In the fall of 1985, a very scary thing happened shortly after I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. One morning I woke up and I couldn't remember things I would normally remember. I couldn't remember the name of my neighbor's dog. I had a fanatical love for Cookie. Of course I would remember Cookie! A diabetic child would never forget such a sweet name for such an adorable dog! One more thing -- I had a pounding headache.

My mom brought me to the hospital, where my endocrinologist met us. They ran test after test and nary could an expert explain my memory loss. They confirmed I was experiencing amnesia, which turned out to be temporary because I was back to normal the next day.

How many people have experienced this same phenomenon? I surmised that this was my body reacting to the Humulin insulin I had started only a month or so before. The insulin must have been competing with my body's own attempts to generate insulin thus thwarting my blood sugar down into a dangerous hypoglycemic state. A study published in 1991 shows that hypoglycemia results in a lesion in the left temporal lobe. I have one of those lesions now, but it wasn't discovered until 2000. Oh yeah - and my peduncle is perfectly asymmetric. What does that mean anyway?

Why weren't doctors informed of this potential reaction to insulin in 1985? A study 6 years later is a few years too late. And how many more newly diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetics experience the same thing? My parents were scared out of their mind and nobody (including specialists) had any idea what to do with me.

Certain models of the Medtronic Paradigm insulin pump can be irrevocably damaged by exposure to MRI radiation. As a result - and based on information supplied voluntarily by Medtronic - the US Food and Drug Administration has declared a Class II recall for the affected pump models. MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) can cause the pump to malfunction and deliver a dangerously high dosage of insulin to the user.

Bottom line is that there's nothing defective about these pumps in terms of normal usage. You need only be concerned if you own one of the affected models and if your pump was exposed to MRI magnetic waves. Medtronic says the pumps that are affected should sound an alarm to warn users, but it is feared that people might override such alarms and continue using the devices, unaware that permanent damage has been done.

Owners of the affected models should have received a letter in the mail from Medtronic explaining the recall. If you use a Medtronic pump and have had an MRI, swing over to the FDA's website. There you can read the feds' statement (complete with typo misspelling "paradigm"!) on the problem and confirm whether or not yours is one of the problem pumps. This article in Diabetes Health is also useful. Strangely, I found the Medtronic website devoid of helpful info on the subject, but eventually tracked down a pdf of the letter sent to customers on the company's Canadian website.