Diabetic Dog purchase before chpt 7 closes

[freshstart06]

I really need a diabetic dog, what they do is alert you before your sugar goes down too low. I have had my share of passing out and seizures for my lows. I am afraid to be home alone with the little ones alone sometimes because of it because sometimes I catch it too late (this is normal for people that has diabetes for as long as I have had it)

Will this be considered a medical expense??? It is an optional treatment but it is neccessary in my case with the youngs kids whild my husband is working. There are some places that will offer the dogs for free but not in my area that I have found. I would feel much more secure with that dog (I really don't like dogs but I would love my diabetic dog)

For anyone else on the board that has diabetes especially type 1 you should look into the diabetic dogs as well. Yes, these are real dogs, they usually were dogs that could not be trained for the blind. They also have epilepsy.

I don't want to affect my chpt 7 but my health kind of comes first and a dog is available now. What would you guys do??

[HHM]

This is an interesting question, I tried googling it...there are some hits on dogs detecting "epileptic" seizures but that is different than diabetic seizures, and in addition, all the sources of information could only make reference to anecdotal evidence. In any event, I am not going to offer a medical opinion.

Isn't proper diet and routine blood sugar testing adequate.

How much money are we talking about????

[freshstart06]

No HHM, I have type 1 diabetes, even though proper diet is the key, my pancras does not produce insulin. I am in pretty good shape, my weigh is perfect for my height and my blood sugar is very well controlled most of the times. However, google "insulin reactions" this will give you some idea. Sometimes there is nothing I can do they just come. The results is passing out and in some case diabetic seizures. Most people are very familiar with type 2 which is usually controlled by diet and/or pills but in the long run they will need to take insulin. Type 2 is basically from long term weight issues and not eating right.
Type 1 is kind of an auto-immune issue where the body attacks the beta cells (this is under arguement from new research).

A few months ago, I was laughing and talking to my 13 year old and the next thing I woke up to paramedics and IV in my arm on my way to the hospital. I am on what is called an insulin pump which helps a lot but I still get low blood sugar. I may be getting a test to see if my pancras is still producing some insulin. I really don't have any serious complication from diabetes. I always had poor vision, it runs in my family. I got hit in the right eye back in 2001 and the next day I had bleeding in the back of the eye. surgery fixed that. at the end of 2005 I had a detached retina because two years prior a wine cork popped in my eye. All of 2006 was eye surgies and weekly eye appts that lead to 2007. As of March 2007 my retina doctor told that I will not be having any more eye surgeries in that eye because it is too risky. I can't see out of that eye because they removed the natural lens in the first surgery, I have to wear very expense contacts to see some images. I am completely blind without the contact but legally blind with. I have 20/20 corrected in the "good" eye but I have to have eye appts every three months to make sure it stays that way, I will always be susceptable of losing vision in that eye if I am not careful.
Now what happened to my feet. in 2005 after the birth of my son. I step on somekind of punch hole and put a huge hole in my foot (not good to do if you are a diabetic) after taking the kids to disneyland and wearing really cute shoes, I got a massive infection in my foot and blood system. The treatment for that was a contact case for 5-6 months. Well because I am diabetic it took a long time to heal and because I have flat feet the walking cast was not a good idea for my feet. After the cast was finally removed and I step down every bone in my foot fractured. So I had to deal with my foot healing and my eye healing.

I finally thought things were looking up then I fell off the bus in Mexico and fractured the ankle after almost 5 months the ankle still has not healed and since my other foot was not ready to be the dominate foot it fractured all over again. Now I am in even more pain because both feet hurt all the time and the doctors really can't do much about it at this time until the bones start to heal. I developed a condition called Charcot foot in the left foot which is pretty much weak bones that can easily break, I will have to live with this.

For this reason I can not work, my job as a Mortgage broker in this crazy market is too much. I was in the negative. I have to pay my own expense ie marketing, website, phone bills, credit reports etc. Because I am only commission even if I don't make money bills still had to be paid, this put us negative on top of our own bills and the medical bills from me and my daughter that has asthma. My oldest has asthma as well but not as bad as my middle daughter. My youngest daughter has speech delay which means we may have to pay for additional speech theraphy if the school requires it. My insurance will only pay for 80%

LOL, now do you understand why we had to file LOL. I am still leaving out the pending lawsuit over option money for a home we opt not to purchase because I had to have eye surgery. My husbands tax issues and bills in general. If I did not have a possible pending surgeries in my ankle and another in the good eye and other pending expenses it would not be so bad. Even though my husbands income was above the median all of this eat everythng up and put us negative.

Sorry for the rant LOL, I guess I had to get this out again. The reason I want to write a brief summary to my trustee is because if you seen me you would not thing\k anything was wrong except a broke leg or something. My eyes look good, eyes heal fast so there are no tell tell signs unless you look very close like nose to nose. I am in very good shape and take very good care of myself.

I truly feel, once the stress is gone (diabetes and stress do not work together it makes the condition worse) i will be able to heal correctly once and for all.

[lrprn]

FS, sounds like you have very brittle Type 1 diabetes. That can be very hard to control.

HHM, diabetic alert dogs do exist - see http://www.heavenscentpaws.com/. The dogs are trained to detect high and low blood sugar levels. A trained dog could detect FS's low blood sugar level before it drops to such a point that she has hypoglycemic seizures.

FS, if your physician states in writing that getting this specially trained dog is a necessary part of your diabetic treatment, then the trustee will have to accept it as one of your living expenses the same way he has to accept your diabetic supplies and insulin costs.

(btw, my sig lrprn - the 'rn' is for registered nurse I'm a critical care RN with 30 years experience, lots of it with brittle Type 1 diabetic kids.) Hope this works out for you!

[freshstart06]

lrprn, thanks so much for explaining. Not many people are familiar with type 1 diabetes, so much today is centered around type 2 they it is easy to get the two confused. I wish I could just control my diabetes with just diet LOL.

So you understand what I mean that sometimes I don't even feel my self getting low as much anymore before it is too late. My last AIC was 6.3 which is pretty good but I stress so much that it is affecting my diabetes and health. My doctor wants me to do whatever I can to manage my stress. After my retina detached in my right eye, the fear of losing my sight has become a reality, I don't want anymore problems with my eyes. If I had a choice to either get rid of all my debt or cure my diabetes, that would be a no brainer, my diabetes would have to go LOL>

A lawyer that I spoke to told me that because of my condition and possible unexpected problems and pending surgeries that they make exceptions for extra expenses in BK, is this true???

[HHM]

I am not really trying dispute whether they exist, but the searches I have done on the subject (because it is an interesting subject) have been inconclusive. But this is really not the forum for this issue. I get it that Type 1 is different than type 2, but as best as I can research, there is NO definitive medical study that concludes that "dogs" can be trained for this type of detection. The best evidence is anecdotal in that, dogs that tend to reside with epileptics after about a month seem to have some premonition to the event of a seizure.

With regard to BK, if a doctor signs off on it, then you are probably ok. You still haven't mentioned how much money we are talking about here, and where that money would come from.

As a practical matter, I think a trustee and a court would have a hard time denying you the expense of a "diabetic dog". But at the same time, I would caution you against a false hope that a diabetic dog would be helpful in the long run.

[JollyGG]

One other note on type 1 diabetes (or really type 2 for that matter). Infection, or as freshstart mentioned, stress can have a serious effect of blood surgar control. It sounds like freshstart has had some other health issues the past year which would throw her blood surgar out of wack no matter how well she managed the condition. Infection and injury can cause blood surgar to crash unpredictably, even an infection or injury that is causing no other noticable symptoms yet.

I'm going to have to follow lrprn's link, because as HHM said "it is an interesting subject".

[freshstart06]

Yes, Jolly I have to get this stress and my my injuries under control because it is affecting the diabetes. The pain that I am in all day is not helping either, some diabetics lose feeling in there feet but I still have mine and the fractures hurt if I step down. I promise you guys once all this is over and I can finally heal this will be a memory

Here are a few links for the diabetic dogs, this has been all over the news, I know diabetics that have the dogs and they predict the lows before the sugar goes low, like if I test my blood level and it is 80 (normal, and I would not worry) the dog would start barking and pulling on me because my sugar is about to crash, I would not have known this because my last blood sugar was 80. A friend of mine tested her blood level and it was 120 the dogs started barking and pulling on her then she got up and tested again it was 43, she did not feel it going down but it could have been too late.

https://www.dogs4diabetics.com

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_dogs

https://www.nbc11.com/news/10683426/detail.html

Just look up anything for dogs for diabetics, diabetic dogs, look it up in yahoo answers, yahoo groups or myspace groups (you will see me there) HHM not sure what words you using to find it but it it easy to find.