Get out and meet some Diabetes People....

living in Ireland. You won't regret it! There are a number of Type 1 Diabetes events all over the country this Autumn.

Most of the events below can be found on the Diabetes Ireland Events Page.

Date	Event Details
24th  Sept	Type 1 Diabetes meeting at 8pm in the Westgrove Hotel, Clane, Co Kildare with a Medicon / GlucoMen Sales Representative who will supply blood glucose meters. Contact Davina on email; davinalyon@gmail.com
25th  Sept	Due to unforeseen circumstances this meeting has been cancelled. Cork Type 1 Adults support group If you would like information on future Type 1 meetings contact tel: 021 4274229 or email: sro@diabetes.ie
1st  October and the 1st Wed of every month	Dublin Type 1 Adults Support Group in the Novo Nordisk's Offices, 2nd Floor, 2 Hume St, D2 at 6:30pm Contact: t1diabetic.dublin@gmail.com and https://www.facebook.com/groups/169847736412651/
4th October	Get off your bum for Type 1 Diabetes. Do you have Type 1 Diabetes and are interested in running / walking or are keen to get fit? Join the Tallaght Hospital Type 1 Diabetes team in a 5k on Saturday 4th October at 9.30am in Marley Park, Grange Rd, Rathfarnham. It is FREE to take part in this 5k.Just register online at www.parkrun.ie/register/ Meeting point: Café behind Marley House at 9am Contact: t1diabetic.dublin@gmail.com and https://www.facebook.com/groups/169847736412651/
5th  October	Family Walk organised by the Limerick/Clare/Tipp Parents Group at 10.30am suitable for all ages, it is a 2.5 hour walking circuit and smaller children can be driven closer. Contact Olivia Sweeney email: olivia.sweeney@coachingireland.com for more
8th  October	Teacher Training Day for Principles, SNA’s and Class teachers on how to cope with having a Type 1 child in the Classroom. This is a free event organised by the Cork Parents support Group. Please registration to participate. Contact Charlotte on 021 4274229, Email: sro@diabetes.ie, or Diabetes Ireland
11th  October	A Family Fun Day will be held in the Mardyke Arena, UCC, Cork. The day is being run by the Cork parents support group, registration essential. More details soon. Contact sro@diabetes.ie or 021 4274229
14th  October	Managing my Child with Diabetes - Portlaoise. Diabetes Ireland in partnership with Bayer Diabetes Care presents this meeting for parents of children with Type 1 diabetes in the Killeshin Hotel Portlaoise. Speakers include: Dr Paul Gallagher, Consultant Paediatrician, Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise, “Current & Future Management of Type 1 diabetes in the Midlands region” Ms Georgina Doyle, Diabetes Nurse Specialist, Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Contact Tel; 1850 909 909  or email: info@diabetes.ie for more information
14th  October	The Clare Type 1 Diabetes Support Group with Neil Pakey, CEO of Shannon Airport, a person with type 1 diabetes for 30+ years, at 8pm in the Temple Gate Hotel, Ennis. The meeting is free to attend and is open to anyone who wants to learn more about Type 1 Diabetes. Email: Grainne at clarebranchdfi@gmail.com if you would like information about future Clare Type 1 Diabetes get-togethers.
15th  October	Managing my Child with Diabetes – Drogheda. Diabetes Ireland in partnership with Bayer Diabetes Care presents this meeting for parents of children with Type 1 diabetes in the D Hotel. More information on speakers and topics will be available nearer the time. Contact Tel; 1850 909 909  or email: info@diabetes.ie for more information
5th  November	Managing my Child with Diabetes - Limerick. Diabetes Ireland in partnership with Bayer Diabetes Care presents this meeting for parents of children with Type 1 diabetes in the Castletroy Park Hotel. More information on speakers and topics will be available nearer the time. Contact Tel; 1850 909 909  or email: info@diabetes.ie for more information

    

FFL/CwD, UK 2014 Part 2; Continuous Glucose Monitoring

More from the Friends for Life Conference UK 2014.

Continuous Glucose Monitoring: 
What Difference Does it Make?

presented by Lesley Jordan & Melissa Holloway from INPUT

Lesley is the Chairperson of INPUT, I would recommend Irish people who are considering the transition to an Insulin Pump or to a Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems (CGM) to have a look at their website. They have a step-by-step guide on how to get either of these devices. Don't be put off by the references to the NHS because in my experience of getting an insulin pump all the other steps are the same.

I went to this talk because I'm currently trying to get the CGM to add to my Animas Vibe Insulin pump. I wanted to gather information so that I could campaign to get it funded by the HSE.

In Ireland, the HSE will fund this if you have either severe hypo unawareness or nocturnal hypos. If I don't qualify I may be to fund it myself. It costs approximately €600 (for a transmitter & 4 sensors) to start and then approximately €240 per month but I think I can make the sensors last longer than 2 weeks and therefore reduce this cost. It cost a bit more if you don't already have the Animas Vibe because you would have to buy a receiver and also have to buy the package from a different company.

The other people attending this talk wanted to hear from others about how it have benefitted them and how they could get the NHS to fund it better.

How does a CGM benefit people with type 1 diabetes?

• CGM's have a "Trend" feature which not only gives you a Blood Glucose reading but arrows that indicate which direction our blood glucose is going and how quickly. This feature can help you head off hypos and hypers before they become problematic.

• A CGM can improve your blood glucose by helping you to narrow the range of your blood glucose results. Basically, smoothing out the rollercoaster of ups & downs.

• Since the Dexcom 4 came out they prove that the sensors are more reliable and the information is more reliable from the readings. Indeed blood glucose meters have a 20% inaccuracy rate and cgms are now better than that.

• A CGM makes basal rate testing more efficient and gives you a lot more information.

• CGM’s are important because diabetes is not the same every day now matter what. A CGM can help you with all the factors that influence blood glucose that you cannot control.

• Using a CGM is like having a movie versus a photo. BG is the photo, it gives you the information of that moment in time, where as a CGM/movie gives you a lot more of the story.

• It eases the anxiety around hypos and gives you the power to head them off.

• It gives you the ability to aim for tighter targets without increasing the risk of hypos.

What did I learn?

• I learned about Standard Deviation (or bell curve). I'm ashamed that I'm only learning this now. Standard Deviation shows you how often your blood glucose control is not in range. HbA1c is only an average number and while my current HbA1c is 50 mmol/mol (or 6.7%) my actually readings swing very high and very low. My HbA1c number is telling my that my control is good when it is not. Here is a better explanation of standard deviation and why it's important.

• I learned that everybody should have access to CGM's. Children especially, should have access!!!

• I learned that one of the options open to me is to fund the CGM myself, gather data on how much better my control is and then use that data to strengthen my case for HSE funding.

More about the Friends for Life UK next week.

Friend for Life/Children with Diabetes, UK 2014 Part 1

School is back! So I can plough in to my summaries from the Friends for Life/Children with Diabetes Conference in Windsor, England, which took place on August 15th to the 17th.

A weekend of type 1 diabetes might not sound like the perfect mini-break to a lot of people but for me it was just what I needed. For a number of years, I've read all these fabulous blogs by people with diabetes and about all the events they go to where they meet so many people like themselves, like me, and where they learn so much about what's going on in the diabetes world.

I've always been a smidge jealous of them. Until a couple of years ago when I discovered one of the largest Diabetes Conferences for PWD in the world also does a United Kingdom version. Finally, I got a chance to join in this last August.

It was a weekend of being surround by people & children with diabetes, whose names, I have no idea of, but I felt like they were friends. A weekend organised to make life less difficult for everybody (carb counts over all the food in the restaurant). A weekend where the medical professionals joined in the fun with us, like they were one of us (and a lot of there were). A weekend where even the talks I thought weren't relevant to me taught me something. 

I have also never, NEVER been in a room with so many insulin pumps in my life!

I'm going to break my summary down into a number of parts, my last count was 5 but I think I can reduce that to 4; for your sake.

Summary of the Conference Part 1.

The first talk we attended, bright and early in the morning was a NHS Update. We didn't think that this one would be relevant to us being under the HSE system and were inconsiderate & lackadaisical in attending (i.e. we were late) but I did regret missing the beginning. Serves me right.

The NHS update was presented by Dr Fiona Campbell, a consultant paediatrician and diabetologist at St James's University Hospital, Leeds. She started the paediatric pump programme in Leeds in October 2002 and 90 children currently attending the paediatric diabetes service use a pump to control their blood glucose levels. 

I had assumed that this presentation would have a negative influence on me and be full of the woes of the NHS and how nobody can do anything about it. Dr. Campbell was quite the opposite; she talked about rocking the boat but being able to stay in it. She gave the impression that any problem that came her way always had a solution. Funding was an obstacle but always possible to get around. She was so refreshing.

Her talk was that of someone who very much wanted to improve diabetes care for young people and someone who doesn't accept that it cannot be done.

She says that the NHS has evolved from a culture where clinicians used to ask "why are kids on pumps?" to now asking "why aren't they on pumps?."

What did I learn?

I learned that the countries Ireland should be looking at to do a better job of providing good diabetes care are Germany and Austria (funnily enough, Germany is the country that paved the way in terms of structured type 1 diabetes education, eg DAFNE and Berger), as they have the best outcomes for Children & young people.

I learned that in that same list of all the countries in the developed world of Diabetes Control in Young People aged under 25, the UK countries (including Northern Ireland) and Ireland rank last to 5th last. Ireland being dead last. I took a photo using my iPad of this slide to try and remember where and what this list was but unfortunately to photo was too blurry.

I learned that maybe Ireland needs to extend the national Paediatric Diabetes Under 5's programme to the Under 12's.

I learned that Ireland should be using more of a network approach to our diabetes care. All of our diabetes clinics should be linked together, communicate with each other, and help each other do better and not compete with each other and resent each other. Instead of every clinic provide a their own service with no standard, they should all have the same service to a high standard (paraphrasing from Dr. Campbell).

I learned that I can chose to be a trouble maker or a rebel. I chose rebel:-)

Type 1 Diabetes Conference in Ireland

In April 2014, we, a group of volunteers with type 1 diabetes, posted survey to find out what type of type 1 diabetes event people would like to attend. This is a follow-up survey which contains more details on what you wanted. 

We would really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to complete it for us. 

Many, many thanks,
Grainne

Family Day out with Type 1 Diabetes

My life with diabetes, in general, is very good. Some days I wake up, I've had a good nights sleep and the neverending and relentless challenges that type 1 diabetes brings to my life don't seem so relentless and challenging. I'm ready to tackle anything. Some days, diabetes just drags me down, down and down.

Thankfully, the upbeat days are many and the drag days are not so many.

On a family day out I was reminded that even on good days, type 1 diabetes can be an uninvited & unwanted guest. Our family (me, hubby + 2 children) were on holiday and visited the Zoo. We got as far as the entrance and ticket desk and already I feel it. Yes, the first hypo (lack of glucose in the blood and therefore lack of fuel for my body) of the day.

We were standing in line, there was nowhere to sit. I decided that I would just hold on til we got inside the entrance to check and treat. It was only a suspicion and I could have been just tired. While standing in line, aware of my suspected hypo, and entertaining children, I was thinking about getting inside the entrance and finding a spot to sit, test and treat.

Thankfully, we weren't that long in the line and we needed the bathrooms immediately. Sure enough, diabetes was making it's impact on our day. But, I contained it successfully. It was a mild hypo that I could treat quickly and continue with our day, I had tested while my people were in the bathroom, so the rest of the family didn't have to take a 10-minute break before we started our Zoo adventure and were unaware of it's existence.

As we continued with our day, my blood sugars were on the low-side (not hypo) at lunch which made me a bit grizzly but everyone was as hungry as I was and it was taking FORever to find a bench or picnic table (Dublin Zoo!!!!). My blood sugars continued to behave with some intermittent glucose tablet top ups, just to be sure.

However, I realised how easily my diabetes could've been more than just annoying during our day out. It could have hijacked it. And everyday that treat looms over my head. I'm so grateful that my mental disposition is one where I find it easy to focus on positives, have determination,  be defiant and down right stubborn that I will live well with type 1 diabetes.

The Irony!

I attended the Children with Diabetes/Friends for Life UK conference in Windsor, England last weekend.

One whole weekend jam-packed of type 1 diabetes. A weekend of being surround by people & children with diabetes whose names I have no idea of but I felt like they are my friends. A weekend organised to make life less difficult for everybody. The organisers made sure that all the food provided to us came with carb content information.

Imagine eating at a restaurant where you didn't need to guess so much!

However, from the time I left my house on Friday morning until the time I arrived back to my house on Sunday evening I only had one blood glucose test under 7mmols!!!! The whole weekend my readings were low teens to mid teens. How ironic!

I wasn't too worried about it though because I knew as it was only two days, that I was doing a lot of sitting around yapping. I would try and fix them as best I could but I was far more focused on having fun and making the most of having soooo much support & education every where I looked.

I promise to post more about the conference as soon as my children go back to school because I'm bursting to talk and talk and talk about it. (anyone who knows me will obviously know that that is nothing new:-)