I'd like to see a research study on scar tissue caused by injections. Do you get more or less scar tissue pumping? Does blood sugar control affect the rate at which your body scars? To what extent does scarring accompany absorption problems? What percent of diabetics have absorption problems after 15 years of insulin? To what extent does scarring affect A1c? To what extent does rotation minimize scarring?
In the last 24 hours, I injected myself 11 times. Yump, eleven times. Granted, that's about double my mean, and about treble my median, but days like this are still not that rare. Sometimes I wonder, when I do a shot before and after meals (which is what I do with most large meals), is the potential scar tissue worth the control?
I don't have any diabetic scars. I have been injecting insulin for just under eighteen months. 18 months x 30 days per month x 5 shots per day = 2700 shots. I think that that's probably a slight overestimate of the number of insulin shots I've had. I think about the fact that diabetics at one point tended to take only two shots per day or so, and still got scar tissue within ten to fifteen years. If we figure 2 shots per day for ten years, that was only 7300 shots to get to scarring. I'll be at 7300 shots in another three years.
Some days I find myself pretty desperate for a site that doesn't already hurt. What will it be like when instead of bruises I have scars?
4 comments:
O has scars from pumping and injecting. The pumping scars are more visible but I don't know if that's because she's been pumping for the last three years and therefor, the injection scars have had more time to heal or if the cannulas cause bigger scars.
I think if you constantly inject/insert pump sites in the same spots then you will get pockets of scarring. I think it's called hypertrophy, although I could have that term wrong.
(Sorry for the delete - O forgot to sign out of gmail.)
Wow, I didn't know you had a blog. I've subscribed to your blog's feed.
That's pretty crazy about acne and fevers. Never would have guessed.
I would like to see this study done as well. I would like them to come up with a way to reduce scarring. When on MDI, Daniel would start getting knots under the skin if he injected in the same spot too often. Because of the Asperger's he liked to not vary from his certain spots. Now that he has been pumping for a year he has visible scars on top of the skin but not so much under. We still battle with getting him to try new spots for his sites but he would still have the exterior scars.
My husband takes three shots a week for his MS and the needles are larger, he is getting the scar knots under the skin really bad after five years of shots. I worry sometimes that he will run out of places to take his shots. If you hit the knot when injecting the medicine does not spread like it should and you don't get the full benefit. I rub the injection site after the shot to spread it, but I am not sure how much it helps.
You always have such great questions, keep pressing for answers.
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