Living with Diabetes
A diagnosis of diabetes can be a life-changing event. Whether type 1, type 2, GDM (gestational diabetes), or any other types of diabetes they each come with their own onset, diagnosis, challenges and management approaches. But they all have one thing in common; insulin, or the lack of.
Diabetes occurs when the body cannot produce insulin at all, cannot effectively use the insulin the body does make, or simply cannot produce enough. This can happen for various reasons, but all present with similar symptoms.
“Diabetes doesn’t discriminate, and can happen to anyone, of any age.”
Diabetes must be diagnosed with a series of blood tests performed by your healthcare professional or GP.
As an adult, it may be harder for your doctors to be able to distinguish between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Additional testing may be required, along with tests for symptoms of DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and a reviewof family history. But even with extra testing, but misdiagnosis can still occur.
Misdiagnosis can lead to emotional and physical turmoil, while the individual continues to feel symptoms and increasingly get more ill in search for answers.
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Peyton
“Every symptom I was researching, everything that was happening to me pointed to type 1 diabetes. But the doctors just weren’t listening, and I knew I was getting increasingly sick.”
Read Peyton’s Story
Signs and symptoms
Symptoms of type 2 diabetes may never present, and a diagnosis is not made until a routine blood test is conducted. It’s important to have routine visits to your GP, especially if there is a history of type 2 diabetes in your family.
In cases of type 1 diabetes, individuals may become severely unwell or even fall into a coma as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). The longer diabetes is present, but not detected or treated, and the worse symptoms become, the higher the risk of developing DKA.
Read more about the common signs and symptoms.
Living with and managing diabetes
On average, someone living with diabetes has to make 180 extra decisions per day. It requires an around-the-clock approach, that can feel like a balancing act. Despite the various misunderstandings about the condition, diabetes management can require more than simply eating healthy, exercising more and taking insulin and/or medication.
Blood glucose management requires rigorous monitoring of blood glucose levels (BGL), both actively, and reactively. With type 1 diabetes, a dose of short or rapid acting insulin (bolus) is administered each time food or drink containing sugar and/or carbohydrates is consumed, or to correct a high blood glucose reading.
Alongside this, a daily, or twice daily dose of long-acting insulin (basal) is required to keep a consistent baseline BGL. More commonly, people living with type 2 diabetes will use long-acting insulin.
Monitoring diabetes
Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) are wearable devices that take BGL readings from the interstitial fluid under the skin. These monitors not only send a real-time BGL reading to your device or phone, they provide a graph and indicators that allow you to see how the blood glucose is trending.
Along with being convenient, these devices are discreet and have allowed more people to integrate their management into their daily schedules.
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“As for my social life, it’s great now as I can quietly check my sugars without taking out my monitor and strips to do a finger prick and get blood all over my fingers. Having said that, diabetes never stopped me from doing anything.”
Read Sue’s story
Every individual will have a slightly different approach when it comes to managing their diabetes. Just like we have our own unique fingerprints, we all have a different set of DNA, hormones and variables that make the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to living with diabetes nearly impossible. The building blocks may be the same, but the method and approach are not.
Diabetes Technology
The last 10 years has been revolutionary for diabetes technology and demand for diabetes devices has never been higher. While management game-changers like CGMs are subsidised for people living with type 1 diabetes, they remain out of reach for a large majority of the diabetes community, namely, people living with type 2.
Insulin pumps that communicate with CGMs and act without human intervention, smaller, less detectable devices and newer families of drugs such as GLP-1’s, are only the beginning of the revolution in the way we manage and treat diabetes.
Future diabetes management lies in the capable hands of research, technology, and development, and are made possible by advocacy and philanthropic efforts across the globe.
From the devices available, and the way they communicate with each other, to the way medication and insulin is administered – including the idea of insulin in pill format – each new development will still come with its own set of administrative tasks.
There is hope
The decisions remain, but the disjointed nature of diabetes management becomes a little more seamless thanks to these life-changing innovations and integrations.
The future of diabetes research is extremely promising, and with this research comes new technology, new treatments and ways to manage the condition and its complications, and, ultimately, the possibility of a cure.
A cure is the ultimate hope for those living with diabetes, and with the painstaking research, development, advocacy, and fundraising undertaken globally, we may see a future in our lifetime where this is more than just a pipe-dream.