10,950 FINGER PRICKS LATER

I’ve been an insulin-dependent diabetic for over three decades now. I say this with a hint of pride because the path that’s taken me to where I am today has been far from easy. The pandemic and subsequent quarantine have been difficult for everyone, but more so for us high-risk people with chronic diseases. The paralysis from doing anything that may jeopardize our already precarious health condition is real. I don’t particularly enjoy being dependent on anyone for my care, especially since I am of the view that no one else is responsible for my condition but myself. However, there have been days when I’ve felt a colossal disappointment in what seems like snail’s pace developments in Diabetes Care.

- Rossana L. Unson

To manage my diabetes, I have to check my glucose before each meal. I follow a scale provided by my doctor of how much insulin to inject based on my glucose levels. That’s 3 finger-prick tests a day. Plus the insulin injections. 1,095 finger pricks a year or 10,950 times in the past ten years. I haven’t even counted the insulin shots yet. That’s A LOT OF PAIN, and pain is something you never get used to.

When I was first diagnosed, I scoured newspapers and magazines almost daily, wishing and hoping for new developments in Diabetes Care. Each time I find something, I’d excitedly show it to my endocrinologist, and she’d just calmly nod her head and say, “In ten years. In ten years, that will be approved.“

Ironically, it was only last year, precisely in the middle of a pandemic, that I finally got some sense of progress being made in the management of this disease.

I read in the news that there was a device available that promised a pain-free and quick way to check glucose levels. I was skeptical since I’d read of various devices that had eventually fallen by the wayside. Yet, the more I read about this new device, the more I was interested in trying it.