In January 2022, Kevin Tower, a prisoner at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan, complained that he and other inmates were not receiving their insulin at the proper time. That has since been corrected but he recently added in an email from February 17, 2022, through JPay.
Mike:
We are still correctly receiving our insulin and meals together. We are concerned about the next time we are quarantined. Will the issue repeat itself again or not?
Diabetes and Insulin Dependent Diabetes effects many prisoners. We live in a high stress environment with limited activity. Most people know that stress can cause you to eat. The diet is not the best and food quality is poor. That means prisoners are pushed to eat snacks verses eating the unappetizing food.
What would help insulin dependent diabetic prisoners is the availability of continuous glucose monitors. We could not use cellphones with these devices. There are readers that you can get with the Dexcom or the Libra continuous glucose monitors. They do not have cellular capabilities. They would not pose an institutional security risk. They would greatly improve a prisoners ability to be aware of their blood sugars. Awareness of your blood sugar is the key to success in diabetes.
Currently, most insulin dependent diabetic prisoners use older style insulins: Regular, NPH, or 70/30. These insulins are somewhat unstable. Regular insulin stays active longer than what is needed to digest a meal. NPH and Regular mixed are active outside of mealtime. Newer insulins glargine and lispro are DNA based insulin. I take 24 units of glargine at night. Glargine / Lantus work the same balanced way for 24 hours. This provides all of my needs for insulin outside of meal time. Currently, I use Regular insulin for mealtime. I am going to ask to change to Lispro in the coming months. Lispro starts working within 15 minutes (matching digestion) and is largely out of your system in two hours when digestion is completed.
Since COVID, I like many other prisoners have had more difficulty controlling my weight and blood sugars. We are hoping to be off of quarantine next week.
What would help insulin dependent diabetic prisoners is if Medicaid covered all insulin, insulin supplies, glucose monitoring supplies, continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps. I would like to get a continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump. That would greatly improve my blood sugar control.
More from Kevin Tower
More from Kevin Tower
More from Kevin Tower
In January 2022, Kevin Tower, a prisoner at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan, complained that he and other inmates were not receiving their insulin at the proper time. That has since been corrected but he recently added in an email from February 17, 2022, through JPay.
Find the previous interview with Kevin here.