How long could you survive... [Archive]

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stu8910

11-17-2006, 03:25 AM

How long could you survive... if you were marooned on an island?

Abit strange for my first post I know, but while watching Lost I was curious as to how long someone like myself with Type2 would be able to survive without insulin or measuring equipment.

I was thinking I could last quite a while by eating 1 banana in the morning, 1 at lunch, 1 late afternoon and 1 at night, aswell as eating plenty of fish. That way BS wouldn't be very high due to not eating many carbs.

Anyone got any thoughts?

stu8910

11-17-2006, 03:48 AM

sorry that should say Type 1 diabetes!

Geoff

11-17-2006, 04:03 AM

From what I have been told by my endo the av type-1 could last for about three (3) days without going into coma, death!!:goodnight

stu8910

11-17-2006, 04:06 AM

I don't get it... surely it would take months of high BS before you'd be in trouble. Just so long as you don't go too low?

xMenace

11-17-2006, 04:09 AM

DeusXM

11-17-2006, 04:14 AM

I don't get it... surely it would take months of high BS before you'd be in trouble. Just so long as you don't go too low?

No. If you're have T1 and don't get any insulin, your body changes its metabolic method to something called diabetic ketoacidosis. This turns your blood to acid which eats away at your body and will put you in a coma in a matter of days. It depends on the individual - for some people, DKA can put them in a lot of trouble within just hours, for others, maybe a week or so. But you certainly wouldn't last a month - in fact I'd be amazed if you survived more than 10 days, and that'd be really pushing it.

DKA happens when your body simply doesn't have enough insulin to function properly full stop. Under normal circumstances, high BG would take time to kill you but this is because under normal circumstances, you would probably still be receiving some insulin.

stu8910

11-17-2006, 04:18 AM

EazyE77

11-17-2006, 04:28 AM

wow i had no idea.

it makes me wonder about when i was diagnosed i felt terrible for about 3 months before i got checked and when i was diagnosed the docs said they'd never seen blood fat/sugar levels so high... could i of been close to a coma?

It's possible but I don't think a doc would have withheld information if you were in the state of diabetic ketoacidosis. I know myself I was in a very bad state of diabetic ketoacidosis and was hours away from possibly going in to a diabetic coma. But to answer the other question, deus pretty much nailed it on the head. We'd all be gone in a matter of a week.:goodnight

stu8910

11-17-2006, 04:33 AM

EazyE77

11-17-2006, 04:40 AM

i always used to laugh at movies that made a big deal of diabetics going like 1 day without insulin, and how they would die etc. most notably con air!

i dont think i've ever missed a single shot in the 2 years i have been diagnosed so i was not going on experience i just suppose i got my head wrapped around the idea that controlling BS would enable me to survive on bananas and fish!

Nah it's not silly to think of things like this. We've had a few threads along the same idea as this started for kicks and people popped in and answered :). As for the movies go I believe a good deal of people don't really understand the whole thing behind diabetics and they sometimes have to play those situations off without much detail. But if my memory serves me right the movie Con Air they were in the air for a day or at least two before the fella started feeling ill over the lack of no insulin, couple that with the fact that I believe he was due for his shot almost as soon as they boarded so if it was his long acting (12 hours or more) then he had been without it for that much longer too. So I guess it wouldn't be uncommon for that to be set in "realistic" down hill time for an actual diabetic going without insulin and getting sick etc. But as far as other movies go yea I know what you're trying to say lol didn't mean to deboggle your example of movie choice there.

DeusXM

11-17-2006, 05:11 AM

it makes me wonder about when i was diagnosed i felt terrible for about 3 months before i got checked and when i was diagnosed the docs said they'd never seen blood fat/sugar levels so high... could i of been close to a coma?

Very probably. What you have to remember is that developing T1 is a gradiated (if speedy) process. Before you were dxed, you still had insulin around, which was just about staving off DKA but being less and less able to do that every day.

Apparently it is just about possible to survive without insulin under very controlled conditions - one way they used to treat diabetes prior to the discovery of insulin was by putting sufferers on a no-carb diet with loads of water. All it did though was stave things off for a bit longer - there was still the catastrophic weight loss and other symptoms - bit like putting a plaster on an amputated leg, if you like.

stu8910

11-17-2006, 05:22 AM

before i was diagnosed (during the 3 months of terrible-ness) i was craving kitkat chunkies and other chocolates. i was never a big eater of sweets so i found that strange. and no doubt that made me worse

DeusXM

11-17-2006, 06:12 AM

I was the same. I was always thirsty all the time, so I took up drinking Lucozade by the gallon.

EazyE77

11-17-2006, 02:06 PM

I was the same. I was always thirsty all the time, so I took up drinking Lucozade by the gallon.

Yea I was the same way. I drank sprite *at first then sprite zero* by mass consumption amounts it was insane. I think before i finally took myself *or had myself taken in by my family rather* I was drinking gallons upon gallons of water/sprite and probably using the bathroom roughly 20+ times a day. I didn't get any cravings for food oddly enough I had completely lost my appetite by the time I went in to the ER.

Lorna

11-18-2006, 02:32 PM

From experience I can only go for about 3h with absolutely no insulin before been really ill with ketones.

KickStart101

11-19-2006, 03:37 AM

i dont think i've ever missed a single shot in the 2 years i have been diagnosed so i was not going on experience i just suppose i got my head wrapped around the idea that controlling BS would enable me to survive on bananas and fish!

Hi! Good to hear that you haven't missed a shot. If you are a
Type 1 and don't have Insulin, you will not be able to keep your
sugars under control. Your sugars will automatically rise. I've
missed my shots on occasion. Thank God for Insulin and oral meds.
for Type 2's. :D

I was dxd. very young so I don't know much about the "honey-moon
phase". I don't know if you can still be in it or not.

p.s. I've been on many deserted islands and there was no food
to be found anyways. Too bad we forgot our fishing poles too. :)

Doug

11-19-2006, 01:06 PM

bananas would send your BG threw the roof ...
I concur with others here - Type 1 with zero insulin would start fading fast

For descriptions of what it was like before insulin was invented - read the book the discovery of insulin ...

Doug

stu8910

11-20-2006, 04:16 AM

i eat bananas all the time. the diabetic dietician even recommended them when i was first diagnosed.

ive never noticed my BG going thru the roof due to bananas?

DeusXM

11-20-2006, 05:11 AM

Depends. Some people react quite badly to fruit. Bananas in particular seem to be particular culprits. Indeed there's a generation of people who think that if they see someone with diabetes in trouble, they need to be given bananas, presumably because they're supposed to stop hypoglycaemia.

Everyone's different when it comes to fruit. For instance, a lot of people here use orange juice to treat hypoglycaemia. I personally wouldn't, because it has such a minimal effect on my overall BG that it wouldn't help at all.

Diana

11-20-2006, 06:46 AM

I think I could go about a week without insulin before dying. After two days I would be in a pretty bad way though! Its a bit scary to think just how dependent we are on a drug, isnt it?

bbrian

11-20-2006, 07:12 AM

I cannot tollerate any fruit except for strawberrys. Everything else sends my bgs through the roof.

DeusXM

11-20-2006, 07:17 AM

After two days I would be in a pretty bad way though! Its a bit scary to think just how dependent we are on a drug, isnt it?

Ah, but technically insulin isn't a drug, it's a hormone. It's a bit like saying you're dependent on blood or oxygen to live.

ProudNanaof5

11-20-2006, 07:58 AM

Okay, answer me this... Before I was dx, of course I knew what I had by doing research, I was losing weight (150#), drinking tons of water, peeing excessively, weakness, High ketones, and extreme mood changes. I didn't go to Dr until I couldn't go on any longer. I knew I had Diabetes for a long time before I started taking insulin. In fact, my first Dr didn't even put me on insulin until 2 months after seeing her. My bs ranges were always over 200 and most were in the 300 - 500+ range. That is the main reason I went to another Dr. There is no telling how long my bs readings had been off the chart. Fortunately I have had no damage done to eyes, kidneys, or etc. Now why couldn't I quit my insulin and not last a week? I lasted a very long time with no insulin before. Just wondering??? I realize that I would over time have damage to my body, but why would I go into coma so soon?

DeusXM

11-20-2006, 08:23 AM

Probably your body was still producing some insulin, which meant you weren't totally ketotic, although it certainly sounds like you were in the preliminary stages of DKA. The large amounts of water you were drinking were also helping to flush out the ketones to some extent, delaying the acidification of your blood.

I would suggest that now, presumably you do not produce any insulin at all, and as such you would go into severe DKA far quicker, since there would be no pathway whatsoever for glucose to get into your muscles and you'd be dependent on ketoacidosis for your energy needs.

Also, it is a question that YMMV too. I find it hard to believe that people can go into DKA in a matter of hours but there are plenty of people on this board here who are proof to the contrary. It might be that your body is just better at dealing with acidity than other people's. Personally I'm just glad I've never been through an experience which lets me know where my DKA point is.

Diana

11-20-2006, 09:06 AM

Ah, but technically insulin isn't a drug, it's a hormone. It's a bit like saying you're dependent on blood or oxygen to live.

Yes, but I guess you understand what I mean. If someone took insulin away from us (be it a drug/hormone/miracle treatment..), we type 1's would all be pretty screwed pretty quickly. That is a bit sobering, whichever way you look at it.

It Ain't Over

11-20-2006, 09:31 AM

Hard to figure how we survived those days at the beginning, and even harder to comprehend how those with T1 lived for years without insulin. I understand that is just what it was called, surviving.

tanyatype1

11-22-2006, 08:43 PM

Do any of you have a survival kit ( or whatever ) with insulin and stuff in it just in case of some kind of catastophe? I don't have anything like that prepared. Watching the news every night makes me think that I probably should, but then I think that my house would probably cave in right on top of where I was keeping my kit!:)