wrong dose, unless it gave a completely wrong BG reading why did he do this ? It makes no mention of this.

Aug 3, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Message Inbox You can already share your diary with another user, the instructions for doing this are here

Aug 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / Help As Warwick points out the thing you have to understand is the effect of exercise. It has a number of effects both shortish term and longer term. The shortish is exercise can have an effect for 24-48 hours after you do it. It does vary from person to person but will definitely have an effect the day after you exercise. You need to bear this in mind when adjusting both pre-exercise and after it. There is not really a magic formula although the handbook does give some guidance. In the longer term exercise will help your body in the process of converting sugar into energy with less insulin. Regular exercise should mean you need less insulin overall. Again there is no magic formula you just need to keep monitoring you BG and looking for changes. Your description of going low mid-morning the day after exercise is exactly my experience when doing a gym session the night before, however knowing what might happen I tended to check mid-morning the next day as well as making adjustments because I knew what might happen and so was ready to treat it if necessary.

Aug 1, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Interesting Finding Hi, I changed the post above to make the link clickable since it IS an interesting article, although as always caution is needed. Currently they have only trialled it on mice and not people so any commercial offering is more than a few years away. Still it would be a very useful component in 'curing' T1.

Jul 22, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Can you download to a Blackberry sorry there will not be an app for the blackberry, its a niche market that gets smaller and smaller with each phone they release. Android based phones are 60% of the market, apple are 30-35% and then there are the rest. We really don't have the resources to develop an app for a platform that in all probability won't be there any more in a couple of years. If someone volunteers to produce one we would be happy to work with them, however unless that happens there will not be one produced. Sorry but we are just a bunch of graduates not a professional company with a lot of people to do the work.

Jul 9, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Questions ? / Hyperglycaemia in early hours of the morning A few things. Firstly, it is generally believed by the experts that run DAFNE that rebound from night time hypo's is a myth. They believe that if you wake with high BG's its either Dawn P or something you did the evening before. Secondly if it is Dawn P you would not normally expect it at 2am, it is a hormonal process to ready your body for starting the day thus you would expect it from 4am-ish onwards. This is obviously not set in stone since we are ALL different but its not generally the case. One option to consider is switching to Levemir and having a split dose, obviously you should do this in consultation with your Diabetes Team not off you own back. You might also try reading 'Your Diabetes Science Experiment' as mentioned in other forum posts. This is a book written by Diabetic who is also a power-lifter so she understands and explains the effects of different types of exercise on your body. Good luck if you want to try injecting into muscle, ouch, I would guess its painful and not a recommended method for injecting insulin...

Jul 5, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Regular email with synopsis of all changes: posts, news, handbook updates etc... Hi, generally when suggestions are made we see what support they receive. We are just two people doing the site in our spare time with finite resources, therefore if you don't get a response its not necessarily that its not feasible, merely that we are waiting to see what the demand is for a feature, If it is something we think we should do there will still be a delay for us to actually implement it. In theory your idea sounds simple, however its not, not all changes to the site are date tracked and so pooling them together for an email is not that straight forward. Also the emails could potentially be quite large in some cases causing issues with delivery. This would create a lot more admin for us. So at them moment its unlikely to happen unless their is more demand for it.

Jun 28, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / New to carb counting The centres in NI are: Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast Lagan Valley Hospital Lisburn Health Centre Castlewellan Health Centre Downe Hospital, Downpatrick Ulster Hospital, Dundonald Northern Health and Social Care Trust If any of these are familiar speak to your doctor and consultant about being referred to a DAFNE course.

Jun 28, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / New vaccine! Should we get our hopes up? As ever, I think you need to bear in mind this is a small trial at an early stage. A vaccine that can be used commercially is probably at least 5 years away. Not that it isn't a promising line of research its just these things take time. As we all know everyone is different and the effects of modifying the immune system need to be fully understood before we start pumping it into large numbers of people. Still as an existing Type 1 I'm more interested in something that will make me produce insulin again and stop me having to stare glumly at BG results on a machine whilst thinking 'how did that happen'

Jun 23, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / popcorn heaven Hi, sorry Anele46 I had to delete your post that shows a page of the DAFNE handbook and I would suggest you also remove it from the link you pasted. The course handbook is copyrighted and you cannot post its contents onto the internet, you are breaking the law, You definitely cannot post it on here as we had to sign a legal agreement to host it and that agreement says we cannot make it available to 'general users'

Jun 14, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / NHS Medication Changes: Are you affected? Hi I might try speaking to my PALS people, if they can't comment on the CCG then why do they still exist ? What is the point of an advice service that doesn't give advice ?

Jun 12, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Android - adding entries with no wifi connection As far as I am aware it works the same as the iPhone app, which is you add entries at anytime then when you do have a wifi connection the app compares what is in you app with the website and adds entries that are missing. So yes you can add entries with no wifi. With regards to using the 3G connection it depends on where you are going. If its outside of the country you will be charged a minimum of Â£1.99 per day probably more depending on the phone company. Better to use wifi if possible, there are loads of free wifi points all over the world now,

Jun 3, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Paleo - reduced carbs diet and type 1 Hi do a search on the forums for 'my diabetes experiment' an excellent book that covers a lot of what it sounds like you want to do. It builds on DAFNE in that it goes further in areas such as weight loss and exercise. I found it very interesting although I have yet to do any of the 'experiments' in the book, there is a lot of info about the difference between burning fat to lose weight and burning sugar and muscle. It should also help with BG control as well. It's written by a diabetic so it has a lot of realism in. I.e what we want to do is not always what we actually do, it expects a degree of failure when you try to achieve the experiments.

May 25, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / NHS Medication Changes: Are you affected? Alan, the freestyle optium strips are about Â£15 for 50. Now I'm not a mathematician but even I can work out that's not Â£2 per strip, I'm surprised you are getting this attitude from you GP I suspect its not CCG policy. I am working with the CCG's in East Kent and its definitely NOT the policy there. There is still a PALS in your area their email is [email protected]. Contact them, tell them what your GP told you and ask if its policy, they should be able to resolve the issue.

May 21, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled sorry not sure I understand your question/request. You mean you want to be able to print just the graph and not the rest of the page that surrounds it ? Could you do this before ? I'm afraid that Simon usually takes care of this part of the site and I have never tried to print the graphs before....

May 21, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled All, I think I have fixed it !! Let me know if the graphs are STILL not working for you. The graphs do NOT use flash, unless Simon tells me otherwise, they are ALL Java based. This is because Simon is an Apple-Fanboy and would never dirty his hands with something like flash

May 19, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Javascript must be enabled hi, I don't think its a flash issue, its more likely to do with version of java and the programs we use to draw the graphs. We ARE aware of the issue, however Simon is out of computer access at the moment and I am trying to get my test version of the site back upto date so I can properly investigate this. Since we do the site in our spare time and I have stuff I need to do today i'm afraid its unlikely to be fixed before then, sorry. Try turning your computer on and off again. It won't fix the problem but it will give you something to do while you wait

May 16, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Thinking of upgrading iphone 3GS to a Galaxy. Anyone got any views on this? Hi the app will work on both, in terms of the app you are unlikely to see much difference between the 3GS and a galaxy. The galaxy will be faster generally because it is newer but so will an iPhone 5. as the O2 Ad says there is always a better, faster phone around the corner. Its personal preference at the end of the day and I don't want to get into that debate

May 16, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / iBGStar no they don't, however in future who knows. There have been suggestions but we haven't yet got to the 'discussion' stage. We will let you know if things move forward in this area.

May 16, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / Date/Timestamp of posts Ok, the first point. re-dating posts would potentially cause problems, if people comment on a post and the posts are re-ordered based on dates then the comments would be out of context. Ideally you shouldn't be editing posts very often, its more of an exception than a rule. If you want to update a post just post again referencing the original post. With regards to removing diary entries, I would say don't put them on in the first place, or at least think carefully about what you are putting on the forums for general consumption. Recently people seem to be posting large amounts of Diary entries in posts. Personally I think this overwhelms people and reduces the number of comments. We can look at allowing the removal of Diary entries from posts however as with the comments above if you do that then peoples subsequent posts on the Diary entries won't make sense if they are removed.

May 16, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Fundraising Walk for Diabetes I should also point out on Leighton's behalf that the DAFNE programme are trying to help with this by providing his team with DAFNE tee-shirts etc. I hope we can all get behind this effort. He is also helping to provide the online petition for Diabetes Structured Education at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk which seems to have stalled a bit at the moment

May 16, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: General Discussion / CareSens meters Hi, I cannot comment on the CareSense, I have seen one briefly but never used one. I think you suspicions are correct with regards to motives though. I attended a meeting organised by my local NHS people before Xmas regarding the selection of 'preferred' meters , this was promoted as being to make giving advice about them more straightforward if local Diabetes Nurses only had to work with a few. However it was also about cost reductions. For your info the CareSens strips cost Â£12.75 approx and the OneTouch Ultra strips cost around Â£15.07 so that is potentially a large saving. However in my area the 'rationalisation' of test strips was for Type 2's only and T1's are to continue using their current meters without change. Its not at all good that you are being asked to change your meter without a proper meeting and explanation of the reasons and if told if you are actually being given a choice about changing. Change is not necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be done in the right way. I know some areas of the country have just imposed change without consulting the local Diabetics, however that has not gone down very well and most areas seem to have learnt from this mistake.

May 3, 2013 marke 657 posts	Topic: Site Development / DAFNE Online iPhone application - help with content/design needed Hi, I can see in the logs that you ARE managing to login via the app fine, so that is not the problem.... Why do you say it doesn't do a lot ?