Diabetes Summit Review

I had so much to write about from the Future Health Summit on Friday 27th May last that I had to divide it into two post.

Disclaimer: The organisers of this conference reimbursed me for my travel expenses to attend as a patient speaker. But all opinions are my own.

Here is my review of the Diabetes Summit Event which was chaired by Dr. Ronan Canavan, co-chaired by Anna Clarke from Diabetes Ireland with our panel being chaired by Dr. Eva Orsmond. This was the event that I spoke at. I was last up on the agenda. I have to tell ye, I think I have the bug. Even though, I seriously thought I would need medical assistance because my heart was pounding so hard while I was waiting to go up, once I got up there – I had a ball!

The summit began with Dr. Ronan Canavan, outgoing Clinical lead of the National Clinical Programme for Diabetes and Consultant Endocrinologist, and an overview of what the Diabetes National Clinical Programme has accomplished under his leadership. This included the National Diabetes Podiatry Programme, the establishment of The Diabetic Retina Screening Service, the Type 2 Diabetes Cycle of Care, which we are seeing happening now, the publication of the Paediatric Model of Care for all Children with diabetes and the forthcoming Model of Care document for Adults with diabetes.

Professor Gerald Tomkin gave a wonderful presentation about something very medical but did not fail to be extremely amusing. Actually I giggled a lot! I should add that this conference was primarily attended by healthcare professionals and patients were in the minority.

Dr Neil Black, talked about the reforms that his team have made in Diabetes West, which is not Ireland West but Northern Ireland west.  They have made some very seemingly small but significant changes. They're approach is to identify the problems in the diabetes service from the patient's perspective. Some changes were easy, such as changing the name of the diabetes clinic to diabetes support service - it sounds so much more caring. They have also streamlined the pathway to receiving care so that the people who need more support have more access and the people who are in a good place can step back until they need a check in.

Prof Philip Home-Professor of Diabetes Medicine, Newcastle University. Former Chairman of the International Diabetes Federation (Europe). In 2009 he was Programme Chair for the IDF World Diabetes Congress in Montreal spoke about medications for lowering blood glucose. Again, another well seasoned presenter and charming gentleman but well above my head. 

Dr Richard Lee Kin-Specialist Periodontist and founder of the Mint Clinic in Adelaide Rd., Dublin 2, pointed out why dental hygiene is so important for people with diabetes. He also inform us that people with diabetes can get two dental exams for free every year. I'm hoping to have more information on this about where you can download the form to apply in advance, if you are a PAYE contributor. It's more straightforward if you have a medical card, see more information from Citizen's Information.

Then there was me and my scenic journey to becoming an empowered patient, or as I would rather put it "my own best advocate".

Once everyone has presented, we concluded the summit with a panel discussion where Dr. Eva Orsmond and members of the audience had to opportunity to question us. Things got a little tense for a moment or two during this questioning, but thanks to Anna Clarke the tension was alleviated.

All in all it was not your average day in the office. It was lively, informative and I'm very glad I had the opportunity to participate and attend.

The Great Sugar Confusion

Are you as tired as I am of hearing about sugar and all its evils?

**** I am not a health care professional nor do I have anything that looks remotely like a medical degree. So take anything I say with a pinch of salt.

The Great Sugar Confusion was originally posted on the 9th October 2013. I have taken a different spin on it this time.

Everyday, it seems like there’s another “sugar scare” story!

• -  March Call for voluntarily ban on sale of energy drinks; too much sugar
• - February High-sugar diet is as 'damaging to your brain as extreme stress or ABUSE
• - January  Sugar Crash
• - November 2015 Be Sugar Smart Campaign

And yes, I know that too much sugar is not good for us, any of us but I get so confused when I try to understand what these articles are trying to tell us and how to explain it to someone else.

I know that these pieces are written by well intentioned people, even qualified medical professionals,  who are trying to educate the masses but everytime I see one of these articles I get “irked” because I feel that the healthier foods are being branded as “bad” too.

People with diabetes, despite the truth, are taught that sugar = poison. I feel this is changing in the diabetes community but the rest of the world will continue to be stuck in this time warp for a long time to come.

So, if someone shows you an image like this ;  

and you have diabetes and are not very carb-aware, you might assume that you can’t eat any of these three items.

For me, I get confused because I don’t know if it's representative of the sugar that is added when the food is being created or if that’s what the carbohydrate becomes when digested into glucose. I don’t know if my reaction should be “Gosh, I didn’t know that!” Or “Yes, I knew that”. What, just what are you trying to tell me????

Educating the masses about the complexities of our food and how it affects us is a huge challenge. So many different approaches have been tried but haven’t really succeeded.

However, I do think that people with diabetes, especially those of us who count carbs to match insulin, have a leg up on this one. Learning to read a food label has been the best tool for me to know exactly what I’m eating, it’s even better if there are very few ingredients in it or if my food is cooked from scratch. The closer the food is to the farm the better it is. But it’s also a tool I HAVE to rely on to stay healthy and not let diabetes take me down.

It’s probably not very realistic to expect all others to scrutinise their food labels as I do. But it might be realistic to teach this in our primary or secondary schools along with how our digestive systems work? I mean that stuff has stayed with me.

This is what I remember from my 2nd year biology class.

• - starch + sugar = Carb
• - bite, chew-chew-swallow, swish-swoosh in the stomach
• - presto = glucose.
• -  Glucose floats around in the blood, gets absorbed by cells = energy.
• -  Leftover glucose get stored for a while then gets turned into fat.
• -  Done! A+ for me…. surely?

For those of you who would like a bit more science, have a look at this really good website; basic biology of digesting carbohydrates.

The Clare branch of Diabetes Ireland is hosting a Diabetes Education event will feature a dietitian who will talk about "being sugar smart”, on Tuesday, May 17th in The Temple Gate Hotel at 8pm. It's going to make for a very interesting evening and hopefully be enlightening.

Welcome to Blood Sugar Trampoline

A combination of my personal blog about living with type 1 diabetes in Ireland and sharing information I collect along the way. I feel that living with type 1 diabetes is sometimes like being on a trampoline, except you can never get off. It doesn't take long for us to get tired of all that bouncing. It's not any fun.

Here, we can bounce together, keep each other steady, and cheer each other on when we get tired and want to get off the trampoline.

#IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes....

Some of you may have come across the Hashtag #IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes..... over the last year, which is the brainchild of Diabetesaliciouness blogger, Kelly Kunik.

I met the superwoman herself last July at the MasterLab Diabetes Advocates conference. On that first morning, as I took a deep breath and joined a table of strangers. I know, I'm a very grown-up woman but I still have to force strongly encourage myself to do these things because I know I'll regret it if I don't.

Anyway, I did not recognise anyone but as soon as the ladies started conversing and using their first names, I started to connect the "who" to the "blog" and figured out that the girl sitting right beside me was Kelly.

Kelly has lived with type 1 since she was 8 years old (that's 38 years), and comes from a long line of direct relatives with type 1 diabetes, including her sister who died in 1991 from complications at the age of 33. Kelly gave an indept interview in August to Diabetes Mine in which you can read lots more about her and why she does what she does.

The #IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes hashtag and the #IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes Day, (22nd April 2015), were inspired by 3rd grade teacher, Kyle Schwartz and her #Iwishmyteacherknewthat hashtag, which was heartbreaking.

Photo cortesy of DiabetesMine.com

Kelly says that "This day is about people living with diabetes taking to twitter and using the hashtag in unison for a 24 hours period to express the good, the bad and the diabetesalicious of it all."

The #hashtag and day took on a life of their own with over 16 countries participating and generating over 17 million twitter impressions to date.

The IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes hashtag has now become an initiative, a movement and a call to action where people can express themselves past the 140 character limit and in various multimedia formats. Kelly launched the "Iwishpeopleknewthatdiabetes.org" website last November. She (and I) encourages everybody to visit the website and submit your own "what you wished people knew about diabetes". You can also read some guest posts from rock stars in the Diabetes Community and some totally-not-a-rock-star-or-even-close people's guest posts (i.e. yours truly. I was so honoured that she asked!!!)

IWishPeopleKnewThatDiabetes.org is well worth a visit.

Diabetes Complications are Not a Sign of Failure

The complications of diabetes are real and people are living with them. People are also living in fear of them. Myself included. I am actively trying to overcome this fear because if I do end up with complications I don't want to feel like it is the end of my life. Or that I failed to manage my diabetes well enough. And I certainly don't want to be made to feel that it's my fault.

I don't believe just because I am doing everything in my power to manage my diabetes that I will be spared. I believe that if I have type 1 diabetes I still have the risk of developing complications. I strive to keep that percentage of risk low but it will never be zero.

I will not stop trying!

Image from http://www.coolnsmart.com/failure_quotes/

So, when a friend of mine, who has lived more than 50 years with type 1 diabetes and who lives with a number of the complications of diabetes, comes to our T1D meet ups and people imply she didn't take of herself, I get a little "upset"!

My friend has survived taking care of her diabetes when there was no such thing as a glucose meter! Imagine never know what your blood sugar was?!?

She has survived during a time when the phrase "carb counting" might as well have been a foreign language in Ireland. It didn't exist!

We also did not have Rapid Acting Insulins until the late 1990's. So, even if we did practice carb counting, it wouldn't have been much good to us. Sure, we could do a certain amount of carb counting on the insulins we took only twice a day but we couldn't fine tune it like we can today.

We also did not know that the tighter your diabetes control, the less likely you were to be at risk of getting diabetes complications. This research was only published in 1993 as the DCCT Trials.

93 years ago we died! Today, we have so many tools, technology and instant access to research that people with type 1 diabetes, who have been told for decades what they can't do are breaking all of those barriers.

So I ask you? Is surviving 50 years with type 1 diabetes and living with complications really not taking care of yourself?

My friends who live with diabetes complications may even say themselves, that they didn't do as much as they should have to take care of their diabetes. And I say you did the very best that you, and everybody else, knew how.

I am so lucky and proud to have friends like Deniabetic, who are helping me overcome my fears.

The Great "Sugar" Confusion

I thought I knew a lot about food and in particular carbohydrates and sugar. However, I attended a diabetes support group recently that sent my head spinning in confusion.  You see, I always thought that the word "carbohydrate" referred to the group of foods that have the most influence on blood sugars and that "sugary" foods would be part of that group. So when a gentleman remarked that white bread was full of sugar my head slowly exploded.

Inside my head I was asking so many questions; - do you mean sugar as in table sugar and that it's an ingredient of bread? - or do you mean in comparison to wheat/brown bread? - are you talking about carbohydrate and not sugar? - are people confusing those two words? - when dietitians talk about sugar; are they talking about sugary foods, table sugar or a subgroup of carbohydrates?

I started second guessing my knowledge and I couldn't respond to the comment which was then followed with other remarks about other foods, such as bananas that are also full of "sugar". Help! But of course none of us had the knowledge to sort all of this confusion out.

So off I went to Google university to try and figure out my confusion and find out once and for all what the word "sugar" actually means. I'm still not very wise but my opinion is that the word is being used in all sorts of contexts and that most of the other general public are confused too.

There's sugar as in table sugar, complex sugar or carb which is a type of carb (obviously) and the other one which is simple sugar/carb, sugars as in my blood sugars.

We have invited a dietitian to our next support group meeting and I think it's going to make for a very interesting evening and hopefully be enlightening.