Islets and Insuln

I have been taking insulin for about a month now.  I began with the Lantus and then added some Novolog before meals.  My dose seems to be holding steady at 5u of Lantus/day and 1u of Novolog before each meal.  The combination seems to be working well.  My numbers have been really good.  I have been about 100 before breakfast and my postprandials are under 180 and many are in the 120-130 range.

After the initial few doses of the Novolog, I stopped getting that tired feeling.  It has only happened one other time since. It was on a day when my post breakfast reading was 108.  Its a lot like the old days when I would see a reading in that range and know I might be in trouble.

At my recent visit, my endo added a C-peptide to my tests to see how that was faring.  It was 0.34 which is low.  I wondered if the insulin that I now take might have an effect on that reading and e-mailed Janet and Dr. Bellin with that question.  The answer was that yes it does.  It makes sense that my islets would not need to work as hard now that they are supplemented with the insulin.  I hope that they are enjoying this rest and are using this time to regroup or regenerate or recuperate or whatever it is that they are needing to do.

I'm getting myself prepared for the Diabetes Transplant Summit.  My involvement has progressed.  Now I'm going to do an interview that morning along with Dr. Hering on one of the local stations.  I get overwhelmed just thinking about it, but what an opportunity.  For the chance to stand beside my hero and talk about something that I feel so strongly about, I can withstand a few butterflies.

On the research front, the Sernova corp. has signed on Dr. Shapiro of the Edmonton Protocol and more recently Dr. Sutherland from U. Minnesota.  This is the islet sheet project where a pouch containing islet cells is implanted in the person and is permeable to glucose and insulin, but not to antibodies that would destroy it.  This means that no immunosuppression is necessary and it is replaceable if/when the islets give out.  And they use pig islet cells!

We had a good time carving these.