Stranded Without Insulin – Diabetes Type 1?
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at
11:55 am
World_Explorer asked:
If an insulin dependent diabetic gets stranded in a remote part of the world – and the insulin supply is lost/destroyed – and with no medical facilities nearby – what items/foods/devices can be used/rigged to survive?
If an insulin dependent diabetic gets stranded in a remote part of the world – and the insulin supply is lost/destroyed – and with no medical facilities nearby – what items/foods/devices can be used/rigged to survive?
Please do NOT quote text-book answers/definitions about how the body works. This requires workable “possibilities” as answers.
ie. Creative-logic is required.
Thanks.
Tagged with: Creative Logic • Diabetes Insulin • Lost
Filed under: Diabetes
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Unfortunately, there is little that can be done; without insulin, the body cannot use glucose, and without glucose, the body dies. An insulin-dependent diabetic is just that – dependent. No matter how much sugar is in his bloodstream, he can’t make use of it, and will generally die after only a few days without insulin.
Death is imminent without some form of parenteral (injected) insulin. Best shot at survival: kill a mammal, find its pancreas, and liquefy it. Then find some way to inject this – find a large thorn or something similar, hollow it out, and use it for the injection.
Note: this isn’t foolproof – while the older preparations of insulin were derived from animal sources, it is entirely possible the insulin from the animal you find might not bind human insulin receptors efficiently enough. Also the problem of immune response to the exogenous insulin and infection from your crude handiwork in general. But in a pinch, this is your best bet.
I guess the answer would be to go back to pre 1921 when insulin was discovered. The treatment was..rest, very limited food and a prayer. Diabetics didn’t tend to live very long pre insulin!
Food could be very limited carbs, but protein would be OK (meat, veg and fruit). If by chance there was a Lauraceae Cinnamomum (cinnamon tree) the bark could be ground to produce cinnamon which is a natural hypogycaemic agent. If there happened to be some bitter melons around that would be quite useful…that is also a natural hypoglycaemic!
Actually I saw something like this scenario in a movie so Im not sure it is true- but the diabetic received a blood transfusion from a person that is not a diabetic– it kept him from going into shock and buyed him some more time. Another scenario would be to find sweet plants on your island- type I insulin dependent patients are not making insulin and that is a form of sugar- so eating sugar will raise your levels and you would have to continue to be fed something sweet over the period of time you are stranded, probably every 3 hours so you do not go into diabetic shock.
Nothing can be done. For real. You’re screwed. Your best bet is a high fat, zero carb diet. A starvation diet such as this was used to keep type 1s alive before the discovery of insulin. If you were super careful and followed the diet, you might last a year. And I suspect that was because these people were newly diagnosed, and had some beta cell function left. If you have had diabetes for awhile, short of insulin, nothing will keep you alive.
I am a type 1 and if I were stuck with out my insulin this is whay I think i would do. I would drink plenty of water if clean safe water was available. I would try to limit carbs as much as possible, eating lots of protein and veggies. I would avoid sugar and move around as much as possible (trying to burn what excess suagr there was) I would do all this in hopes of trying to buy myself more time to get a hold of any insulin and get out of what ever situation I am in
Hopefully I never am in a situation where I am faced with these possibilites.