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? I started thinking about this as I listened to Today FM’s The Last Word presenter, Matt Cooper, share his diabetes diagnosis on air for the first time in 2020. You can listen ..read more

Most people with diabetes use Insulin Pumps, Right? Wrong! Most people in the Irish Diabetes Online Community seem to be using insulin pumps, and if I didn’t know better, I might think this is the norm in the Irish diabetes population and even the world. But the truth is that most people with type 1 diabetes in Ireland use insulin pens, not pumps. How do I know this? Well, there are no technology audits on diabetes in Ireland yet. However, the important work of Kate Gajewska 2021 gave us some information on access to pumps in 2016, which reported that insulin pump uptake was: 10% of Type 1 D ..read more

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. Before Diagnosis I turned twenty in December 1992; I was a student living away from home since I did my Leaving Cert exams at seventeen. The previous September, after living with my uncle and his ..read more

Abbott’s dX events are always interesting and aren’t just about product updates. DxMilan in Italy was no different and incorporated important issues around diabetes equity, discrimination and stigma. But I especially loved the workshop on building a bridge to lessen the divide between the type 1 and type 2 communities. Disclosure: I flew to Milan on Friday, 23rd June and back the next afternoon. Abbott paid for my flight, accommodation and travel expenses. Freestyle Libre Product Update Firstly, I’d like to give the Abbott product update, which was provided remotely over unstable internet ..read more

How many people with diabetes are using HSE-Funded Devices? This is a question I asked a couple of years ago while messaging back and forth with a friend about access to CGMs in Ireland and if it was possible to get a number. I drafted a Parliamentary Question for my friend to submit, thinking why not, but it couldn’t be that simple, could it? Yes, it could. Last year, I wrote a document based on the replies to those PQs, which indicated that in 2021 over 11,000 people with diabetes were using HSE-funded flash and CGMs. I decided to continue to update these numbers and produce a similar but si ..read more

Thirty years of diabetes means thirty years of being a diabetes healthcare “service user”. In my previous 30 years of diabetes post, I focused on how my diabetes management has changed significantly. This post is about my journey through healthcare, which includes experiences with public and private services to find the care that I needed and how care has changed in those three decades. I’ve changed my care a lot because a) I moved a couple of times, and b) it took me some time to find the care I needed. All but four of those thirty years were accessing care through the Irish system. I was dia ..read more

April 2023 marked five years since the revolutionary flash glucose monitor, the Freestyle FS Libre, became free for people with type 1 diabetes in Ireland, however, only to those aged between the age of four and twenty-one years, which is approximately 20% of our population. The FS Libre is a tiny blood glucose monitor worn on your arm which takes a glucose reading every five minutes and sends it to an app on your phone. It reduces the need for a traditional finger-pricking method and provides a lot more information about glucose levels which people with diabetes need to manage their diabetes ..read more

On April 2, 2023, I celebrated 30 years of living with type 1 diabetes. I had a few things going on in my life in April and May, so I didn’t have a chance to publish this post. I also have a couple of other posts I plan to share over the summer, so I’m back blogging for a few months before I knuckle down and get that final year of my degree in the bag. Back to the post! There have been many advances in diabetes treatments that have improved my health and quality of life in the last three decades. Here’s a brief overview of the advances that I have been privileged to access. My Diabetes in the ..read more

On October 4th, the latest version of the Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor CGM, the G7 became available in Ireland, the UK and some other countries. I was busy attending college lectures and tutorials, so I was gathering information about this latest product from the diabetes community #DOC in Ireland #IREDOC and abroad until I could accept an invitation to talk with our Irish Dexcom Representatives for an update. This happened on Thursday last. DiaTribe, and Kamil from Nerdabetic have both provided great information on the differences between the G6 and the G7, which would be good to look at ..read more

I started using a brand new-to-Ireland pump, the Tandem T:Slim insulin pump with Control IQ, on July 6th. Then, on the 16th of July, I went on holiday to America, where I travelled to six cities in three weeks, got home for a night but the next day flew back to the US for another 5 days due to tragic circumstances. So, me and my pump have not had a typical beginning, and I’ve spent very little time thinking about my diabetes or doing anything with it. However, this insulin pump has played a blinder in letting me do what I needed to do without spending much time thinking about diabetes. Note 1 ..read more