Last month, I was invited to give a presentation on the importance of innovation in diabetes from a personal perspective and because we are celebrating 100 years since the discovery of insulin I wanted to include some information on the different types that I've used over the years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember a lot of their names so off I went, up to the attic, to dig out some of my old blood glucose notebooks. As I went through these old notebooks I noticed some things that had never occurred to me before but also how much I didn’t know about managing my diabetes in those first six years until I had access to formal training.
In the early days of my diagnosis, record keeping was required by my clinic but once I started to learn more about diabetes through the wonderful world wide web, record keeping was a tool I used to help me explain my diabetes but also to help me solve the many highs and many lows.
The Green Book
The first notebook I had was one the hospital gave to me, it had space for a day/date, insulin dose and my twice daily blood glucose check. It was green. And whenever it was used up I would just buy a normal notebook and rule it out. I couldn’t find any of those green ones in my attic but I did find some of the others I had and it was really strange going through them.
My Homemade Notebooks
The one pictured below from 1996, 3 years after my diagnosis, records my first insulin’s being Insulatard and Actrapid. I noticed some gaps in the BG boxes and remembered that some days I didn’t check my BGs. Why would I? I didn’t know what to do with the information - I wasn’t doing these checks for me. I was doing them for the next time my doctor saw me so that s/he could tell me how to adjust my insulin.
I noticed in the notebooks from 2001 I was clearly struggling to understand why my glucose levels were all over the place. I had switched to Multiple Daily Injections in November 2000 and was checking my levels 4 times per day and I was on some kind of sliding scale for correcting high blood sugars.
Those first six years I lived with diabetes I did so without much information so when I discovered in 1999 that I could use the internet to find out more about living with diabetes, it really was a huge relief. I started to write down everything I ate and weigh my carbs because that was recommended by Dr Internet but it wasn’t until 2003 when I moved abroad that I would have more formal education on what to do with those extra BG numbers. And from that point on my record keeping has been for me first and my team second.
Going Electronic
I stopped recording my diabetes day to day information on paper only in the last few years probably when I set up Nightscout and could see my pump and cgm information in one place.
One of the points I made clear in my presentation was that innovation was extremely important but equally important was the knowledge to get the best and most out of those innovations. That diabetes training for people with diabetes is the foundation of D management but lots of countries ignore this importance.
