back in the old days…
Wow, guys, thanks for all the "shower" replies! This is so cool, having
real-life people to ask practical questions.
The discussion of how things USED to be took me back to 1959, when I was
diagnosed at age 3, and the way to check sugars was to collect a test
tube of urine, drop a tablet in it and wait for the color to change.
Blue meant "negative," purple meant "high sugar." That was it.
Then in the 60s, a tremendous breakthrough: TesTape, which you’d peel
off a roll like Scotch tape and dip in urine — the darker the green
color, the higher the sugar.
Now I feel like one of those codgers who used to hike to school ten
miles in the snow uphill both ways!
Laurie, who got an extra-large hot water heater with one year’s
Christmas bonus JUST for long showers <g>
May 26th, 2004 at 2:00 am
Laurie,
Did you see my pic with my first pump - the size of a checkbook box? If not,
I can forward it to you if you want. I have my Clinitest set and a bottle
of Acetone tablets - no Clinitest tabs though. The Acetone tabs needed a
drop of urine on them to detect acetone in the urine. They stayed their
original color or turned shades of purple depending on severity. I don’t
know when it changed to ketones. I would suspect those tablets were very
dangerous for children. I saw many, many tomato-soup colored urine tests
with the Clinitest. Still have the chart that went from dark blue to green
to orange with shades in between: 0 - 4+. One gal said hers always turned
out *good* using 3 drops of urine to 12 drops of water (5:10). I’m having a
BASH (Bawling, Amazed anyone would care to come, Sincerity, Humor) 11/4/00
to observe 50 years of life/survival of the coma 11/5/50. I will have a
display of my collection of DM products over the last 5 decades. I have
several old items: A tester with about 5 little balls in it that you filled
with urine and depending on the floating ability of the balls it told your
kidney function; my 2nd pump; glass syringe and 24g 1/2" needle; B-D
automatic injector; Rx’d diet (that dietitian is still alive and will be
invited); a tall skinny bottle of Velosulin before it was buffered; and lots
more. Ahhh, the memories! What’s good about the good old days? They’re GONE!
Jan
Wow, guys, thanks for all the "shower" replies! This is so cool, having
real-life people to ask practical questions.
The discussion of how things USED to be took me back to 1959, when I was
diagnosed at age 3, and the way to check sugars was to collect a test
tube of urine, drop a tablet in it and wait for the color to change.
Blue meant "negative," purple meant "high sugar." That was it.
Then in the 60s, a tremendous breakthrough: TesTape, which you’d peel
off a roll like Scotch tape and dip in urine — the darker the green
color, the higher the sugar.
Now I feel like one of those codgers who used to hike to school ten
miles in the snow uphill both ways!
Laurie, who got an extra-large hot water heater with one year’s
Christmas bonus JUST for long showers <g>
May 26th, 2004 at 7:42 am
<< Laurie, who got an extra-large hot water heater with one year’s
Christmas bonus JUST for long showers <g>
>>
Aha! So that’s how you did it!
Patrick
May 26th, 2004 at 8:13 pm
What I pray for is that 5 years from now we can sit around and talk
about how it was to be diabetic and these days will be the good old
days. I was talking to my educator and she feels we are 5 years away.
Hopefully someone will be on the mark soon.
Frank
May 27th, 2004 at 6:38 pm
And to save a bit of $, I used to tear off a shorter hunk and get pee all
over my hand. I met a lady whose husband only showed urine sugar when his BG
was 286!! That was such a poor way to know a glucose level. And 4 hours
after the fact, to boot. I remember feeling low and having 4+ tests. It
laid guilt on me because the test didn’t match my senses - therefore, *I*
had to be wrong! WRONG!!
> Now I feel like one of those codgers who used to hike to school ten
> miles in the snow uphill both ways!
Yeah, it happens to the best of us. With the Continuous Glucose Monitoring
System becoming available, etc., some day, *today* will be the olden days
for newbies.
Jan (60 y/o, T-1 11/5/50, pmpg 8/23/83)