Insulin. Made by Pigs.
Back in the early 80s, the big fads were The Police, Bon Jovi, W.A.S.P, the Information Society, Tesla, Trickle Down, Cinderella, Poison, Duran Duran, Twisted Sister, and Motley Crue. If you were born later than 1983, I'll bet you don't know which one of these isn't the name of a band.And back in the 80s, all diabetics were taking Pig Insulin. Yes. Insulin. Made by pigs. I always wondered how they got the insulin out of the pig. It was probably a gruesome process involving feeding a poor little pig a dozen boxes of Tootsie Rolls and right in the middle of his piggy bliss, yanking his pancreas from him and squeezing the insulin out like orange juice. Or something like that.
Fortunately for me and the pigs, in the late 80s some really smart people figured out how to create insulin by photocopying Human DNA and paying poor immigrants to assemble it by hand. But until that time, diabetics were stuck taking pig insulin, which had some disadvantages.
The main problem with pig insulin was that the human body is pretty smart and knows when you're trying to slip something past it. So when I injected 5 units of pork insulin into my leg, my immune system let it in but then had second thoughts and began attacking whatever was left of it at the injection site. The battle between my immune system and the insulin resulted in dents in my legs, butt, and arms and weird swellings and deformities on my belly.
I'll never forget being in 7th grade and taking off my shirt for gym class and having an 8th grader say, "Jesus, Huck. You need a bra for your stomach."
That got a lot of laughs, and of course, being a Catholic school boy, I did as Jesus taught and immediately retaliated with, "I'll get one from your mom the next time I **** her."
Catholic schools are NOTHING like you would think.
So for many years, I experienced lipoatrophy, which is the official name for when fatty tissue under the skin disappears and causes dents at the injection site. When I started taking human insulin, the lipoatrophy went away. I can't imagine what I would look like if I had been taking pork insulin my whole life.
I'm thankful for the many scientists who did their homework when they were kids and went on to make advances in diabetes care.One regret, though. These days, drug companies spend a LOT of money coming up with cool names for their products. Human Insulin is called Humalog, Velosulin, NovoLog, Exubera, and Lantus. Cool names meant to attract customers.
Imagine if they were still making pig insulin. What would they call it?
Swinealog. Pigalin. Pigsulin. Porkalog. Porkalin. Swineubera. Bacolin. Hamalin. Hamalog. BLT.
Hmmm. BLT.
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