World Diabetes Day

Andrew Dixon on November 14, 2018

Today, Wednesday 14th November 2018, is World Diabetes Day, a day to raise awareness of diabetes and educate people about it, so here is my story and some further information.

My Diabetes Story

Two years and three days ago, on November 11th 2016, my son Jamie, aged 5 at the time was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and our lives were turned upside down.

We had known that something was wrong and my wife had made a doctors appointment for him and luckily for us, the GP she saw that day recognised what it was straight away from the description of his symptoms and quick urine test. The doctor arranged for him to immediately go to the hospital where he stayed for the next four days, whilst they got his blood sugars under control and we were given a mountain of information and training on how to manage it going forward.

How to spot T1D in your child

Watch this short video to educate yourself about how to spot T1D in your child:

Type 1 Diabetes is a life-long condition, that there is currently no cure for, but is manageable with blood glucose (BG) testing (5 to 10 times a day) and insulin injections (minimum of 4 per day). This is a lot for anyone to deal with, but for a parent of a small child, knowing you are going to have to be doing this for them for years and then for themselves for the rest of their lives is truly heartbreaking. It is amazing how resilient young children are and Jamie coped with it brilliantly, rarely causing a fuss and happy to test his blood and inject, wherever and whenever required.

He really is are little T1D warrior and we are super proud of him for this.

Diabetes Technology

These days there is a range of technologies to help with this including continuous glucose monitors (CGM’s) and insulin pumps, both of which help to reduce the frequency of finger prick BG tests and insulin injections.

There is also an open source software community, Open Artificial Pancreas System (OpenAPS), that is linking up these two technologies to provide people with a system that can more automatically regulate the user’s blood glucose levels without the need for user intervention. This project is part of the broader #WeAreNotWaiting community, which is pushing the boundaries of diabetes technologies without waiting for regulatory approval.

A day in the life of a Type 1 Diabetic

If you want to find out more about life as a T1D, then I highly recommend is video for some insights.

Things we love

Here are some of the diabetes technologies and resources we love:

Other Resources

For more information about diabetes in general please see the following:

Category: Type 1 Diabetes
Tag: T1D