Diabetic Footprint

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1

So, today a lil’ boy who is related to me (one of my cousins kids) and I were talking about the enviornment. Well, we were talking about a lot of things, but settled on the environment…
We finally got around to talking about a program he had seen on the Discovery Channel that talked about the human footprint, etc. If you aren’t familiar with the human foot print concept, I urge you to google the term. Anyway, we started to talk about the consumption, etc. and finally he said to me: “you must have one of the bigger footprints…”. I just stared at him for a moment blankly and asked why? He schooled me quickly about things I new nothing about.

If each of us Type I’s (and some Type II’s) had to inject insulin let’s say only once a day, think of how many needles you use in a month, year, 1o years, etc.

Now for me (a Type I) having to inject my sliding scale, my 25u of 70/30 at bedtime, my occasional need for my rescue inhaler, my Enalapril, Atenolol, etc. The footprint is just amazing. . . and that is just daily.

The cure for diabtese would be an amazing event not only for Diabetics but for the rest of the world as well… think of the enviornment and resources that could be directed elsewhere.

2

that is a really interesting concept that I have never (consciously) thought about before! I remember my roomate in college who also had a pump and I had a discussion once about all the waste of plastic in all the packaging of each pump site and all the paper in every box of test strips and vial of insulin…it’s also really interesting that a young kid pointed it out!

3

hmmm… interesting. It’s true-- there is a lot of waste in diabetes.

4

i think about that all the time. pump users are even worse. there is so much unnecessary packaging for pump supplies and test strips–i produce SO MUCH GARBAGE. some of the paper-based stuff can be recycled but for the most part it’s just trash : (

ahhhhhhhhhhh.

5

Wow I didn’t even think about it that way. I have 2 diabetics in my house, my hubby is type 2 and my daughter is type 1, but they both use insulin. Very interesting.