[Diabetes-talk] FW: Don't play God

[Bernadette Jacobs]

Thank you Mr. OBama!!!

On 9/1/12, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:
> From: acb-diabetics-bounces at acb.org [mailto:acb-diabetics-bounces at acb.org]
> On Behalf Of Patricia LaFrance-Wolf
> Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 8:39 PM
> To: 'Discussion list for diabetics and/or ACB issues'
> Subject: [acb-diabetics] Don't play God
>
>
>
>
> Playing God
>
>
> Katherine Marple
>
> Aug 25, 2012
>
> Description: cid:image001.jpg at 01CD855D.27EE6500
>
> Katherine Marple
>
> Recently, while scrolling through discussions posted on an online diabetes
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/>  forum, I came across one from a man in
> his
> thirties who wrote about how paramedics had found his twin brother face
> down
> in a sauna, in an insulin
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/medications/insulin/>  shock coma.
> How
> did he end up in such a state? The appalling answer is, he didn't have
> enough glucose strips to test before he got into the hot tub. A few weeks
> before the sauna incident, his insurance company had limited his glucose
> strips to just four per day.
>
> For anyone with insulin-dependent diabetes, that is just asking for
> trouble.
> Testing at meals alone (breakfast, lunch
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/food/lunch/> , dinner
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/food/dinner/> , and the recommended
> bedtime snack) would eat up his entire allotment. What about the days when,
> no matter what you do, your glucose levels just aren't cooperating? You're
> also supposed to test before you drive, before you exercise
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/fitness/exercise/> , after you
> exercise, and even more often when you're sick. I personally test about ten
> times per day, even at 3 a.m. These tests are necessary in order to achieve
> the beautiful A1C
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/monitoring/a1c-test/>  results that
> doctors and insurance companies are always touting.
>
> So why do insurance companies play God by limiting our supplies? If we're
> not testing, our odds of going into shock or ketoacidosis are much higher,
> and the cost of keeping us in an intensive care unit to recover is more
> expensive than a few more strips per day.
>
> A few years ago, my former insurance company put a limit on my diabetes
> supplies. There is nothing quite like the terror that you feel as you watch
> your medication supply dwindling down to nothing, and you know that you've
> got a full week to go before your insurance will authorize a refill. We
> need
> these things to survive, so it's more than horror-movie scary: It's a real
> life fear of imminent death. You stand paralyzed, watching the Grim Reaper
> slowly drag his scythe up the road toward you. Every month you watch him
> coming, and it's on your last breath, when he's staring you right in the
> face, that you dodge him and buy yourself one more month--just to do it
> again the next month.
>
> I'm in a better place with a larger insurance company these days, but I
> will
> never forget that fear. Insurance companies should not have that power. No
> one should have the authority to put our lives on the line. That control
> belongs to each one of us, and us alone. So, I have a message for the
> insurance companies. Please take a moment to chew on this: You can't make
> money off of a dead person.
>
>   _____
>
> Categories: A1C
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/complications-and-care/a1c/> ,
> Diabetes <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/community/diabetes/> ,
> Diabetes Health
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/community/diabetes-health/> ,
> Diabetes
> Health Magazine
> <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/community/diabetes-health-magazine/>
> ,
> Diabetic <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/health-care/diabetic/> ,
> Insulin <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/browse/medications/insulin/> ,
>
>
>
>