Re: Conversion mg/dl ~ mmol/l

February 9, 1999

In Reference to the letter below i wish to make the following comment:

My statement in the letter regarding Michel was out of line and uncalled for.

I wish to apologize to him for those remarks. is right we are not here

to quarrel. I hope you will accept my apology as it is a sincere one. May

peace reign in this group and only truth be told. God Bless,

The letter is as follow:

" well if you are diabetic and i hope you are not, a long fast will bring you

down somewhat but after a while when your body says you are hungry, it will

raise a little because your pancreas throughs off sugar to feed the hunger of

your body. Does that make sense? well any way it will raise but only if you

are diabetic if your not it won't raise. I beleive. don't hold me to that.

I am not Michel. And by the way I thought your letter was pretty good. and

accurate.

He is a little snobby sometimes though i would like to beleive that he means

well. maybe you just had a virus though. Quite possible. Hopefully that is

all it was. I wll keep you in my prayers

God bless

"

February 9, 1999

As much as I love being reminded of my father, who also hit me (would

you care to try that too while you pull apart my entire personality?), I

believe that this has gone too far.

I am going to quit this group, and well, I'd be interested in signing

back on if and when someone lets me know that I am welcome to talk

without being called a hysterical female by someone who DOES NOT KNOW

ME. This is not pouting, it is merely self-preservation; I already feel

sick I don't need to be attacked too.

For those of you who were helpful, thank you. Michel, thank you for

alerting me to the seriousness of the situation. I'm sorry my apology

did not sink in there, either the first one or apparently the 2nd one.

Jen

>

>>

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>>

February 9, 1999

>

> Michel-

>

> I'm sorry, I'm probably about to speak out of turn, but you are rude.

You say " rude " , but many others say " realistic " .

> You frightened me into the ER this weekend; maybe I should have gone

> anyhow, but you scared me so bad I couldn't sleep and that made all the

> symptoms worse.

>

> You insulted my dr and the care I received, putting it down to

> " socialized medicince " . You know what? This is the best medical care

> I've had in 5 years, and I had private, HMO insurance until now.

It may have been the best you have had in 5 years, but in my book

when they send someone home who may be suffering from a life

threatening condition (here, Type 1 diabetes) while they wait

for lab results to come back, that is SHODDY medicine, and such is

well known to happen in institutionalized forms of medical care

of the kind you are involved with.

> No, I

> don't get immediate care for everything, but that doesn't mean that my

> dr is incompetent; it's the way the system works. And as it turns out,

> he was safe in what he did; at the ER my ketones were still safe.

> Perhaps the bloodwork will show otherwise, but I was fine through the

> weekend, if I did feel sort of rotten.

But did he KNOW that he was safe in doing what he did? How could he?

He didn't have a single test result, and wouldn't for three days.

Even though things turned out all right (I thank God for that,

because I was really worried about you and had reason to be),

that is NO justificiation for the course of action your doctor took.

With a modicum of bad luck, you could have entered ketoacidosis

over the weekend. Where would that have put you now? You could

have died if no one had found you unconscious. After all, you

DID have ketones in your urine, but not as much as for

ketoacidosis, but who could have guessed that?

>

> You can't expect everyone to believe everything you say. If you hadn't

> noticed, this is the internet, and it is free to all liars,

> pontificators, and misinformed people. You can quote at us all you

> want, but most people are here to find out about diabetes, not be

> lectured. I'm a grad student, I have a chemistry background, and

> believe me, knowing chemistry doesn't make you all that special. Nor

> does it make you right.

My position was simply that you would have been well advised to

find out about your condition, ASAP. If you will recall, what I

recommended you do was to get some test strips for ketones.

They cost only a few dollars for 36 of them and it turned out

that you needed them anyway. I myself only mentioned going to the

emergency room upon your establishing the fact that you had dangerously

*high* levels of ketones.

But no. Some chemist you are. You lost your nerve to the extent

that you no longer had the presence of mind to get the simple,

low-tech wherewithall to check for ketones on your own. Instead,

you went directly to the ER, but you can't lay that one on me.

That was your decision, not based on *my* advice. Any rate, I'm glad that

you did something, at least.

>

> You are attacking and his doctor without cause; according to the

> American Diabetes Association (since you like quotes so much) it IS

> possible for type Is to not have ketones.

True, I am Type 1 and I rarely have ketones. We were talking about

having 414 mg/dl blood sugar, no insulin being taken, and

at the same time there being no ketones in the urine. This is

a very special situation that is significant from a diagnostic

standpoint.

> I would assume that

> probably knows more about his condition than you do;

I think that to *assume* that (or his doctors) can better

interpret clinical data that pertains to him than I can is

*un*warranted. And I'm not bragging, either.

> if you follow

> 's internet url link you'll find that he is a very well-educated,

> intelligent man.

Which is why I took the time and effort to share with him the

received wisdom in the medical profession on what makes a diabetic

Type 1 or Type 2.

>

> The fact is that if you want people to pay attention to you when you

> attempt to " enlighten " them, you might want to treat them with respect

> as intelligent people. You too are human, why don't you share about

> your own experiences instead of appointing yourself the teacher? You

> are not a dr, so don't give medical advice. I am almost a medical

> professional, and that is the FIRST rule you learn; even with extensive

> medical knowledge required in my field I can't give out diagnoses and

> tell people their drs are wrong and use " stupid logic " . Especially when

> I've never met them and I'm making assumptions.

The NEXT rule that you will have to learn in the medical school of

hard knocks is that doctors are not infallible-- they do make mistakes.

And many fail to learn from their mistakes and keep on making the

same mistakes, all out of something akin to hubris. It was a

mistake to have sent you home for days without knowing how serious or

unserious your condition was, and had you suffered for it, such

would have been nothing less than medical malpractice.

It is simply your perception that you see me carrying on as a " teacher "

(which are the kind of people you are quite heavily in contact

with at the moment) simply because I am sharing with the people

on this mailing list what I know. Just because you think you

know more than I do, does that mean that I must refrain from

helping others? I don't think so.

ly, by the tone of your language (as exemplified by your

choice of words) I would say that your emotions have gotten the

better of you. Just because your ketones turned out to be

not excessive in quantity does not discredit in the least

what I told you here about your condition. I NEVER told you

that you were in fact suffering from ketoacidosis, only that

the chances were real enough that it was in your interest to

find out what amount (if any) of ketones were present in your

urine. You could have found that out for less than $5 and

a few minutes of your time.

You seem to be saying that you are about to become a medical

professional. For a person like yourself showing themselves to have

reduced rational faculty both during a problem situation as well as

after, it's scary to think of you in such an occupation.

You have no guts. And when you get scared or even just a bit

emotional, you can't think straight. Truly, a temperament

unsuited for medical work.

If you think that I am being unfair in telling you this,

I suggest you go back and reread what you have sent to *me*.

If you still think you were behaving rationally, you still

need to cool off.

>

> ly, I just have to say I'm quite insulted by your treating a bunch

> of adults as if they were naughty children.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

See what I mean?

Michel

>

> Jen

February 9, 1999

> From: RSMYTH1000@...

>

> In a message dated 99-02-08 22:27:03 EST, you write:

>

> <<