In the COVID-19 pandemic, diabetics have a hard time getting insulin. living

“The only thing left was carbohydrates, carbohydrates, carbohydrates,” said the residents of Van Nice. “I’ve never been more angry than returning in March.”

Winnie’s disease stripped his body of insulin, the hormone needed to turn the sugars of carbohydrates into energy. Without it, his blood sugar levels could spike to dangerous levels, ultimately leading to serious health problems such as cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, and renal failure.

But his health insurance doesn’t cover the drug, so an insulin pen he relies on to balance his body costs him more than $1,000 a month.

The outbreak of the coronavirus caused him to lose his job as a receptionist at a hair salon, whose costs were beyond his control. He spent as long as 6 weeks without long-acting insulin, which he usually takes daily.

COVID-19 presents a unique set of challenges to approximately 34 million Americans like Winney living with diabetes.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that people with type 1 diabetes are probably more likely to have severe cases of COVID-19. Patients with type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC, are a more common form that begins when they become less sensitive to insulin, and they certainly have an increased risk of severe COVID-19.

For example, a study of more than 7,300 COVID-19 patients in China found that people with type 2 diabetes needed more medical care and were more likely to die by nearly 50% than those without diabetes. understood.

Those with poor blood sugar control were at particularly high risk of death, the researchers say. Another study of more than 1,200 COVID-19 patients in the United States found that diabetic or hyperglycemic patients had a mortality rate of 29%, whereas those without diabetes had a mortality rate of 6%.

“The degree to which you control diabetes is a risk factor,” said Dr. Dr. Drucker, a senior scientist at the Lunenfeld Tannenbaum Institute at the University of Toronto. “There are many things we can do about it by making sure your diabetes is optimally controlled.”

Insulin is essential for maintaining blood sugar levels, but when you’re out of work it’s difficult to get expensive drugs and the health insurance that comes with them.

The cost of insulin varies from patient to patient. It depends on the type of insulin they need—some take effect within 15 minutes. Others last more than a day_similar to dose. Some insurance plans select more tabs than others.

The financial strain brought about by the pandemic forced Yuba City’s Lois Jonathan Miller to consider the distribution of insulin he would take for type 1 diabetes. He continued his work as an optician at Walmart, but his father-in-law lost his job at a maintenance company that had shut down due to a pandemic, so Miller became the only four provider of his family. It was.

The Miller has an insulin pump that uses a tube to continuously deliver a small amount of insulin directly to the pancreas. He is supposed to replace the parts that connect to his body every three days. Recently he wonders if it is absolutely necessary.

“I want to be able to stretch it up to 2 cycles every 6 days and hopefully not get infected”. “But I understand that if I’m sick and I’m caught up in a hospital, it’s a bigger burden.”

A national survey of 5,000 diabetic patients conducted for the American Diabetes Assn. It has been found that since the beginning of the pandemic, one in four people has been allocating supplies to reduce the cost of treating diabetes.

“Now it’s not the time to stop helping these individuals manage their illness because it might actually help prevent them from becoming severe COVID-19 Because it is.”

People with type 2 diabetes may face even greater challenges in providing insulin, said Dr. Francisco Prieto, Sacramento’s family doctor.

“Not all people with type 2 need to take insulin,” said Prieto. “They usually have the most severe cases of diabetes, or they have failed all previous oral and injectable treatments.” That is, they take more insulin daily than Type 1 patients. There may be a need, he said.

Since 2019, 11 states have set limits on how much insurance companies can set up for their own insulin. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in March, each of these states has established price limits of $25 to $100 per month.

California may soon join the list. In February, Diet member Adrin Nazarian (D North Hollywood) announced a bill to limit insulin out-of-pocket costs to $50, or $100 a month, for a 30-day supply. It was passed in June with 11 votes of 64 to 4, but the Senate Health Commission is not planning to discuss the bill.

Winnie said the price cap would give him some relief. Recently, he relies on a free sample provided by one of his doctors, whose generosity may not last.

“We see it as a motivation to eventually change insurance,” he said.

Ensuring an affordable supply of insulin helps people with diabetes better manage their illness, said Lakei’s home mom with type 1 diabetes, Brandi Da Veiga. She is now fully covered through her husband’s health plan, but when she was on the plan three years ago, she began skipping insulin doses, making her supply last longer. Several times, her blood sugar became dangerously high and she went to the emergency room.

“It’s really stressful,” she said about managing diabetes during a pandemic. “And that doesn’t help your blood sugar.”

The fact that diabetics distribute insulin when they need it points to a bigger problem in healthcare access in the country, Drucker said.

“COVID-19 reminds us of the importance of doing everything we can with vulnerable, risky groups,” he said. “We can do all we can to optimize their health, as we can reduce the risk of bad consequences with this virus.”