All the better reason to shoot up insulin at the table in the restaurant than in the bathroom.
I had no idea blue light made it hard to find the vein but usually I’m trying to miss the vein!
I suspect the majority of “drug users” they talk about are actually insulin users that are improperly recognized, but that’s purely a suspicion.
I used to detest shooting up in dark, nasty restrooms, so I switched mostly to injecting surreptitiously as possible, at the table. And if it wasn’t surreptitious, too bad!
I’ve heard about these lights and never gave it a thought about insulin users. In the beginning I used a restroom to test/bolus, but it didn’t last long, at all, too many germs for me. I’ll test table-side, discretely and the same goes if I bolus from a syringe, I do it discretely, table-side. If I’m relatively sure of my environment, I do it in the car before we go in and that helps with my pre-bolus time.
If you simply proceed with the process most will think you are using your smart phone. The only bit you should take care to mask is any red blood that may appear. Some people are sqeemish.
If you act suspicious thats when people notice. Just relax and keep chatting.
When I was on MDI, I would inject right through my clothes with the pen. I remember one squeamish eating companion who once asked with a shudder, “Did you just inject?” I said, “Yup,” and went on eating and talking. I refuse to do it in a public rest room. And injecting in the car may be too long before I get served food and I would go low. It’s just a fact of life and THEY just have to get over it.
How to tell if they are drug addicts or diabetics? We dose quickly and move on with business. Addicts are in there for a long, long time. I worry about the hepatitis risk in public bathrooms now. I would never dose in a public bathroom.
Only three times has someone asked me to ‘take the insulin injection somewhere else:’ 1.) Someone once thought I was using drugs in the Burger King drive through and yelled to call the police, but they had already handed me my food, so I just drove away; 2.) A diabetic working at a coffee shop once approached me to say that he had some complaints about me injecting. Since he was a diabetic, he knew what I was doing, but asked me if I couldn’t conceal the activity better due to the presence of individuals in recovery that were made uncomfortable by my use of syringes; 3.) Once, working in the hospital, staff asked me to do that in a bathroom so patients wouldn’t see.
I’m MDI and like many have said here before, I believe there should be no shame in dosing wherever, whenever needed. I use pens and try to be discreet when circumstances allow but have bolused while walking down the street and think any PWD should feel fine openly doing what keeps them alive and healthy.
I’ve heard a lot of conversation on this subject over the years, so it’s hard to be surprised anymore, but this one (below), seemed strange.
56 years of T1. MDI for forty of it. Never been asked to take my shot somewhere else. Opiods, however, are big news and lots of people more aware.
Pump now, but I shot up anywhere, anytime…but not in restrooms. GROSS.
When first diagnosed, I did a few injections in restaurant bathrooms, but quickly decided that I did NOT like the idea of poking holes in my skin in a public restroom! Like others, I injected through clothes or in easily, politely exposed areas of skin at the table. No one (other than my wife) has ever asked me to take it elsewhere.
I find that quite amazing - after all, aren’t there signs in many hospital bathrooms recommending opening the door with a paper town (instead of your hand) upon leaving for sanitary purposes? If the doorknob isn’t sanitary enough for a casual touch to open it, how could the rest of the room be OK for a medical procedure??
My blood sugar was rising once while I was walking home (I don’t remember the reason why now), and although I was only a 10 minutes walk from my apartment, I decided to do a quick shot so that the insulin would kick-in faster because I was walking.
I stopped by an apartment building and did my shot relatively quickly. However, a guy walked past me up to his apartment building and said, “the druggies are shooting up in the streets now!”
The whole situation was comical because I was clearly holding an insulin pen, and I’d just pulled up my shirt a tad to do a shot in my belly. I have no idea how he thought I could’ve hit a vein there or what type of street drug might come in a pen form.
I think I might’ve shouted back something like, “it’s insulin you idiot!” Which I recognize was impolite, but I don’t really care.
@mohe0001, you make a good point about some members of the public who are proximate to your insulin dosing may be people trying to recover from an illicit drug habit. That’s likely the most persuasive objection I’ve heard to injecting insulin in public. The fact remains, however, that anyone, including those trying to turn around their drug-adicted habit, can simply avert their eyes.
Kicking any habit is filled with visual temptations. But the world won’t always cooperate. When I decided to quit smoking for the last time, I continued to witness smoking in public every day. In the end, successfully rejecting urges prompted by visual temptations hardened my resolve.
and that would be a restaurant I wouldn’t return to, and I’m on a pump. That sign would just rub me the wrong way and I’d vote with my feet.
Interesting. I’ve seen those blue lights in bathrooms here (Canada). Never in restaurants, but in public washrooms in grocery stores. It actually makes things really hard for me to see as someone with a visual impairment, not to mention I find it creepy. I get in and out of there as quickly as possible.
I used to inject in the bathroom when I was a teenager, but by the time I was in my late teens I’d just inject whenever I needed to. I’d do it through clothes often. I’d try to keep it discreet, doing it under a restaurant table (as mentioned, if you keep talking likely no one even notices).
Once, at a restaurant, when my mother-in-law was with us, she requested that I do my shot in the restroom. I agreed to do so, waited a bit, then gave it to myself quietly, and making no issue of it, under the table cloth. She never noticed.
@truenorth, ironic, eh? That’s how I felt. Like, “C’mon guys, gimmie a break.” I don’t think they had a very good workplace culture. They weren’t very good people.
@Terry4, this happened again the other day…oddly, because its super unusual. Maybe this post just put it at the top of my mind. My pod ran out of insulin and all I had was MI. When I took a tiny basal dose at a restaurant, I saw the flash of something unusual in someones eyes nearby.
I asked if they were afraid of needles. They said, “No, its actually kinda the opposite.” (Implying they had been a drug user). I apologized and said I would be more subtle. They were like, “No worries, triggers are everywhere. Your a diabetic. You need to take your insulin. It doesn’t bother me.”
We spoke a little. I said that I had seen the best piece of art all week on the bus, where a young native woman had a tiny syringe tattooed under her eye, like a teardrop. It really got my attention because I’m diabetic, but I realized that it was a reference to the fact that she had lost someone important to injected drugs. It was like this:
I said it was interesting how a symbol could represent life and health to one person (diabetics) and death and illness to another (drug users). The other person said that they had to admit that their first instinct was that I was using drugs - that syringes were always immediately a symbol of illness to them and they had to stop and think about it the other way. Its interesting.
Years ago, somewhere, I heard/read that type 1 diabetics had a higher incidence of using syringe drugs. I’ve never known whether to believe that or not because I’m super needle shy as a result of diabetes, I think. But, that’s even more interesting…where a syringe could be the tool for survival and destruction, simultaneously.
I guess if you are a recovering alcoholic you had better never watch any tv or go out in public anywhere, ever.
I think it’s goofy to alter a health maintaining medical procedure because there might be a recovering addict that might be triggered.
I’ve had a pump since 2000, but as a teen I frequently gave shots under the table in my stomach or through jeans or under shorts/skirts. Bathrooms are gross!
My 16 year old daughter injects at her lunch table at school. Occasionally ignorant teens say OMG do you have do that here?, to which she replies “you don’t want to see it - go sit somewhere else.” I Love her spunk!
agreed! Anyone who stares at some doing an injection, then is offended, or worse yet, says something rude, needs to learn how to look somewhere else. Put on your big boy or big girl pants! No one is forcing someone’s eyeballs to be trained onto something they wish not to see.
