Chris's weight loss?

[JeffGoldblumIRL]

Even a microwave could kill the hoard. Chris seems like the type to put tin foil in there by mistake.

That doesn't cause a microwave to blow up or anything. Microwave radiation just agitates the metal which generates plasma in the air between the gaps of foil. I guess you could potentially start a fire in a microwave, but it seems like you could thwart said blaze by leaving the microwave closed and suffocating the fire (Chris likely wouldn't know this).

A long time ago one of my brothers did a "microwave" experiment for his school's science fair and we nuked a bunch of things in the process. Silverware, foil, light bulbs, etc. The only stuff that blew up was food and there was no fire. I think Mythbusters even tried getting something to violently combust inside of a microwave and they couldn't.

edit: In keeping with "how could Chris start a potentially fatal fire inside a microwave" I came up with these scenarios:
1) Chris heats up kind of microwaveable meal that contains some kind of plastic container with metal. The metal parts heat up and cause the plastic to melt/smolder, leading to a dirty fire. Microwaveable meals do not come packaged like this anymore for this reason.
2) Chris' microwave has damaged wiring (rodents, old cracked insulation, etc) which causes a short and spark.

 

[Smokedaddy]

Wow, reading the last few pages of this thread after the events of 1/10/14 gives one a nice sense of foreboding. An appliance and plenty of help from the occupants really did burn 14 BC.

Couldn't help commenting about that after perusing the later posts, but that's not what I'm here for: I wanted to disabuse some of my fellow inmates' ideas about diabetes and weight loss. Yes, type 2 can cause a person to drop some poundage, but that happens long after other harder-to-ignore symptoms start jumping up and down and yelling. I'm type 2 meself, and inject five times a day. (I'm also six feet tall and weigh 150, proof you don't have to be a huge tub of lard for it to hit you. Mine came as bonus fallout from another condition.) Months (many months) before any weight loss begins, you develop an unquenchable thirst partnered with a nearly constant need to pee. You can't hold it, either -- between the time you first think "hmmm, I think I could maybe take a piss right now, if I felt like getting up" and uncontrollably peeing your pants is about five minutes. Your vision goes to hell, and you can't read a thing, far or near. Street signs are out of the question, as are books, the stuff scrolling at the bottom of your TV when CNN is on, and basically everything else. This didn't happen to me, but most people develop a huge appetite and gain weight initially. To top it off, you generally feel like shit.

This also didn't happen to me, but weight loss begins months later at the earliest. The condition has to go undetected/untreated despite the above unpleasantness for it to happen at all. Neuropathy (nerve damage that can lead to amputation) takes many years and a truly severe case. It almost always starts in the feet.

If he did turn out to be diabetic at some point, I don't know that OPL would necessarily ignore the regimen. They drill it into you pretty hard, and most people get "pens" or something other than jugs of insulin and needles to do their injections (if they have to do them at all). Either way, he's covered under Medicare part D, and it's all for free if Medicaid is there too. I get handed meters every time I turn around within half a mile of any clinic (it seems) 'cause so many are given to docs to give away as samples they're knee-deep in them. (I bet I could find fifteen of the things if I dug through my personal hoard.) They give away meters so they can sell you test strips, which are expensive but covered by insurance. (The meters are really marvelous little things, when you think about it -- just about all of them these days can get your glucose level from 300 nanoliters of blood.) Troof is, the finger-pricking doodad you use to get a droplet of blood hurts a lot more than the injections. The shots are subcutaneous and don't have to go into muscle or a vein, so you stick yourself wherever it hurts the least with the thinnest, shortest needle you can get. (Half-inch 31 gauge for me.) I've had skillful nurses shoot me up and sometimes I couldn't even feel them do it.

You have to calculate how much insulin to shoot based on what you plan to eat and your meter reading, and I don't know how good he'd be at that, but it's a ballpark figure and not terribly important if you're off a bit. You have to watch out to not give yourself too much or you go hypoglycemic like crazy and it's wildly unpleasant until you can suck down a can of (sugared) soda pop or munch down a glucose tablet. I keep tabs close at hand everywhere; in the car, stashed around my fortified compound, in jacket & coat pockets, that sort of thing.

tl;dr: I'm not convinced OPL has lost any weight, but if he has, it's not from diabetes. It can hit at any age but usually you have to be much older than he is to be much at risk.

 

[Stuff and Things]

Even a microwave could kill the hoard. Chris seems like the type to put tin foil in there by mistake.

That doesn't cause a microwave to blow up or anything. Microwave radiation just agitates the \M/ETAL which generates plasma in the air between the gaps of foil. I guess you could potentially start a fire in a microwave, but it seems like you could thwart said blaze by leaving the microwave closed and suffocating the fire (Chris likely wouldn't know this).

A long time ago one of my brothers did a "microwave" experiment for his school's science fair and we nuked a bunch of things in the process. Silverware, foil, light bulbs, etc. The only stuff that blew up was food and there was no fire. I think Mythbusters even tried getting something to violently combust inside of a microwave and they couldn't.

edit: In keeping with "how could Chris start a potentially fatal fire inside a microwave" I came up with these scenarios:
1) Chris heats up kind of microwaveable meal that contains some kind of plastic container with \M/ETAL. The \M/ETAL parts heat up and cause the plastic to melt/smolder, leading to a dirty fire. Microwaveable meals do not come packaged like this anymore for this reason.
2) Chris' microwave has damaged wiring (rodents, old cracked insulation, etc) which causes a short and spark.

Well this is ironic, Mr Goldblum.

Indeed it is... damn.

 

[Hyperion]

JGirl start the fire while posing as a Keurig coffee maker?

 

[hellbound]

[beetus stuff snipped for brevity]

This is all not even mentioning that IF he has type 2 beetus, the first line of treatment is generally lifestyle change (diet and exercise) with other medications e.g. metformin (Glucophage) as second-line if lifestyle management is not effective or not adhered to. In type 2, insulin is generally later-stage treatment.

 

[Smokedaddy]

This is all not even mentioning that IF he has type 2 beetus, the first line of treatment is generally lifestyle change (diet and exercise) with other medications e.g. metformin (Glucophage) as second-line if lifestyle management is not effective or not adhered to. In type 2, insulin is generally later-stage treatment.

True enough. "Generally" is the key word, though. I went straight to insulin when type 2 was found during a pre-transplant test battery in '06. Another (far deadlier and less pleasant) disease elsewhere in the GI tract hammered my pancreas along with other various parts. (The June '06 issue of PC Gamer has a sidebar about me with the gritty details, heh heh.) I wasn't overweight or too out-of-shape like the path people normally take, it was whacky blood chemistry that zapped me into poking self with needles all day. (The main condition is essentially in remission, but I still have to deal with some of the ancillary fallout, like this.) OPL is decidedly on the usual course of being obese and sedentary with a bad diet, and treatment would undoubtedly proceed like you described. Although type 2 does happen to people his age, it's quite rare, and statistically speaking he's still awfully young to get it. Another ten or fifteen years with no lifestyle changes and the odds go way, way up. Another 25 years and it's practically a dead certainty.

The point I was sort of trying to kind of make originally (in my garbled yet charming way) still stands, though. If he was to the point where diabetic weight loss had kicked in, he would've been enjoying the whole gamut of unpleasant symptoms for quite a while. Any weight loss comes after months spent dealing with all that crap, and there's no way he wouldn't have said anything on Fazeboog (or wherever), or gone to the Doc and been diagnosed if it had been happening for so long.

 

[garbageraider]

I have the feeling that if he hasn't already, Chris is going to lose plenty of weight now that he's effectively homeless.

 

[QI 541]

Even a microwave could kill the hoard. Chris seems like the type to put tin foil in there by mistake.

I actually did that once by mistake and ended up starting a small fire...

 

[Ouija Board]

I have been reading about insulin resistance and how it can cause obesity and Type 2 diabetes rather than the other way around and I wonder if Chris may have this problem. Either way diabetes is serious and needs to be treated or Chris will go in the way of my mother (who just passed away last week) and have all kinds of horrible medical problems.

If he is losing weight at an exponential rate then it has to be checked out but knowing Chris, he'll just let it slide.

 

[Dr.Research]

I have been reading about insulin resistance and how it can cause obesity and Type 2 diabetes rather than the other way around and I wonder if Chris may have this problem. Either way diabetes is serious and needs to be treated or Chris will go in the way of my mother (who just passed away last week) and have all kinds of horrible medical problems.

If he is losing weight at an exponential rate then it has to be checked out but knowing Chris, he'll just let it slide.

If he does drop a lot of weight quickly he'll probably assume the mcwraps are getting him thin and that he's a sexy bitch.

 

[Bgheff]

He looks skinnier than he has in a few years. Props to him.

 

[alterid]

I have been reading about insulin resistance and how it can cause obesity and Type 2 diabetes rather than the other way around and I wonder if Chris may have this problem. Either way diabetes is serious and needs to be treated or Chris will go in the way of my mother (who just passed away last week) and have all kinds of horrible medical problems.

If he is losing weight at an exponential rate then it has to be checked out but knowing Chris, he'll just let it slide.

I'm sorry about your mom. My mom also has type 2 but it's managed fairly well currently.

 

[exball]

He looks skinnier than he has in a few years. Props to him.

I doubt his diet or lifestyle has changed so the weight loss is probably a bad thing.