One of the important factors of organising Thriveabetes events is that the majority of our speakers live with type 1 diabetes. Although, we do make exceptions for exceptional speakers. We also focus on the psychological impact of living with type 1 diabetes. This post is so you can learn more about our speakers for the Thriveabetes World Diabetes Day Web-Conference, their presentation topics and think about what questions you would like to ask all of them on the day.

Thriveabetes World Diabetes Day Webinar takes place on Saturday 14th November. It’s Free to attend but advance registration is required. You can register here.

*** We are also asking a minimum donation of €10 per household for Diabetes Ireland as a thank you for their huge support for the last 5 years.

Thriveabetes World Diabetes Day Speakers

Cathy Breen - Carb Counting and Beyond

Cathy holds a PhD in Nutrition (UCD, 2016) and a BSc in Human Nutrition and Dietetics (TCD / DIT, 2002). She has worked as a CORU Registered Dietitian specialising in diabetes and weight management in St Columcille’s Hospital, Dublin, Ireland since 2003. She’s been involved with writing sections of the DUK Evidence Based Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Diabetes and the NCEC National Clinical Guideline for Type 1 diabetes - which aim to improve and standardise diabetes care nationally.  She’s been a DAFNE Educator for 15 years (most recently remotely!), and spends a lot of her clinical time alongside people with Type 1 diabetes cruising the peaks and troughs of pump and CGM downloads looking for those elusive patterns! 

Follow Cathy on Twitter @CathyBreen24

Stephen Clancy - Life with Diabetes as a Professional Athlete

Stephen is from Limerick and is a professional cyclist with Type 1 Diabetes for Team Novo Nordisk . He was diagnosed when he was 19 years old. He only took up competitive cycling when he was 16 and had already a number of accolades including Cycling Ireland’s ‘Domestic Rider of the Year’ when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and his future in cycling was in serious doubt, but six months later Stephen was a member of Team Type 1 Team Novo Nordisk the only professional all diabetes cycling team.

We would like to thank Novo Nordisk for sponsoring Stephen Clancy appearance at Thriveabetes.

Follow stephen on Twitter @Clancy_Stephen or Instagram @Stephen_Clancy. Follow Team Novo Nordisk here.

Sara Lasker - Diabetes; Seeing the Whole Person

Sara moved to Limerick from the United States in 2019 and has been living with type 1 diabetes for over 35 years. She holds her master’s degree in Health Education and is one of the first Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES®) dually certified as a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES, formerly CDE®) in the world. Her fifteen years professional experience in diabetes education has included clinical, public health and non-profit. She believes that "You are the expert of your diabetes" and hopes to empower others with diabetes to feel the same. 

Seeing the Whole Person: You are the expert of Your Diabetes  

Diabetes is a FULL-TIME job. In this session you will learn how to incorporate the 8 aspects of wellness (occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, environmental, and financial) into managing your diabetes.

Follow Sara on Twitter @HealthyAndHygge, on Facebook @HealthyAndHygge, Instagram @Healthy_and_Hygge and LinkedIn.

Shane O’Donnell - Living with Hypo Anxiety

Shane O’Donnell is a research scientist at School of Sociology UCD and Coordinator of the H2020 OPEN Diabetes project .

Shane has lived with type 1 diabetes for more than 15 yearS and shared his journey with severe hypo anxiety at the DSMA conference I attended last January and how it brought him into the world of DIYAPS Do-It-Yourself Artificial Pancreas System and #WeAreNotWaiting. He is also a former "Young Leader in Diabetes" with the International Diabetes Federation's (IDF) and current member of the Diabetes Ireland Advocacy Group. You can find out more about the Open Diabetes Project on @OpenDiabetesEU on Twitter and Facebook

Cormac Gollogly - Moving Diabetes Care Forward:

A Diabetes Ireland Advocacy Group Update

Cormac Gollogly is a barrister-at-law, Chair of the Diabetes Ireland Advocacy Group, a member of the Diabetes Ireland board of directors and a public representative on the HSE National Clinical Programme for Diabetes. Cormac has lived with diabetes for most of his life and at the time of publishing I did not have much information except to say that I have known him for almost ten years and consider him as a very good friend.

Follow Diabetes Ireland on their website diabetes.ie, Twitter @Diabetes_ie, Facebook @DiabetesIreland Instagram @DiabetesIreland

Our Gold Sponsors

Our gold sponsors will be hosting breakout sessions as part of our programme with their own featured speakers. We will provide more detail on these short sessions as soon as possible. Find out more about our gold sponsors by clicking on the logo images.

Our Gold Sponsors are: Abbott, Ascensia, BD, Dexcom, Medtronic and YpsoPump MyLife DiabetesCare

As you can see we have a full day planned and we hope you can join us to celebrate World Diabetes Day.

Register here.