Happy diabetes anniversary!
By: Amin Zayani
Tags: Diabetes, Musings, Life, Personal

Exactly eight years ago, day by day, I was lying in a hospital bed receiving the Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Unlike the horror stories I heard from almost all diabetics I met later, I felt relieved. At the time I lost one quarter of my weight, my blood turned very dark red and quite acidic, I could barely move or talk. The doctor has told me that I was lucky for arriving to the hospital then, because I was hours away from a deadly Ketoacidosis. I thought I had some nasty virus or something, not something as benign as diabetes.

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Credits: http://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/would-understand#14[/caption]

The reason why diabetes did not scare me is because we had it in the family for more than a decade already, my younger brother has it since he was three, and that is really tough. I was familiar with the injections, and the blood tests and the hypoglycaemic episodes, it was part of our lives, so it did not come as a shock.

Eight years passed by, and I never thought diabetes would have such an important part in my life. To make a long story short I will cite the highlights in bullet points below:

The switch to Pens: When I moved to Germany I switched from syringes to pens. Less painful and much much more practical. A couple of weeks ago I had to use a syringe because I ran out of pen needles and I remembered how painful it is! For six years I used only pens and got used to them. It’s amazing how we humans get used to change (especially more comfortable)! [caption id=”attachment_411" align=”aligncenter” width=”660"]

Credits: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Blausen_0580_Insulin_Syringe%26Pen.png[/caption] The other diabetics: The other major development was meeting other diabetics. Until I went to the first meetup of the Berlin Diabetes and digital Technology group, the only people in my “diabetes world” were myself, my family and my doctor. Then all of a sudden I found myself surrounded with people who are dealing with the same challenges and problems I deal with on a daily basis. This only got greater when I discovered the #dedoc community. I started talking about daily habits and exchanging experiences about the most obvious stuff (insulin and diet related stuff) and the less obvious stuff (lifestyle, psychological etc…). More importantly, most of the people active in the first group are tech savvy and working on some digital solution for a diabetes-related problem. Which leads me to the next point. [caption id=”attachment_412" align=”aligncenter” width=”800"]

Credits: Dmitri Kaatz[/caption] InsulinAngel: This is taking a (scarily) considerable part in my life at the moment. It started when I got doubts about the effectiveness of my insulin in summer and in hot climates. I also once lost my entire stock of insulin because the fridge was not functioning properly. So I thought of a device that would measure my insulin’s temperature and warn me when it gets critical. And what started as a hobby project gained momentum especially thanks to the groups cited above , and is becoming my full time occupation. I learned A LOT about insulin and diabetics in the process. But (much) more on that in future posts.

The FreeStyle Libre: This one is very fresh! I have it for a couple of days now (thank you my captain and #dedoc). It is my new favourite device and also the one causing me quite some trouble. It is some kind of pseudo-continuous glucose monitoring system. A sensor on the arm, tap it with the reader and get the blood glucose value instantly. From the 4–6 measurements/day I now scan it around 50–60 times/day and have my entire 24h overview. It’s amazing to see how my blood sugar evolves throughout the day and during my sleep! It’s like the difference between having a surveillance camera and a couple of snapshots! I feel like I was blind and guessing all the time before starting to use it. First insight: I don’t have full control over my blood glucose and I probably never will. It’s not a simple add sugar / add insulin formula. Learning about my glycaemic metabolic processes is still under way (it will probably be a constant work in progress throughout my life) and I’m really curious how this will affect my diabetes and diabetes management. For now I’m super excited and I can’t believe how I lived without this all this time! Stay tuned for my full review.

So, when I look back what do I see? A lot of inconveniences, headaches, some quite stressful situations, but also many new friends, challenges and a very exciting project!

I guess that’s what they call seeing the glass half full, right?