250 USD per month at the minimum. You also need to purchase blood sugar test strips which also cost a considerable amount. You need to check BG levels at least 4-5 times a day (usually you check much frequenter than that).
People are willing to forego doses, reduce their nutrition to pay less. There are diabetics who die because they were trying limit their doses.
People also use Walmart insulin (insulin R), which us much much shittier than the modern insulins (fast acting insulins). It is much harder to control blood sugars with insulin R, because it's onset and clearing out levels are very long and inconsistent. You need to inject before you eat a meal, wait an hour, hope you don't get low and eat. You can survive on them but it's much harder.
People also use expired insulin (me included), because it doesn't expire 100%, its effects get less over time. People use second hand medical devices (insulin pumps), fix them themselves (because its out of warranty and they can't afford a new one), mod the devices by flashing open firmware so that they can do looping. Diabetics are used to gamble with their lives, because the pharma companies don't have our backs.
The real issue with diabetes is that you somehow survive, but if you don't have access to modern technology, you feel sick all the time because of ups and downs and you are much more susceptible to complications.
As a diabetic, you feel like a ticking time bomb.
People would definitely be willing to inject some backstreet cooked stuff. It's a life or death kindof thing. As a diabetic you leave so much things to chance that you probably simply won't care. Me at least, I am trying to survive, if I can't afford insulin and the only option I have is to use shitty insulin I'll take the chance. If I die, I die. Because I'll definitely die horribly if I don't take insulin.
I worked with a guy with diabetes. Hes about to retire around now.
The company we were working for was acquired by a VC backed larger entity who offered much less in terms of benefits. His out out pocket expenses increased quite a bit as the new entity self-insured and even the best health plan had really high deductibles and the coverage was not great even after that. IIRC it covered like 60-80%, its a bit foggy because I could basically never use it.
He was using blood test strips and injecting insulin because it was the only thing that fit in his budget. We talked about it very occasionally, I asked him if he could get the electronic insulin thing that attaches to your arm and talks to your iPhone, and he told me about the coverage and costs and he really couldn't swing the out of pocket.
This guy was pretty advanced in years and had controlled his diabetes pretty well, but I saw the inconvenience and sometimes normal forgetfulness affect him often. His mood would be unpleasant at times, and I could see that he was often not feeling ok. Eventually, his doctor had an old tamagotchi looking leftover electronic blood sugar monitor that he ended up giving him for free, I guess it was old enough it wasn't going anywhere. His doctor thought the diabetes could be better controlled and took it upon himself to try to get him to upgrade his quality of life.
He used that for a while and it was a bit janky but worked, I noticed his mood and demeanor improve quite a bit for a few months, this also improved our work, but he stopped using that because there was some upkeep on it that was also not covered in our plan. So he went back to the blood-finger-strips.
I felt pretty bad about this situation, this dude was stuck in a job that even I hated (and quit, nowadays I have BCBS from an actually good organization) because the old, acquired company had a really good deal: Employee Ownership. When the firm acquired and consolidated that company, they took on the employee ownership agreement. This was a huge chunk of this man's retirement, but the new deal required him to stay on in order to claim the benefits he had been planning on retiring with for 25 years.
He could definitely have quit and made more money with better benefits, but he would have lost his retirement strategy.
It was the same with me. I couldn't afford a continuous glucose monitor. I was checking my blood sugar 10+ times a day, because I was having hypoglycemia anxiety.
Even after I got a job and starting earning money, I hesitated getting a continuous glucose monitor because it costed so much. I was using the cheapest glucose meter that tested with blood, because the strips were cheap. It turned out that machine was inaccurate and my diabetes nurse gifted me a better glucometre.
I recently was able to switch to a continuous glucose monitor (the tamagochi type thing) and things got much better.
People are willing to forego doses, reduce their nutrition to pay less. There are diabetics who die because they were trying limit their doses.
People also use Walmart insulin (insulin R), which us much much shittier than the modern insulins (fast acting insulins). It is much harder to control blood sugars with insulin R, because it's onset and clearing out levels are very long and inconsistent. You need to inject before you eat a meal, wait an hour, hope you don't get low and eat. You can survive on them but it's much harder.
People also use expired insulin (me included), because it doesn't expire 100%, its effects get less over time. People use second hand medical devices (insulin pumps), fix them themselves (because its out of warranty and they can't afford a new one), mod the devices by flashing open firmware so that they can do looping. Diabetics are used to gamble with their lives, because the pharma companies don't have our backs.
The real issue with diabetes is that you somehow survive, but if you don't have access to modern technology, you feel sick all the time because of ups and downs and you are much more susceptible to complications.
As a diabetic, you feel like a ticking time bomb.
People would definitely be willing to inject some backstreet cooked stuff. It's a life or death kindof thing. As a diabetic you leave so much things to chance that you probably simply won't care. Me at least, I am trying to survive, if I can't afford insulin and the only option I have is to use shitty insulin I'll take the chance. If I die, I die. Because I'll definitely die horribly if I don't take insulin.