I just have to jump in here.
I've just gotta quickly point out that in terms of treating type 1 diabetes with MJ--I don't think there's really any reason to believe this could be beneficial at least as it goes to controlling blood sugar.
If there are side effects of the insulin, or other medications which are required (that have different functions from insulin)--then perhaps some of these might be reduced through using MJ, but it's a certainty that it won't do anything to scratch the insulin deficiency.
With the chemical processes involved, none of the actives in MJ have the ability to do anything there. The process contains many steps, and all of them are predicated on insulin activation of GLUT 4.
Without that--you will eventually meet one of the medical conditions diabetes brings on (hyperglycemic shock, ketoacidosis, etc.).
I think it's cool to try and alleviate some of the issues with MJ, and that very well may work--but I just want to ensure that you're not playing with the insulin regimen by trying to replace it with bud.
It won't work. Not by a long shot.
If caught early I can see where this might help prevent damage to the pancreatic cells--but in your 40s with type I your pancreas is all but dead.
You need that insulin. There is no replacement for it. That's part of why diabetes is treated with a protein, and not a drug. The protein is absolutely necessary for the symptoms to be alleviated.
There is nothing on the planet that will activate that insulin binding site but for insulin--the specificity is not high, it is absolute. For as small of a protein as it is (very small) insulin is a still a quite large, incredibly complex molecule.
Nothing with a number of atoms you can nearly count on hands and feet is going to mimic the function--and the function MUST be mimicked. This is the bodies only glucose uptake mechanism.
Sorry to burst the bubble if that's what I'm doing, but I'm definitely not uneducated when it comes to this--I'm not blowing smoke. Not only does my father have Type I--but they really drill this shit into our heads in the Biochem major track, because they know half of us will go on to do diabetes and HIV research--they spend half the biochem major learning about them and their function.
If you'd like me to go through this in a more advanced fashion (i.e. you don't believe me, or you aren't convinced that it can't help replace insulin)--I'd be MORE than happy to do that.
For what it's worth, I feel for you and your wife.
You'll spend your whole life probably hoping that something better will come.
Unfortunately, diabetes is really only something that will forseeably be cured by individual gene therapy--which is incredibly far off, and would be incredibly dangerous, and would be perhaps the most expensive medicine ever known to man.
It's just not the type of disease mechanism that will respond to a drug, it really is a very unique disease--and that makes it hard to cure because we don't have any basis from which to work. It's pretty much just shots in the dark.
Realistically, insulin is a godsend--and it's probably about the best that is going to happen for diabetes in the next 30-40 years. I know its hard to hear that, and believe me--I sympathize (again, my father...)--but sometimes reality is what is necessary.
You must be diligent to fight this disease--there is no help on the way, no cure-all, no alternative. You must be anal retentive about your insulin and your diet, or you will suffer the consequences--with or without weed.
Frankly, type I is about as bad as it gets here as well. The autoimmune version is much worse than the genetic deficiency version. The latter might well be treated by gene therapy in the next 10-20 years. Type I, however, is a huge asshole of a condition.
It's one of the few things in my short life which has made me question my decisions to leave the church and ascribe to atheism. When you look at the mechanism of this disease on the small scale, you know that it's just these chemical reactions playing out--but it seems like there's some evil person with the worst of intentions controlling it.
Like they knew just the right place to flick this switch or that and cause havoc to be rained down on the host. It seems very un-chemical on that scale when you put the whole story together.
HIV is much the same way, as an aside. The thing literally seems to have a brain, even though we know it does not.
I just wanted to illustrate that so that the gravity is clear. Weed cannot fix this. If there is pain, nausea, anxiety, stress--weed can help with those side effects--but the insulin is the most genius cure you can expect to come your way, it's the best case scenario.
Hope is a wonderful thing, and we should always keep that near--but we also need to be stoic in the face of diseases like this if we're to meet with success.