Any suggestions for Type 1 diabetics if the worst happens?

self | 4-23-09 | Self

[Marie]

I'm sure most of us are thinking along the lines of survival lately and doing our best to prepare for the worst (while praying that the worst doesn't happen).

Along those lines, I have a serious problem to face if our western civilization ceases to be civilized.

My son is a Type 1 diabetic. He needs insulin to survive. Period. It cannot be controlled with herbs, exercise or diet. It's an autoimmune disease which has killed off his insulin-producing cells. Even if he ate nothing, his blood sugar would scream out of the normal range.

There's a story called "Cheating Destiny" about a diabetic woman who survived a Japanese internment camp by her husband making home-made insulin. For two years he made insulin and ended up saving many more lives than just that of his wife.

Does ANYONE here know how he did it? Don't get me wrong: I don't want to know the complicated, requiring-specialized-equipment way to make insulin. I want to know the details of how Banting and Best did it with nothing but animal pancreases, a meat grinder, alcohol and ice.

This is NEVER something I would do if there were another option. I would never even whip up a batch and test it on my son "just to see". (Although a bunny may end up having a really bad day.)

But I'm never going to feel secure until I know how to do this. And I know we're not the only ones in this boat.

[DuncanWaring]

Martha Stewart probably has a much simpler and more elegant version.

[BuffaloJack]

Beckman’s “Internal Medicine” contains a description of the method used by Dr. Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best to extract insulin for research on dogs in 1921. You will have a much easier time finding Banting’s and Best’s method than Beckman’s “Internal Medicine”.

[arthurus]

Under the medical provisions of the passed “stimulus” you really have something to worry about as does my wife and my grown daughter. The government has taken it upon itself to second guess your doctor about what treatments you will get and whether it is worth allowing you to be treated at all. The primary threat is to old folks but people with expensive intractable diseases are in the sights, too.