There are lots of people on social media doing their bit for diabetes awareness, and this is fantastic. However, raising awareness seems to be a big buzzword these days, but what does that really mean, and how do we raise awareness of something effectively? Should I do it by sharing a random image on my Facebook feed that doesn’t tell any of my friends anything at all? Or should I use my social media to share information?
In this post, I will provide a short summary of the information revealed from parliamentary question responses on how many people in Ireland use insulin pumps, what clinics provide them as a treatment option and how many new pump starts are done each year.
My diabetes diagnosis shattered my confidence in my ability to take care of myself, and my plan quickly became to just get through the rest of the term, move home for the summer to my previous summer job and figure the rest out over the summer. Adjusting to my new normal of living with diabetes began while I was still in hospital, or did it?
I realised last year that in all the blog posts I’d done these last 13 years, I have never shared my diagnosis story, so here it goes. My diabetes diagnosis is not unique; many of my friends with diabetes share similar experiences; however, some people end up very ill and may have spent time in intensive care units in hospitals. Thankfully this was not the case for me, but I did feel like I was dying.
The purpose of the document is to provide an estimate of the number of people who are using HSE-funded Flash and CGMs in Ireland and to prompt a discussion around access equality. I believe we need to talk about how fair it is that so many are approved for HSE funding and why some people are still being made to pay.
The Novo Nordisk European Diabetes Patient Advocacy Summit was created for patient organizations from all over Europe to gain Insight, Inspiration, Inspiration-and Direction Setting. We heard best practices from other diabetes organisations and the two day conference identifying challenges and barriers in our own countries and what to set as a priority in our countries.
Over six months ago, the Irish health service, the HSE, launched the reimbursement of the flash glucose monitor, the Freestyle Libre, to people with type 1 diabetes aged between 5 and 21 years.
It has been almost 9 months since the HSE announced that the reimbursement scheme would only be open to people with type 1 diabetes aged between 5 and 21 years which led to over 19,000 people signing an online petition to remove this age restriction.
When taking insulin in the morning MAKE SURE BRAIN IS AWAKE AND ENGAGED. Aaarrrg!
I gasped as I completed my insulin dose! Crap! I just realized I used my non exercise day insulin to carb ratio for my breakfast. I wasn’t even distracted by questions from young people, I just wasn’t fully awake.
Thankfully, I noticed it right away and instead of the paramedics giving me a lift home after my walk by way of the hospital, I decided to reduce my background insulin for 2 hours to counteract having more insulin than I needed. Then I adopted the wait and see approach. What other approach is there when you live with diabetes?!?
I did avert a nasty hypo, in fact, my glucose levels were a tad on the high side. So, I corrected and moved on.
From this point forward, I will most definitely MAKE SURE MY BRAIN IS AWAKE AND ENGAGED when taking insulin in the morning.
#LifewithDiabetes
