[h2odragon]

> Some suggested I go to Walmart for $25 insulin, an older type I have no idea how to safely use.

I'm sorry but this erodes my sympathy significantly. Learn about the options that exist if your first choice treatment isnt available. Learn about mitigation when no treatment is available. This is your life, act like its your responsibility already.

[pmyteh]

It takes weeks to get comfortable using a different insulin to manage your blood sugars, and the results on older NPH insulin are going to be much worse than a more modern one. Doing that, and damaging your body, just to avoid avoidable bureaucracy is not reasonable. In fact, it's mildly tragic.

[ip26]

These threads always talk out both sides of their mouths. First people say, insulin was invented 100 years ago and the patent was gifted away to help patients, so it should be free. Then people say, it is stupid to use anything but the most modern formulations, because they are way better than the old ones.

I have no love for pharma price gouging, but if insulin was free, everybody would be stuck on the 1921 formulation.

[HarryHirsch]

You need to manage a chronic condition, either you need a spouse or a child who has a chronic condition or you need one yourself.

Science can help, alloxan destroys the islets of Langerhans, it is used to create diabetic mice. Go ahead, take a dose, lead by example. The Walmart insulin comes up here on this website from time to time, and the overall conclusion is that long-acting insulins prevent blood sugar excursions.

[h2odragon]

> You need to manage a chronic condition,

I am. I expect to be dead before the decade is out, the doctors offer ways to make that more comfortable but shorter. I disagree with their priorities and am thus on my own for other treatment options.

"I do not need to know about other options" seems inexcusable to me, and seems to be what the author assumes is the correct attitude towards their treatment.