Thanks for the insight. I’m hoping to/wanting to open up my own business in the firearms industry, tough I know but if there is a will there is a way.
I know for certain that I would have acted the same as you did. It’s MY medical device, that I use to control my BS. It’s not something a unqualify person should be touching,holding,pressing buttons period end of story. If they want to make a big deal about it, I’ll make a big deal in court.
If one had a serious illness that required a steady supply of meds to stay alive; and the SHTF is a big way, resupply would be of the highest order. If this was not going to be possible, then getting the family/friends, etc. set up as best as possible to deal with your absence would become vitally important. I’m healthy and in great shape, but we have plans if I die in a SHTF situation. Not a fun topic, but it has been discussed/planned extensively.
Make friends with a diabetic you don’t really like…
J/K. But hospitals and pharmacies are probably the last place you’ll want to be looking for insulin.
I’ve always wondered how hard it would be to make your own bovine insulin. I know it would require lab equipment but how involved is the process? This thread may have inspired me to look into it again.
I just thought it was funny I typed a “bad word” and it was auto changed to ****
as far as SHTF the wife hand I have talked about it and she understands the first thing I am doing is raiding a pharmacy or 2. hopefully I will have at least a year of back logged insulin and wont really have to but, just in case, I have a plan.
my main objective is to get my wife and kids to her parents, few days drive, after that I will stay alive as long as I can but we understand I can not survive without the meds and I am to be left behind or put down as soon as I become a burden and no longer helpful in the (pick your fav end of the world scenario.)
being diabetic makes you a little closer to death than most people (not including you, you know who you guys are) you learn to accept it is never far away.
My parents got a little upset when I told them when I die I want my ashes to be put into fireworks that are set off at my funeral over the open bar, that way when everyone is hooking up later my ashes will be all over them so I can be there too.
“death smiles at us all, all we can do is smile back”
some googling might help, and TOS mentioned it a while back.
That said … given that you were found with your A1c being in the 14 range, that should show you how loose you can run your blood glucose levels.
If the S truly HTF, running your BG higher probably wouldn’t do too much harm (short term). Instead of using insulin to get your range to, say, 120-160’s, run it in the 200s (or 300s, if you can handle it). As long as you’re not actively hypoglycemic, or in DKA, your sugars can be out of whack and still be alive and active. I mean, your A1c of 14 correlates probably to a BG in the 400s. Obviously you were good enough at the time to be thinking of the military.
Of course, you can over do it and go into DKA, or you can accept that you may be causing a LOT of end organ damage by not maintaining a tight control.
We pretty much figure that rationing is going to have to be the name of the game. Running high will be a part of life and all that comes with that.
That said my wife experienced some extreme insulin resistance during her pregnancy. At first it got her down, but then she kicked it in the ass and taught it how to behave. One of the main ways we managed the resistance was a combination of diet and exercise combined with the insulin on board that should/would have been working normally if she wasn’t pregnant. She managed to keep her A1c between the mid 6’s and the low 5’s.
I figure in an extended emergency if a Type1 Diabetic were to react in a similar way to a T1 with Insulin Resistance he/she may be able to keep an OK if not good A1C while extending their supply beyond typical amounts making it last much longer.
Hell you’ll be busting your ass physically on a daily basis so this should manage your sugars in a way your body isn’t use to on normal American life.
Here’s a sobering thought: The average life expectancy for a healthy man is not very high in the third world. I think I remember Angola being something around 27 when my father worked there in 2006 when I last looked it up on the CIA’s webpage. Somalia was lower by a few years. Chaos in the United States would result in a similar environment and all of our live’s would be expected (statistically) to be way shorter then we had anticipated when Mommy and Daddy told us we could be whatever we wanted in America.
If you run your insulin tight and conservatively while accepting the highs I’m pretty sure a healthy diabetic could live alongside his peers long enough to die from head trauma.
As for robbing a pharmacy. I’ve thought a lot about this and I want to put this out there:
When are you going to rob it? Are you going to wait for system collapse so you can stay safe legally in that there are no jails to hold you? Well, if that’s the case, that sucks because you are going to be fighting with all of the other people who played it safe and waited till the last minute.
So if that’s not the case, are you going to hit a pharmacy hard at the first sign of trouble? If that’s the case how do you think you’ll be treated if you do that and it turns out not to be The Rapture? What if the power comes back on in two days, but you got caught by a local sherif while reality goes back to normal? Will a jury forgive you for robbing grandma at the local retirement community of her insulin?
