Comment by Cody Turner on February 27, 2009 at 9:53am

Tell her to hang in there with her a1c. We all see jumps sometimes, diabetes is hard to control at times. Start checking into the various pumps now to see which one she would like the most, I suggest buying the book Pumping Insulin by John Walsh as well. It is a great book and will help a lot. I used to have a dog that was able to sense naturally when my sugar was low without any training at all. Dogs are very keen on that, right now my cat is the one that does it. He will bite my nose until I wake up if I am low.

Comment by Christina Luis on February 27, 2009 at 10:11am

Wow! Your cat? thats awesome, we don't do cats though. The dog does sleep with her and wakes her up during the night, however we previously thought it was to go out to the bathroom. But I told her to start checking her blood when she gets up w/him (at least 1 x ) to see if maybe that is why he is waking her up. I never thought of a dog for sensing lows, until her endo told us that's what her dog was for (she had a dog for sensing lows in her office, however she has since given her back because she stopped alerting to her. Due to the amount of diabetic people she is around, she felt that the dog got overloaded. and stopped alerting all together.) She did give us ideas on how to let the dog know when she is low and how to alert us.). So we are going to see if he will do that. It would save $ on a CGM which we will probably investigate as well. We are checking into different pumps, She does like the OmnipOd and we have received a test kit for that. But we are looking around, plus we need to see what the ins. does cover so that we can look into those as well. Plus we will see about the book too. Thanks!

Comment by saundra barragan on February 27, 2009 at 11:55am

Hi. I am sorry for the slight jump in A1c but it really isn't too bad of a jump. I am so proud of her for so many other things I sure wouldn't want her to feel down about this. I know she is so careful. I was looking at the Animas Ping too because it would let you increase insulin in tiny increments of 0.25 units. This is the smallest amount from any of the pumps and might make a difference in running the basals. All other pumps run their lowest at 0.50 But the OmniPod has such freedom and is so popular with the young people. I think it isn't very hard to train the dog about sensing the lows because my sister has their dog trained for her husband. He is in a truck a lot of times and he was thinking about having the dog ride with him.
Congratulations about the minivan.

Comment by Christina Luis on February 27, 2009 at 1:39pm

thanks Sandrua! I am proud of her too, we think that she might be pushing it a little with the food and maybe things are changing some. I don't think the jump is bad. The doc said its under the magic number so I am ok with it (magic # is 7.5) I am not sure about the dog thing too, plus thankfully laltely she hasn't had to many lows. I think she really likes the Omniod, however I think I am leaning towards the one that has the built in CGM. Mostly because it has both functions in 1. We have plenty of time to investigate and think about it. :) Thank you Saundra! I hope things are going well with you....how are you feeling? Good I hope.

Comment by saundra barragan on February 27, 2009 at 5:30pm

I am doing okay. My doc has sent in a bunch of bloodwork and paperwork for me to get a pump and I have been looking at all of them. I wanted an OmniPod at first and then have been looking at the Ping a lot because of the reason above. Which one has the CGM built in? When I start working on a particular pump I forget a lot about the others. It just seems there are so many thngs to work on all the time that things come and go in matter of importance. We had started working on this particular pump about two weeks ago and we began the blood draws then. I don't know yet what my new A1c is. We had forgotten one of the tests and I went back to get it drawn on Wednesday.
The CGM is a really good idea too and I am glad you are looking at it. I have been bouncing all over for a while and am glad DD is not having too many lows right now. A person feels so crummy when you just keep on swinging back and forth.
I am sure you are right about the changes too and i hope the dog thing works out. My sister's dog starts nosing Tom (her husband) when he is low. If it is during the night or even right before bed, the dog keeps puitting his paw on Tom and trying to move him around She didn't know at first what the dog was doing. Then a friend of his came over and he was diabetic and told Tom to check his blood sugar. When he did and found it was low, they started paying attention to the dog and he did it each time Tom was low. Anyweay, good luck with that.
And good luck with the mnivan. I would appreciate hearing how you like it. We have been talking about one lately.

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