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.
I usually don’t entertain emails offering products for me to try out but when I got a very short email from Chad at the Diabetic Sock Club I had a blister on my toe and ankle for no reason. so I thought I would give them a try.
I remember going to diabetes events hoping to learn more about my diabetes in the early years of my diagnosis and often felt that these events were too vague for an insulin user like me, and that the discussion was dominated by people with type 2 diabetes. So I didn’t relate to or connect with these events and I stopped going. Now in the type 1 diabetes dominated support space we are asking where are people with type 2?
I was diagnosed as an adult while living away from home. I had all the classic symptoms: the 4 T’s, but had no idea that they could be caused by an illness. By the time I was admitted to hospital I could barely stand, walk or talk and had lost so much weight I looked like a skeleton. Type 1 diabetes symptom campaigns that ignore the fact that adults get T1D makes those adults feel isolated and alienated from the diabetes community and may be reluctant to look for emotional and physical support.
Over the years, I’ve been told by so many people that the patient voice is the strongest and most difficult to ignore and for a very long time I believed this wholeheartedly. But in recent months, I’ve been feeling that the voice of people with diabetes is nothing more than white noise, unheard and unsupported.
