Posted on 08/05/2019 8:53:48 PM PDT by ransomnote
After aging out of his family health insurance and switching to a cheaper over-the-counter insulin sold at Walmart, a young man with type 1 diabetes has died.
Josh Wilkerson was 27 when he died this past June, The Independent reported Monday. When he turned 26 and became too old to remain on his stepfather’s health insurance, his other option was health insurance provided by his workplace, a dog kennel in Virginia. But that plan didn’t cover his $1,200 per month insulin costs. So in late 2018 he began using the ReliOn brand insulin sold over the counter at Walmart, which costs $25 a vial.
This type of insulin is not the same kind Wilkerson had been using before. ReliOn is called “human insulin” because it is manufactured using the DNA code for making human insulin and grown inside bacteria cells. Before switching to ReliOn, Wilkerson was using analog insulin, a newer-generation insulin that is similar to human insulin but genetically altered to make it quicker-acting. Human insulin therefore lowers blood sugar levels much slower than analog insulin does — it can take hours to work while analog insulin works in minutes.
Immediately prior to his death, Wilkerson agreed to stay overnight at the dog kennel for a week to earn some extra money. During the second night, he told his fiancée, Rose Walters (who also has type 1 diabetes and had been taking ReliOn), over the phone that his stomach didn’t feel well, but he would take more insulin. MORE AT LINK
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Insulin has a half life of 5 minutes. If it takes hours to lower blood sugar it’s not insulin.
But there was no way to mimic the human body's immediate production and use of insulin until the 1990s. Thus, until that time, whether animal or human insulin (it had always been called "insulin"), diabetics injected insulin but their blood sugar was higher than a healthy person's for several hours, before coming back down to some level closer to normal.
The newer fast-acting insulins mostly avoid the problem of waiting some significant amount of time before starting to take effect, and also allow the taking of an additional shot that brings unexpectedly high blood sugar down faster. But other things equal it leaves one no less vulnerable, perhaps even more so, to overdoing it, and having blood sugar go too low.
There are still older, cheaper insulins available that have the old problem of slow-to-act, slow-to-fade. This, apparently, is the $25 insulin available at Walmart. Its pattern of action is simply not the same as the more modern insulins, so it is not medically meaningful to say "if it takes hours to lower blood sugar it’s not insulin.” One can, though, say “if it takes hours to lower blood sugar it’s not Humalog” (a brand name for the faster-acting modern insulins).
I say this as a Type I diabetic of 39 years' standing, who has lived through this innovative history. I hope people do not speak recklessly in this way.
True dat. ALL DRUG COMPANIES HAVE PROGRAMS THAT WILL HELP
Makes sense, thanks for explaining the history. I always thought the shot acted quickly.
Type 1 here. WalMart sells two different types of insulin, long acting and short acting. He should have talked to the pharmacist to get the correct one. Many tpe 1 take bith, a lot of long and a bit of short. If you try to JUST live in the skeet acting, chances of a disaster are high. But the real culprit: Big Pharma. There is no excuse for ANY insulin to cost more than $50 a month, even the new ones. They gotta afford that 6th home.
FWIW, I’d make sure nobody had a life insurance policy out on the guy....
You are a fool if you think that people who are needing medication of a life saving nature are spending money frivolously.
A man with the job he has, and I suspect his health does not let him do more, has no extra frivolous money.
You are a fool if you think that people who are needing medication of a life saving nature are spending money frivolously.
A man with the job he has, and I suspect his health does not let him do more, has no extra frivolous money.
The story quotes him saying that his stomach didn’t feel well so that he was going to take more insulin. It doesn’t say that he was monitoring his sugar levels and titrating his insulin per his sugar levels by a given sliding scale. Most Insulins will work but some are designed to work quickly and some to work slower to provide a smoother action over time with quicker insulins added to smooth out the peaks. If he was going by the feel of his stomach as opposed to the data his glucose finger sticks would have supplied him, he would have known if it was elevated glucose or depleted glucose levels he was dealing with. High glucose levels don’t kill you immediately but very low glucose levels can kill quickly. One’s stomach can be upset in both instances. If he was already in a lowered glucose state while thinking he was elevated and took extra insulin, not only would his sugars have dropped to very low level but his potassium levels drop also as a consequence as it is driven back into cell tissue by the insulin’s action. Thus a double whammy and a danger to heart function.(high glucose causes a keto acidotic state and potassium levels become hyper elevated).
This guy went on the feel of his stomach and not data and that’s what did him in.
Josh Wilkerson was taking cheap insulin? I'd love to where else he cut back to save money. For starts, I bet it wasn't on his meals, his iPhone, his cable TV subscriptions, or his car. Those were probably his priorities.
You are a judgmental fool and probably should change your freeeper name to something that doesn’t include God, for you are an embarrassment
the kid was a type one diabetic, with a marginal life. He was lifelong sick, and lucky to be able to work at any job. Even with medication he would have had a substantially shortened life.
You are a judgmental fool and probably should change your freeeper name to something that doesn’t include God, for you are an embarrassment
the kid was a type one diabetic, with a marginal life. He was lifelong sick, and lucky to be able to work at any job. Even with medication he would have had a substantially shortened life.
A good doctor or diabetes educator would prescribe alternative cheaper alternatives with the corresponding sliding scales if a patient can’t afford the more expensive analogs or long acting versions such as lantus.
Cheaper Humulin short acting and Humulin N(intermediate acting) Insulins have been around since the 80’s and many diabetics got and still get on just fine with them as long as they stuck to their diet plans and approved calorie exchanges(you can have the one slice(very small piece) of Birthday cake but decrease the sugar and calories in another area).
The more expensive analogs and steady state Insulins have been only brought on in the last 15 years or so which have been beneficial in smoothing out some of the extreme peaks and valleys of Insulin actions vs glucose levels allowing a more beneficial human like steady supply of glucose. They work better even when a cold or infection can alter glucose levels in diabetics(makes the insulin not work as well while the patient is ill). Yet they are very expensive so the older alternatives remain, though glucose levels need more careful monitoring when these older products are used.
From diabetesselfmanagement.com
Insulin is not insulin
Although the medicines can be purchased over the counter without a prescription, anyone considering ReliOn insulin should speak with his or her health-care provider about the pros and cons before starting: Because it is a type of human insulin formulation, which were first released in the 1980s, it can affect blood sugar levels in very different ways from newer insulins, with potentially dangerous consequences (including severe or even fatal blood glucose highs and lows). “It’s really, really important to work hand-in-hand with a health-care provider to help modify and adjust dosing and to understand how these insulins behave differently than other insulins they might have taken before,” says Jennifer Goldstein, MD.
Actually it would be the opposite, Vet insulin is even more expensive and so folks use human insulin for pets.
The question is why is this pushed as a national story? Why now? Thousands of people die of bad drug reactions an any year. My guess is this story is pushed to assist the Dem candidates with their medicare for all, including illegals.
Finally, the vouce of reason. We were on Medicaid. Husband diabetic. The month I turned 65, I began Medicare and social security and pension. As I went on Medicare my husband lost meducaid for about 6 months til he turned 65. He had stock piled insulin and then went without as he could not afford it.
He messed up his health. After a few months finally went to Dr and paid out if pocket for visit and Dr. Have him some free insulin samples. We were not spending frivilously. He took SS at 62. I am healthy delayed mine 3 years so he would have med ins. The subject really hits home.
Hey, I feel sorry for him, But cases like this are used by the MSM to make a case for socialized medicine and not more personal responsibility. That’s absurd.
Why does his problem MY problem (or yours?). Why should Fedzilla tax us to solve his problem for him?
Where was his plan to get a better job? Also, I’ll bet anything he did not belong to a church, which could have helped him. Also, did he ever humble himself before the Holy Spirit and ask for healing? Probably not.
We’re drawing the wrong lesson here if we make this into some kind of “societal failure” that must be solved by taxing us and reducing our freedom.
The "fast acting" type is NOT insulin, but a new MODIFIED (chemically different) insulin with different properties.
I can't help but think there is more to this story.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.