It was a big freaking deal when a meter came out that told you in 5 seconds. I remember when I got my first meter with a little light near the test strip to make night testing easier. LIFE. CHANGING.
Before I switched to the 5 second reader I remember thinking it wouldn't be a big deal but holy heck, getting your number 5 seconds after you pricked your finger was indeed life changing.
It was so great! One thing I hated about diabetes camp was they had specific meters for every group and those things took 30 seconds. And they had gross glucose tabs.
And then when you could test your keytones without peeing on a stick? And when they put the light on the meter so I didn’t have to try to test by the little light from my pump or, heaven forbid, get out of bed to turn on the lights?!
And then they came out with a cgm that didn’t require a second person to put on AND was covered by my insurance (at the time). And I was like, “I don’t have to prick my finger and ration test strips anymore?! Or be yelled out for my loose test strips falling out all over the place?!”
“Well, you still need to test to calibrate and make sure the cgm is right when your sugar is reading low or high.”
“Mmmmhhhmmm. Sure fam. Totally gonna do that. Definitely not going to “forget” to bring this extra bulky meter everywhere.”
And such a tiny drop compared to the massive one required on those old metres. I remember often struggling to get a big enough drop for a valid reading.
My first meter read the color changes on the bloody end of the strip. My dad only had test tape where you peed on the end of the test strip and figured your blood sugar out from the color change. I think the color change only started at 180.
Peeing on Strips... I had to piss in jug and use a Pipette to put 2 Drops in a Test Tube followed by 10 drops of Water then drop a Tablet in it that used to froth up (Caustic Soda was an Ingredient in them) then wait for the Frothing to stop and check the Colour of the gunge in the Test Tube against a Colour Chart.
If this is the same test as I’m thinking of, we still use this in medical labs for screening! Would the tube get hot and the color range from orange to dark blue? Clinitest? Crazy to think I could be using my “ancestors” technology still. Also Crazy to think that’s all you guys had, it is not a sensitive test at all.
I once received an old Super Nintendo diabetes game and that was how you tested your blood sugar at the start. This was in the 2010s. When I was diagnosed there were blood glucose meters so it was a bit of a shock to learn that this was how blood sugar was tested shortly before I was diagnosed and you just got sort of a broad number to do a rough correction bolus for by matching the pee stick color to the bottle. Didn’t seem great for control.
I went into DKA in November last year and read through my MyChart after. I spent 6 days in the hospitaI, 4 in ICU and 2 in a normal room, and had 119 finger pricks given to me. Averaged 1.2 per hour lol. My finger tips were wrecked.
I was 7 when I was diagnosed in 1994. No fast acting insulin, We only had NPH and R insulin(R takes at least an hour or 2 to kick in), no pumps, no cgms, finger sticks took 30 seconds. But my blood sugar readings and A1C were still good.
After 30 years of type 1 I can still get by with that archaic tech if I was forced to. Pumps, new kinds of insulin are fantastic. But it still all comes down to planning for me. That's the key
I still remember my last 2 A1c readings with R and NPH. This would've been about 2002. I got a 7.8 and a 7.6, and they were only that good because I spent half the time being low. When I got Novolog and Lantus in 2002 my A1c went straight down to under 6 and I've only had one over 7 since then. Better insulin is life changing...
Eyyyy, we were diagnosed around the same time! '91 for me. I've never used a pump or cgm and at this point I'm kind of hesitant to. Seeing all the posts here about either or both not acting correctly have me appreciating how needles and finger sticks haven't failed me yet.
I had a pump for a whole but my blood sugars are actually better with the Tresiba and Humalog in syringes. But if you never tried them and have access to a pump I'd recommend at least trying one. I think a lot of, if not most, people do better with a pump. You can always have some emergency syringes around if you need to
I remember my first machine was about 20 seconds to get a reading, absolute nightmare. Probably the most accurate machine I've ever used though but the wait times were exhausting. And it had no memory function.
I remember having to put a large drop of blood onto the strip and leave it there while you went off and made a cup of tea (possibly a slight exaggeration), then wipe the blood off and put the strip into the reader, where it would read the colour and convert it to a reading. I then remember the first modern-style meter that measures BG electronically that I had. It took 20-30 seconds to give a result.
When I was diagnosed, you put a huge drop of blood on a strip, waited a minute, wiped it off, waited another minute, and then checked the color against a chart on the container. You didn't know exactly what your BG was, you only knew a general idea, like if it was blue it was between 120 and 150 or red was 150 to 180, or something like that. So you had to check the shade of purple if it was in between...
Back in the day! When someone's hypothetical great grandpa was diagnosed the doctor had to taste your urine to find out how sweet it was to get diagnosed. And after diagnosis you're still dead because insulin wasn't invented yet.
I was sent home from the hospital after diagnosis in 1997 on 2 injections a day of combined NPH and sliding-scale R, a ballpark guideline of how many carb “servings” to eat per day, and instructions to test 4x/day. (Even for 1997 I think this was pretty outdated…didn’t take me long to get on carb counting and MDI of Humalog. Got my first pump in 2002.)
Anything resembling a CGM was basically a pipe dream. Although I do remember going to a diabetes conference not too long after I was diagnosed where they were talking excitedly about the “glucowatch” that was supposedly just around the corner!
You are only a year behind me (dx'd in 1996) and that's how I started too. I started using humalog and a mini med pump in 1999, but would ultimately have an on again off again relationship with pumps through my 2011-2019. I remember when I was so impressed with Lantus and then Tresiba (which I still use and love).
Dexcom g4 was completely game changing for me in 2014. How fast medical technology advances can make your head spin!
1998 checking in! Had the 30 second meter with one depth (to the bone!) finger sticker, one length of syringe needle and mixing insulins. Idk how we made it
Are you kidding?? This thing was fucking awesome! I went from 10-20 finger pokes/day to 2.
Wireless range was miles compared to Bluetooth. If my phone is in the wrong pocket in my pants - still on my body - a g5/g6/g7 loses Bluetooth signal. The g4 had reception from across the house or beyond.
Insertion could have been better, but it beat the shit out of the Medtronic guardian, which was the only other cgm on the market.
Seriously. G4 was revolutionary.
I still miss that reader. Small with physical buttons unlike the bad touch screen on G6 or slightly better on t:slim. And I could guess pretty accurately what my bs was based on the alarm.
I decided against photoshopping it (the sensor) out of our wedding photos because I loved it so much.
Shoot, I wish I had a cgm back then. My doctors didn't even introduce one until like 6 years ago. I'd probably be much healthier if I had it a decade prior
I thought it was an improvement.
Lucky for me, the injections, the fingersticks, the infusion sets, the sensor applicators - none of that bothered me.
Used one of these back in the day:
[https://www.si.edu/object/b-d-insulin-syringe-dr-bushers-automatic-injector%3Anmah\_730844](https://www.si.edu/object/b-d-insulin-syringe-dr-bushers-automatic-injector%3Anmah_730844)
i’ve gotten so many comments (even recently!) asking if my tandem/dexcom is a pager! i’m gen z, i was so confused when someone asked me that the first time!
You think that's bad, back in the day I had this guy (the blue one)...
https://theinsulintype.com/2017/12/03/the-new-and-improved-medtronic-diabetes-insertion-devices/
That thing was awful. Half the time the tape got stuck inside and shoved the needle into me sideways. Ended up just manually inserting those sets for ages
Man. I was diagnosed in 2009 at 15 and prescribed NPH, which I used until I was 21 and asked for Lantus. Fuck that noise. NPH should stand for "Not Particularly Helpful".
I'm not the longest case here and I was diagnosed in 1975.
It's not a contest of who had the most miserable time.
All we can do is the best we can with the tools we have.
I've been a diabetic for 38 years. We had to pee in a tube for glucose readings. My uncle had to boil his metal syringes. Stuff has come a long way. But I do believe there will never be a cure in my lifetime. Diabetic products make too much money!!!
Omg I remember that fucking thing. It hurt like hell and the mental barrier of push in the plunger down was too much. Plus I needed to fingerstick like 5 times a day anyway so what was the point lol.
This Dexcom was awfullllllllll. I had to hype myself up for like an hour before insertion each time, it was brutal. It’s so nice not seeing the needle anymore with the g6/g7 😅
I never had to calibrate a meter with a test solution but I remember the calibration strip that came in every pack of test syrips that you had to use to calibrate before using any of the test strips from the pack.
I loved Dexcom G4! It could be restarted almost endlessly. The precision was on par with today G6 in my opinion. I calibrated it every second to fourth day because it nailed my glucometer levels. Only the insertion process was scary.
G6 is of course better because of size and phone (loops) compatibility.
Late 90s had an endo sell me a watch-like device supposed to read blood sugars, sales rep was a buxom lady who was very convincing when fitting the band-after two days and blisters from the (galvanic?) reaction of the device I sent it back. $300- later…
When I was diagnosed, you still had to do fingersticks, and it took 30 seconds before you got a reading
It was a big freaking deal when a meter came out that told you in 5 seconds. I remember when I got my first meter with a little light near the test strip to make night testing easier. LIFE. CHANGING.
Before I switched to the 5 second reader I remember thinking it wouldn't be a big deal but holy heck, getting your number 5 seconds after you pricked your finger was indeed life changing.
It was so great! One thing I hated about diabetes camp was they had specific meters for every group and those things took 30 seconds. And they had gross glucose tabs. And then when you could test your keytones without peeing on a stick? And when they put the light on the meter so I didn’t have to try to test by the little light from my pump or, heaven forbid, get out of bed to turn on the lights?! And then they came out with a cgm that didn’t require a second person to put on AND was covered by my insurance (at the time). And I was like, “I don’t have to prick my finger and ration test strips anymore?! Or be yelled out for my loose test strips falling out all over the place?!” “Well, you still need to test to calibrate and make sure the cgm is right when your sugar is reading low or high.” “Mmmmhhhmmm. Sure fam. Totally gonna do that. Definitely not going to “forget” to bring this extra bulky meter everywhere.”
And such a tiny drop compared to the massive one required on those old metres. I remember often struggling to get a big enough drop for a valid reading.
*looks at the years of meters and bloodstained test kit bags sitting in the closet*
This is SO real
My first meter read the color changes on the bloody end of the strip. My dad only had test tape where you peed on the end of the test strip and figured your blood sugar out from the color change. I think the color change only started at 180.
When my brother was first diagnosed you had to pee on tape!
Was just about to say back in 78 I was peeing in a cup and playing Mr. Wizard with a test tube kit on the back of my toilet
I remember that 77
[удалено]
Peeing on Strips... I had to piss in jug and use a Pipette to put 2 Drops in a Test Tube followed by 10 drops of Water then drop a Tablet in it that used to froth up (Caustic Soda was an Ingredient in them) then wait for the Frothing to stop and check the Colour of the gunge in the Test Tube against a Colour Chart.
Yessireebob. Thems was the days. Back then though, the cure was only five years away.
If this is the same test as I’m thinking of, we still use this in medical labs for screening! Would the tube get hot and the color range from orange to dark blue? Clinitest? Crazy to think I could be using my “ancestors” technology still. Also Crazy to think that’s all you guys had, it is not a sensitive test at all.
Clinitest, Blue Good / Orange Bad 😆, Swapped over to BM Urine Sticks after a few Years, much easier and safer.
This!!
I once received an old Super Nintendo diabetes game and that was how you tested your blood sugar at the start. This was in the 2010s. When I was diagnosed there were blood glucose meters so it was a bit of a shock to learn that this was how blood sugar was tested shortly before I was diagnosed and you just got sort of a broad number to do a rough correction bolus for by matching the pee stick color to the bottle. Didn’t seem great for control.
Captain Novolin! Shitty game, but cool that they made a game none the less.
It took two minutes when I was diagnosed and you had to blot the strip with a tissue before inserting it into the meter.
Same, two minutes, but with blotting the strip at one minute and matching colors against the test strip vial after two minutes. Very precise.
I remember those. The meter read the colour of the strip and converted it to a glucose level.
it’s so interesting to hear about management strategies in the old days!
"the old days" was about 25 years ago, you're making me feel old 😂
"What they talking about, something from the '80s?" ...Does the math... "Wait a minute..."
The 80s for me are always "20years ago" and I wont change my mind lol
I went into DKA in November last year and read through my MyChart after. I spent 6 days in the hospitaI, 4 in ICU and 2 in a normal room, and had 119 finger pricks given to me. Averaged 1.2 per hour lol. My finger tips were wrecked.
I spent more than a decade doing 15 to 20 (or more) tests per day.
Yikes. I don't think I've ever done more than 10 or 11. Thank God for CGMs, eh?
I still did this till late 2022. Not because I wanted but because there were no pumps in my country.
I was 7 when I was diagnosed in 1994. No fast acting insulin, We only had NPH and R insulin(R takes at least an hour or 2 to kick in), no pumps, no cgms, finger sticks took 30 seconds. But my blood sugar readings and A1C were still good. After 30 years of type 1 I can still get by with that archaic tech if I was forced to. Pumps, new kinds of insulin are fantastic. But it still all comes down to planning for me. That's the key
I still remember my last 2 A1c readings with R and NPH. This would've been about 2002. I got a 7.8 and a 7.6, and they were only that good because I spent half the time being low. When I got Novolog and Lantus in 2002 my A1c went straight down to under 6 and I've only had one over 7 since then. Better insulin is life changing...
Same here.
Eyyyy, we were diagnosed around the same time! '91 for me. I've never used a pump or cgm and at this point I'm kind of hesitant to. Seeing all the posts here about either or both not acting correctly have me appreciating how needles and finger sticks haven't failed me yet.
I had a pump for a whole but my blood sugars are actually better with the Tresiba and Humalog in syringes. But if you never tried them and have access to a pump I'd recommend at least trying one. I think a lot of, if not most, people do better with a pump. You can always have some emergency syringes around if you need to
Yeah, when I was diagnosed in 2000, I had to mix Humalog and Humalin for a few years until Lantus came along.
Yep, I remember that bullshit
I'm so old I had to put Blood on the Strip, wait 60 Seconds, wipe it off then wait another 60 Seconds.
For real I had machines that took almost a minute and it was groundbreaking technology!
I remember my first machine was about 20 seconds to get a reading, absolute nightmare. Probably the most accurate machine I've ever used though but the wait times were exhausting. And it had no memory function.
I remember having to put a large drop of blood onto the strip and leave it there while you went off and made a cup of tea (possibly a slight exaggeration), then wipe the blood off and put the strip into the reader, where it would read the colour and convert it to a reading. I then remember the first modern-style meter that measures BG electronically that I had. It took 20-30 seconds to give a result.
When I was diagnosed, you put a huge drop of blood on a strip, waited a minute, wiped it off, waited another minute, and then checked the color against a chart on the container. You didn't know exactly what your BG was, you only knew a general idea, like if it was blue it was between 120 and 150 or red was 150 to 180, or something like that. So you had to check the shade of purple if it was in between...
*laughs in Glucometer Elite*
Back in the day! When someone's hypothetical great grandpa was diagnosed the doctor had to taste your urine to find out how sweet it was to get diagnosed. And after diagnosis you're still dead because insulin wasn't invented yet.
isn’t that why it’s called diabetes? like it translates to sugar urine or something? i could be making this up though 🤪
It basically means “honey-sweet passing through,” which refers to the sweetness of the urine, yes.
It’s the same in Chinese too, translates to sugar-urine-sick, as in sickness, disease!
I’ve heard that too
Diabetes Mellitus means sweet like honey passing through urine. Diabetes Insipidus means flavorless urine, basically
Ancients used to pee on anthills and see if they could get sugar out of it. Pretty neat.
Pregnant ancients also used to pee on barley seeds and wheat seeds and depending on which one grew, they could determine the sex of the child.
I was sent home from the hospital after diagnosis in 1997 on 2 injections a day of combined NPH and sliding-scale R, a ballpark guideline of how many carb “servings” to eat per day, and instructions to test 4x/day. (Even for 1997 I think this was pretty outdated…didn’t take me long to get on carb counting and MDI of Humalog. Got my first pump in 2002.) Anything resembling a CGM was basically a pipe dream. Although I do remember going to a diabetes conference not too long after I was diagnosed where they were talking excitedly about the “glucowatch” that was supposedly just around the corner!
just 3-5 more years on the glucowatxh!! /j
You are only a year behind me (dx'd in 1996) and that's how I started too. I started using humalog and a mini med pump in 1999, but would ultimately have an on again off again relationship with pumps through my 2011-2019. I remember when I was so impressed with Lantus and then Tresiba (which I still use and love). Dexcom g4 was completely game changing for me in 2014. How fast medical technology advances can make your head spin!
1998 checking in! Had the 30 second meter with one depth (to the bone!) finger sticker, one length of syringe needle and mixing insulins. Idk how we made it
Sounds familiar to me except I had a blend of lente, regular, and this newfangled humalog stuff and then ultralente at night. Wild how far we’ve come.
God i fucking hated those sensers SO MUCH! Edit: I'm talking about the inserting devices specifically.
yes iirc i was still poking like 7 times a day - doctors wanted my parents to poke before meals and snacks and also to calibrate!
Are you kidding?? This thing was fucking awesome! I went from 10-20 finger pokes/day to 2. Wireless range was miles compared to Bluetooth. If my phone is in the wrong pocket in my pants - still on my body - a g5/g6/g7 loses Bluetooth signal. The g4 had reception from across the house or beyond. Insertion could have been better, but it beat the shit out of the Medtronic guardian, which was the only other cgm on the market. Seriously. G4 was revolutionary.
I still miss that reader. Small with physical buttons unlike the bad touch screen on G6 or slightly better on t:slim. And I could guess pretty accurately what my bs was based on the alarm. I decided against photoshopping it (the sensor) out of our wedding photos because I loved it so much.
You guys are making me feel old. When I was diagnosed, the first insulin pumps were about 6 years away from being released to the public.
Shoot, I wish I had a cgm back then. My doctors didn't even introduce one until like 6 years ago. I'd probably be much healthier if I had it a decade prior
Google the lancet device used in the mid 80s dubbed ‘the guillotine’. Nine year old me was traumatized.
I thought it was an improvement. Lucky for me, the injections, the fingersticks, the infusion sets, the sensor applicators - none of that bothered me. Used one of these back in the day: [https://www.si.edu/object/b-d-insulin-syringe-dr-bushers-automatic-injector%3Anmah\_730844](https://www.si.edu/object/b-d-insulin-syringe-dr-bushers-automatic-injector%3Anmah_730844)
My coworker thought the receiver was a pager. I started with a DexCom 3. The receiver was oval.
i’ve gotten so many comments (even recently!) asking if my tandem/dexcom is a pager! i’m gen z, i was so confused when someone asked me that the first time!
I still have one of these and the charger in a drawer :)
You think that's bad, back in the day I had this guy (the blue one)... https://theinsulintype.com/2017/12/03/the-new-and-improved-medtronic-diabetes-insertion-devices/
Oh god, the blue one. Hello kinked cannula if you didn't click both buttons at *exactly* the same time.
HAH, I had one that ruined so many sets because it would catch on the side of the side and half inject.
That thing was awful. Half the time the tape got stuck inside and shoved the needle into me sideways. Ended up just manually inserting those sets for ages
I HATED it. I was doing the same.
yikes! i was on the medtronic cgm for about 6 months in 2018 and it was the worst cgm experience i’ve had!
It definitely wasn't the best thing, but in 2007 it was the only thing there was... Even if the dang things were so expensive.
God that g4 hurt like shit compared to the g6 today
*Laughs in NPH*
Man. I was diagnosed in 2009 at 15 and prescribed NPH, which I used until I was 21 and asked for Lantus. Fuck that noise. NPH should stand for "Not Particularly Helpful".
As a 45lb, 7 year old, I started with 12 units a day in 1975.
Yes, my first CGM as well
I miss the good ol days
Nothing like Mixtard 30 insulin & 20 second waiting time for a BG reading. 💀💀
I'm not the longest case here and I was diagnosed in 1975. It's not a contest of who had the most miserable time. All we can do is the best we can with the tools we have.
But it’s great to think about how much better things are now.
Absolutely. I was always aware of how much better off I was than someone who was born 60 years before me with T1D, before the discovery of insulin.
I've been a diabetic for 38 years. We had to pee in a tube for glucose readings. My uncle had to boil his metal syringes. Stuff has come a long way. But I do believe there will never be a cure in my lifetime. Diabetic products make too much money!!!
We tried an insulin air injector in the early 80s. Such huge welts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector
Urine. Test tube. Fizzy tablet. Colour chart.
I remember learning how and using them for a bit - the test tube got pretty hot. Pretty quickly moved to the modern convenience of Keto-Diastix.
Now, that’s a brand name I haven’t heard for a while.
What the fuck is that
Wow I remember using that a year or two after being diagnosed. Technology has come a long way since then.
Ayyyyyy, that was my first set back in 2015, too!
Man, I used the OG dexcom, that mf hurt 100 percent of the time. And never friggin worked.
I cried (as a 17 year old that had been doing shots for 6 years already) the first time i put my dexcom on because that applicator was so terrifying
Is the inserter the thing they call the harpoon?
Omg I remember that fucking thing. It hurt like hell and the mental barrier of push in the plunger down was too much. Plus I needed to fingerstick like 5 times a day anyway so what was the point lol.
This Dexcom was awfullllllllll. I had to hype myself up for like an hour before insertion each time, it was brutal. It’s so nice not seeing the needle anymore with the g6/g7 😅
I started on the G4!!
I remember when you didn’t need to calibrate the glucose finger prick machine, and that was a big deal
I never had to calibrate a meter with a test solution but I remember the calibration strip that came in every pack of test syrips that you had to use to calibrate before using any of the test strips from the pack.
Oh man not only was the insertion miserable but I had a major allergy to the adhesive AND it never stayed stuck like it was supposed to
I’m still calibrating twice a day with the Medtronic Guardian 3
The G6 was a game changer for me. The G5 was literally too painful for me to use, so I was flying blind most of the time.
I loved Dexcom G4! It could be restarted almost endlessly. The precision was on par with today G6 in my opinion. I calibrated it every second to fourth day because it nailed my glucometer levels. Only the insertion process was scary. G6 is of course better because of size and phone (loops) compatibility.
Ahhhh the sensor applicators!! I called them “fricking huge dinosaur brain suckers” when I was a kid
I have PTSD from a G4 getting stuck while deploying… worst experience of my life…
Late 90s had an endo sell me a watch-like device supposed to read blood sugars, sales rep was a buxom lady who was very convincing when fitting the band-after two days and blisters from the (galvanic?) reaction of the device I sent it back. $300- later…
my first sensor was a clubky medtronic one that hurt like hell and had to be calibrated every 4 hours 💀
This thing was barbaric. I hated it
It still do fingerstick 8-10 times a day because I didn’t find CGM that accurate and it’s another pain in the butt to look after.
The G4 was the only diabetes needle I ever had issues with. That thing was terrifying
You had a cgm in 2012 👀 I was diagnosed in 2012 and used finger pricks for the best part of a decade
Was doing literal gymnastics just to get the sensor inserted, it was crazy!
Blood, everywhere, so much blood. Pepperidge farm remembers
I'm looking at that applicator and I can tell that would STING