Posted by Ellen on October 29, 2001 at 20:59:15:
LETTERS
Risks with continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion can be serious
Knight (22 September 2001) [Full text]
Risks with continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion can be serious
A Parents View 29 October 2001
Deborah Hanscombe,
Housing Manager
Letchworth Cottages and Buildings
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Re: A Parents View
Email Deborah Hanscombe:
Dceased@hotmail.com
Dear Sir,
I am not a medical professional,merely the mother of a child who became diabetic aged 8. Like many others in this situation we struggled with the long acting insulin regime, and the shock and guilt of our son having an incurable condition that changed his personality and life, and ours also.
We have been through trying to force him to eat when he was not hungry, to feed the insulin,accompaying him to hospital in the ambulance when he had a fit or collapsed, watched his HbA1cs steadily increase, saw his loss of all symptoms of hypoglycaemia,attended outpatients appointments,changed insulins,gone though the school and social problems that most parents of diabetic children do, but not achieved any sustainable progress in the right direction.
This summer all that changed when he went on a pump. He is now a confident happy child living his life to a quality we could not imagine he ever would again.His life is continuous, not cut into 3 hour chunks now by the constant checking,injecting and eating regime,and by being so obviously different to his peers.His IBF seems to have quietened down,the headaches have gone and he smiles and rides his bike(he is no longer worried he'll go hypo so wouldn't).
Yes, he wears a pump, and he also has a mobile phone, and also in the other pocket he sometimes has his Gameboy, its technology and he loves it! He has his life back, and we have our son back - the mood swings that you get used to and think are him,weren't they were the highs and lows of blood glucose. As far as anyone can see now he is just another ordinary kid at school, the way it should be.
Anaesthesia was a great step forward in medical history, and so are pumps - if you are diabetic -there may be a greater risk of DKA, but thats in the training;no one told us about the great risk of Hypos on syringes, or the real time scale realities of complications, which can be devastating and terminal from the teen years on.
Whilst the pump may be a tool with limitations, it is a far better able tool with less limitations and more possibilities than a syringe or pen on its own, if you are willing to put in the work. People die from mishaps with anaesthetic, yet we don't stop using it because of that. Come on and let the patients have some say in the choice of treatment.
Yours sincerely
Deborah Hanscombe
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