Simcoe County Insulin Pump Group Minutes 10.26.02


Hello all,

This message is being distributed to all who left their email address on the
sign-in sheet.  A notice of the next meetings is below. We hope you will come
again and in the meantime spread the word about the group and bring another
pumper or interested person(s) with you.

All meetings:  Zehrs (in the community room up stairs) 472 Bayfield Street
North, Barrie.:

November 16, 2002	9:00 am Š 11:00 am December 14, 2002	4:00 pm Š 7:00 pm 
***Note time change***

2003:  TBA

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SIMCOE COUNTY INSULIN PUMPERS MEETING # 4 October 26, 2002,  9:00am - 11:00am
Zehrs (in the community room up stairs) 472 Bayfield Street North, Barrie:

We had 8 attendees in total including two prospective pumpers.  The meeting was
"round table" and "open floor" allowing for a friendly atmosphere and candid
discussion among us about various pumping and DM issues.  A lot of the time was
spent answering questions from prospective pumpers and thus we will have a
little more structured agenda in the future for our open discussions.  As always
we ran out of time!  :)



Discussions:

New and old sets:

Examples of the new "Ultraflex" set, which is inserted vertically with a much
smaller needle than the Tender or Comfort were passed around.  It has a similar
disconnect to the Comfort / Tender. For interest, also showed was an "old
fashioned" set:  the "Classic".  The Classic consists of non-detachable tubing
with a rather thick, bent, wingless needle (no Teflon cannula nor tape) at one
end.  (Yuk)!

Doctors:

There was extensive discussion about frustrations with some doctors regarding
their general knowledge of modern DM and especially pumping.  We all identified
further education of the medical establishment as a priority for better DM.

Emotional heath:

Initiated by a question from a prospective pumper:  "Doesn't the pump always
remind you that you have diabetes"?  This lead to the discursion of emotional
health and the need for psychologists to be on one's DM team.  Some felt it was
good to be reminded all the time that one is diabetic; most felt that the pump
allows one to be able to forget more effectively about diabetes.  Also mentioned
was the importance for people, especially children, to not identify themselves
as a label  (Diabetic).  Of course the pump allows this labeling and negative
self image to be more easily minimized.

Diabetes Vacations:

It was also brought up that it is important to take a vacation from diabetes in
order to preserve one's emotional health.  Basically one takes days or weeks at
a time to do as little as possible in the area of DM.  No statistics cranking,
no bg tracking, , minimal testing etc.  Just enough to "get by and feel OK". 
The importance of taking  a vacation from diabetes management cannot be stressed
enough by many healthcare professionals it seems.

Pump Upgrades:

The pros and cons of taking advantage of MiniMed's offer to upgrade some of
their pumps to the newest model available.  Users' advice was too "give it much
thought".

The group felt that their was a need for future meetings entertaining open group
discussion and more of a structured agenda.  In the future we hope to bring in
the reps from MiniMed, Disetronic and the Deltec Cozmo pump companies as well as
more reps from companies like Cygnus which markets the Glucowatch.

Thanks once again to Zehr's for their kind loan of their Community room and
snacks!


Help please!

It's not possible to continue this group in the long term without some (very
minor) help from a few of you!  We need somebody to phone five or six people,
whom do not have an email addresses, about future meetings.  Someone or sometwo
to help get info out about the next meetings and someone to share the small bank
account duties.

Please feel free to volunteer your own special talent to this growing group! 
Paul and I canÕt do everything forever!  Drop me an email please or contact Paul
or myself at the next meeting.




URLS:

http://www.diabetes.com http://www.insulin-pumpers.org	(This is the #1
Insulin Pumping site in the world).
http://barbchafe.tripod.com/PumpingInsulin	(Excellent Tips and Tricks)
http://www.pumps4kids.ca http://www.diabetes.ca/		(CDA)
http://www.sugarbytes.com/


CONTACTS:

Paul Beckwith:   p.c.beckwith@sympatico.ca

Darrin Parker:   darrinp@sympatico.ca



Note:  Simcoe County Insulin Pump Group and it's organizers makes no warranty
nor implied warranty for any of the contents and information understood from
it's meetings, speakers nor for anything contained within it's correspondence
nor opinions expressed herein nor otherwise and does not intend for any
information provided by it's presenters or participants at it's meetings and
within it's correspondence to superceded in any way any advice from healthcare
professionals.  Simcoe County Insulin Pump Group does not endorse any brand,
model nor manufacturer of Diabetes Management equipment nor supplies.




--

Darrin Parker Ontario, Canada http://www3.sympatico.ca/darrinp

------------------------------------ I have used the insulin infusion pump for
over a year thanks to the support of wonderful internet friends & the
http://www.Insulin-Pumpers.org

The Pump gave me better control than I had achieved in 27 years of MDI!  Best
pre-pump HeA1c = 9.2.  1st & 2nd post-pump HeA1c = 5.1 &  7.0