Pablo is ten years old and callos in his hands.He has been formed in the fingertips for at least six daily punctures he needed to measure the blood sugar level and adjust the insulin doses with which he treats the type 1 diabetes that he suffers from the eight.
He says he has tried to touch pots to the fire and has not perceived anything."Now I can feel my fingers more, what I grab, notice heat and cold and also pain," he explains.As?Because this week has started using one of the glucose monitoring systems that have already reached the market.
The pecks and drops of blood have changed for the simple scan of a sensor attached to its forearm with a reader smaller than a mobile.You just have to change it every 14 days.
What is the problem?Which costs 120 euros per month and the Xunta, unlike other regional and Portugal governments, does not finance it.
Patients and doctors agree: Administration should cover these new glucose measurement systems.Not only because they improve their quality of life, but because it records levels at all times and, with it, improve disease control and avoid their complications.
At its next meeting, the Board of Directors of the Galician Society of Endocrinoloxía Nutrition and Metabolism (SGENM) will address this need and request an appointment with Health to raise this demand."It is essential that all these systems are financed," defends the secretary of the professional group and head of this service at the Hospital of A Coruña, Teresa Martínez.The demand is shared by the Association of Nenas and Nenas with Diabetes de Galicia (Anedia).
They claim that patients be granted the monitoring system that the doctor considers better in each case.The one who Pediatrics of Álvaro Cunqueiro has indicated to Pablo is of "Flash" measurement.You have to pass the reader to, on the radio frequency, see on its screen the information that the sensor has collected in the last hours.It is the most recommended because the price is more accessible.
Canary Islands, Valencia, Euskadi, Castilla-La Mancha and Portugal already finance it.There are others, more advanced, continuous monitoring, with readings every few minutes and sending this information to a mobile application -which also allows the control of children at a distance.The main advantage is that they alert when a sugar descent will occur to avoid it.The administration - also the Galician - only covers these systems in certain cases.Anemy claims that access is widespread.Dr. Martínez adds that, in addition, her prices are going down.
Who would benefit from this measure?The endocrine Manuel Botana explains that it would be an "advantage" for all patients who injected insulin several times a day, because clicking to measure glucose "is a roll, it is painful and is expensive."They would be all who suffer from type 1-with an average of four doses per day- and those of type 2 who have also reached this treatment when they are no longer able to handle the disease with pills and diet.
Also for women with diabetes during pregnancy, because it reduces perinatal and fetal complications.There are several thousand Gallegos, although the absence of a record prevents completing.But the most benefited would be the children who do not know how to explain how they are.They are around a thousand, according to the ane data.In the Vigo area, 103.
"The quality of life of the parents is very bad because they have to be watching the sugar level at all hours and night," explains Dr. Botana.Pablo's mother, Lidia García, says that glucose has to be measured, at least before breakfast, lunch, food, snack and dinner, to know what kind of food can eat and in what quantities.Also when he is already lying, because they can't spend many hours without controlling it.
His father, Jorge González, describes how he entered with a flashlight in the room and punctured him cautiously to try not to wake up.These six controls are the minimums per day.If you do sports, you have to add another;If you find it wrong, another ... There are patients, such as the daughter of the Anezia president, Ana Pérez, who reach 15 daily.
It is not that this system will avoid all punctures.The skin has three layers.The traditional peck takes blood from the third deepest, the hypodermis, while the monitoring sensor introduces its filament into the second, the dermis, and measures glucose in its interstitial liquid.Therefore, to calibrate the sensor and to check important variations, it is necessary to prick to contrast it in blood.But these painful pecks are reduced notably to some patients who have already inject insulin several times a day.
In addition, doctors are also convinced of their economic profitability.Not only because the administration already allocates between 75 and 100 euros per month per patient in reactive strips that could be saved in large part.Also for future savings."They are a tremendous advance to improve the quality of life, but also to prevent complications," says Dr. Botana.Deepen that in what is most noticeable, in the short term, it is that sugar descents are avoided -or hypoglycemia.
But in the long term, this better control reduces consequences such as blindness or renal insufficiency, freeing the system from its costs.And it is "repeated hypoglycemia can cause more serious problems," says Dr. Martínez.And without these monitoring systems, many are not detected.
