Getting Porked

I used insulin derived from pork and beef pancreas until sometime in the mid 1990’s. With the human insulin –called Humulin– having been developed and patented in the 1980's, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company made a concentrated effort to make pork and beef insulin obsolete with massive price gouging that made it cheaper for self-pay patients like me to switch ro humulin. A vial of animal insulin was $10.00 in 1992. The same vial approached or exceeded $20.00 by 1997 (maybe before then,) and had perhaps exceeded the price of humulin. Then Eli Lilly and its fine company just stopped making old-time insulin because it was no longer cost effective to make for "so few" patients. Lobbying of doctors helped force the migration of patients to the patented product.
My memory of the exact when of this is faulty and I cannot recall the year of change with any certainty, but the price of the animal insulin seemed to rise several times per year while I lived near a Pawtucket Walgreens from 1991 to 1994. I don’t remember where I was living when informed by Walgreens that Lilly was discontinuing animal insulin. I specify this in the spirit of remaining as accurate as possible. I did not have much choice other than to buy the patented Humulin at higher costs. The same vial exceeds $50.00 at any pharmacy now, which to me demonstrates continuous greedy gouging.
I repeat that from what I could feel, the only change for me with Humulin was that my body metabolizes it "better" than pork and beef insulin to the point that I do not feel physical symptoms until the blood sugar has fallen critically low. I sensed no change in the way the insulin actually reacted to food. If anything, the bodily sensation that "all" insul;in had been fully consumed after 12 hours was more definite with the human insulin than the animal insulin. The animal insulin seemed to last longer.
I made the change without doctor supervision. This was not a choice but the result of an utter lack of choice, financially. My only adult exposure to diabetes specialists had been an expensive, distressing and discourteous experience that left such a bad taste in my mouth, I still feel it in my teeth some 20_ years later.
Nor did I have a choice in changing insulin. The animal insulin was discontinued by the only manufacturer in favor of Humulin. Monopolist Eli Lilly had me over a barrel and would pork me like only humans do.