<story><title>New pill can deliver insulin</title><url>http://news.mit.edu/2019/pill-deliver-insulin-orally-0207</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RPLong</author><text>What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don&amp;#x27;t know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis.&lt;p&gt;No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you&amp;#x27;re currently doing is going to affect your blood sugar levels an hour for now:&lt;p&gt;- Have I been sitting in this chair too long?
- Have I not been sitting down enough this morning?
- Have I been drinking enough water?
- Did I just drink too much water?
- I haven&amp;#x27;t been to the bathroom in two hours; does this mean I&amp;#x27;m screwed?
- If I eat a piece of toast after dinner, will I be able to have sex with my wife without going hypoglycemic?
- I&amp;#x27;d like to go hiking, but it&amp;#x27;s hot outside and my insulin might spoil, so maybe I&amp;#x27;ll walk around the block instead.
- I just plan on going to the grocery store for 20 minutes; do I need to bring insulin in case there&amp;#x27;s a traffic jam on the way home?&lt;p&gt;Etc., etc. Pharmaceutical companies can&amp;#x27;t solve the real lifestyle problems associated with diabetes short of inventing an actual cure.</text></item><item><author>samcday</author><text>&amp;gt; Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s some pretty impressive ingenuity. Also sounds kinda terrifying if the 1.0 has any kind of edge case that involves tearing holes in your stomach lining.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not diabetic, but I still have vivid memories of sitting with my grandmother while she constantly pricked her finger to test blood sugar and jabbing insulin pens into her abdomen. It&amp;#x27;s always stuck with me as a particularly unpleasant lifestyle to have to endure. Even still, if I were a diabetic I think I&amp;#x27;d still be waiting a year or two after the release of something like this to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out ;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>daeken</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m diabetic and the sole reason I don&amp;#x27;t check my blood sugar (unless I think something is drastically out of whack) is that it takes me upwards of 30 minutes to do a finger prick for testing. My anxiety skyrockets and nothing I do can tell me that it&amp;#x27;s not going to be excruciating.  Most of the time I end up having my wife do it, which isn&amp;#x27;t a fun process for either of us.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not the worst thing, but it&amp;#x27;s deeply, deeply unpleasant for me.  Come at me with a 10ga needle, I won&amp;#x27;t flinch; come at me with a 30ga lancet and I&amp;#x27;ll be a mess.  I&amp;#x27;m going to be switching to a CGM purely for this reason.</text></comment>
<story><title>New pill can deliver insulin</title><url>http://news.mit.edu/2019/pill-deliver-insulin-orally-0207</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RPLong</author><text>What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don&amp;#x27;t know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis.&lt;p&gt;No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you&amp;#x27;re currently doing is going to affect your blood sugar levels an hour for now:&lt;p&gt;- Have I been sitting in this chair too long?
- Have I not been sitting down enough this morning?
- Have I been drinking enough water?
- Did I just drink too much water?
- I haven&amp;#x27;t been to the bathroom in two hours; does this mean I&amp;#x27;m screwed?
- If I eat a piece of toast after dinner, will I be able to have sex with my wife without going hypoglycemic?
- I&amp;#x27;d like to go hiking, but it&amp;#x27;s hot outside and my insulin might spoil, so maybe I&amp;#x27;ll walk around the block instead.
- I just plan on going to the grocery store for 20 minutes; do I need to bring insulin in case there&amp;#x27;s a traffic jam on the way home?&lt;p&gt;Etc., etc. Pharmaceutical companies can&amp;#x27;t solve the real lifestyle problems associated with diabetes short of inventing an actual cure.</text></item><item><author>samcday</author><text>&amp;gt; Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s some pretty impressive ingenuity. Also sounds kinda terrifying if the 1.0 has any kind of edge case that involves tearing holes in your stomach lining.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not diabetic, but I still have vivid memories of sitting with my grandmother while she constantly pricked her finger to test blood sugar and jabbing insulin pens into her abdomen. It&amp;#x27;s always stuck with me as a particularly unpleasant lifestyle to have to endure. Even still, if I were a diabetic I think I&amp;#x27;d still be waiting a year or two after the release of something like this to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out ;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coldpie</author><text>Yeah. I&amp;#x27;ve been T1D since I was 13 (now 30) and I can&amp;#x27;t even imagine what it&amp;#x27;s like to live without it. It&amp;#x27;s literally a constant thread in my mind, every waking moment, and a few times a week while I sleep. I carry glucose tablets and a few granola bars on me, and you&amp;#x27;re right about carrying insulin. Am I likely to eat on this trip, or can I leave it at home so it doesn&amp;#x27;t spoil?&lt;p&gt;I once failed to bring my insulin on an international trip. That was a doozy!&lt;p&gt;Making injections easier would be nice, sure. Not having to worry about finding a bathroom or bleeding into my pants or whatever. But that&amp;#x27;s a real minor set of issues compared to the constant attentiveness that managing it well requires.</text></comment>