Diabetes in Ireland, Diabetes Ireland, diabetes support, Diabetes Awareness
Grainne Flynn
Diabetes Awareness: What, Why, How, Who

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?

Grainne Flynn
Insulin Pump Use in Ireland

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.

Insulin Pump Use in Ireland
Newly Diagnosed Type 1...
Grainne Flynn
Adjusting to Life with Diabetes

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?

Adjusting to Life with Diabetes
Grainne Flynn
My Diabetes Diagnosis

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.

My Diabetes Diagnosis
Grainne Flynn
Flash and CGM Uptake in Ireland 2022

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.

Flash and CGM Uptake in Ireland 2022

diabetes and pregnancy

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Diabetes and Pregnancy

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This season of RTE’s OperationTransformation  has been focusing on type 2 diabetes in a big way. This is my first time to watch Operation Transformation and I find it a very interesting programme though not why you would think.

I was extremely interested in the piece about how unfit our school aged teenagers are, especially the girls. That was eye opening but when I thought about it not surprising.

 

However, it’s the feature on Petrice, which aired on Wednesday, 8th February, that inspired be to write this blog entry. Petrice was overweight and always figured that when she decided to start a family she would get in shape first. However, the best laid plans….. And got pregnant un-expectantly. During her pregnancy she developed gestational diabetes.

 

I have type 1 diabetes and had it before I started my family. My diabetes played a huge factor in deciding if I was going to have a family and really made me focus on what I had to do to prepare my body for developing a healthy baby. I had 10 years to learn as much as I could about diabetes before I started my family – imagine finding out all the scary things about diabetes and pregnancy after the fact! I felt for Petrice and how she was trying to cope with having diabetes and then think about how it was affecting her baby.

 

I started to think back to how I felt during both of my pregnancies. My first pregnancy went smoothly and resulted in a healthy baby (TG). It was really hard work; constant testing of blood sugars, lots of doctor’s appointments, faxing in by blood glucose diary weekly, accounting for every morsel of carbohydrate, feeding lows all the time and living in fear of the highs.

 

My second pregnancy happened just after our transatlantic move and my body was stressed, I was a little overweight and I had a two year old to take care of. I still put in all of the work and thankfully the result was another healthy (if not very large) baby (TG again).

 

Each time I was pregnant I had the same anxiety but tried to push it to the back of my mind and focus on nurturing a healthy baby. It’s amazing how this growing life makes you take better care of yourself and work twice as hard at managing your diabetes well without grumbling.

 

It’s like competing in a long distance race; you just want to get over the finish line. Your first question in the delivery room is not “Is it a boy or a girl?” but “Is everything where it should be and does s/he look healthy?”

 

Diabetes never lets you take a healthy baby for granted.