Managing Type 1 Diabetes and College

Happy 2017 and welcome to our first post of the year! This post comes from Emma Wright from Cork and a university student in her twenties. When Emma was 11 years old, she developed Pancreatitis, a condition that is rare in children, and as a direct result, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of fourteen.

Emma travelled to Australia, as many Irish do, on the work/travel visa in recent years and started a blog about her travelling with type 1 diabetes to help and support other people living with type 1 that may be considering doing the same.

You will find out more about Emma and her travels here.

I asked Emma to write about managing type 1 diabetes while in college. This is something that is a huge challenge for students with diabetes, as it’s usually the first time that you are out on your own as an independent adult navigating the world. Emma has some really good tips here that really help her managing life in college.

Thank you Emma for contributing to Thriveabetes as a guest blogger; you can follow Emma on Emma Wright's Blog.

We are always looking for stories from the Irish Diabetes community to share and if you would like to share your story with Thriveabetes, email me, Gráinne at Grainne@Thriveabetes.ie

Managing Diabetes in College

Starting college is an exciting and rewarding experience. Not only are you taking the first steps towards your career but you are also becoming independent for the first time. Independence for most means being able to go out when you want and learning to be smarter with your money but as a person with diabetes, independence also means having to rely on yourself for your diabetes management. This can be tough, especially if you are used to having family members around who remind you to check your sugar levels, help you when you are having a hypo and who are generally there for support.

Being in college, you are instantly exposed to new people and new surroundings and you don’t necessarily want to be dragged down by the thought of having to check yourself or inject/pump in public. But as great as college is, the most important thing is to look after yourself so you can enjoy college to the fullest. What good is it to be battling low or high sugar levels on a night out or at a societies event? None is the answer! You want to be able to have fun and enjoy your time in college without the added worry of uncontrolled sugar levels.

So as a college student myself, I have included my top tips for managing diabetes in college:

1. If you are living away from home, you NEED to tell everyone in your house/apartment that you have diabetes. You would be surprised how a lot of students you live with might accidently drink the Lucozade you have in the fridge, leaving you with nothing to treat a hypo! I understand it might be daunting, and maybe even embarrassing, to tell everyone you have just met that you have diabetes but believe me, it might save your life. As well, you should explain what the Glycogen Kit is and when it needs to be used, just in case you are ever in a situation where you are unresponsive and may need it to be administered. Quite often, these housemates will also turn into friends who will be able to keep an eye on you when you aren’t feeling great with sugar levels. But just in case, I would always recommend having hypo treatment in your room and in your college bag at all times too.

2. Remember to test. Yes, it is so simple but it can be so hard to remember when you have classes back to back for hours at a time and diabetes is the last thing on your mind. It’s easy to get hungry and tired, and all you want to do is eat without having to finger prick and just give insulin for the carbs you have eaten but it is crucial to know what your sugar levels are before food in case you need to give a correction with your dose. I would suggest setting an alarm on your meter or phone for particularly busy college days - it will come in handy, trust me!

3. Eat as best as you can! It can be tough to eat healthily on a budget (and with loads of student meal deals on offer) but you can do it! Going to supermarkets for your food shop is a must, particularly the cheaper ones, so that you get more for your money. Also look at the reduced section for cheaper food that might be close to its use by date, it is still just as good if you eat it on the day you buy it or if you freeze it. I would also suggest when cooking, to make extra and freeze it, for those days where you don’t feel like cooking – you can just pop it in the oven or microwave! I often weigh out the carbs as I divide it into lunchboxes and put it on a label on the lunchbox so when I go to eat it, I already know how much to bolus for.

4. Stay connected. By this, I mean always stay connected to your loved ones and your diabetes care team! It can be easy to get caught up in college life and forget to give a text to your family or give a call to your diabetes team when you need some help and guidance on your diabetes. Always keep up to date with all hospital appointments. It may be a nuisance to get to your appointment but it’s better to do that than miss out on the opportunity to have your eyes checked, for example. You don’t want to delay treatment for any complications you may have!

5. Stress effects sugar levels and coming up to exam time, you may find you have not got enough hours in the day to complete essays and study. This will be stressful! Just be mindful of your sugar levels during these times and give yourself some more insulin if needed (if on a pump, you can do a temporary basal rate at an increased rate). You should also try and exercise regularly during your college terms but particularly during these times of stress, it will be a great reliever of tension, will help you to relax and sleep better as well as help lower insulin resistance.

Once you have followed these tips, you will find your rhythm in college and diabetes won’t be such a struggle to manage. Like everything, practise makes perfect and just try your best to keep your sugar levels stable. I would also recommend registering with the Disability department in your college and make them aware of your diabetes. It isn’t essential to tell lecturers of big classes that you have diabetes, mainly because you can drink/eat in classes and do as you please, as long as you are quiet! But if you have smaller classes, then I would recommend letting your teacher know about your diabetes just in case you have to treat a hypo or hyper sugar level during class time.

I hope this helps you for your time in college! Best of luck in your studies and remember to have fun!

Thank You All from Thriveabetes

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realise what Thriveabetes 2015 and 2016 achieved. This time last year, we were on a high after a successful Thriveabetes 2015 in Maynooth, Co. Kildare. We ploughed into planning Thriveabetes 2016 with complete and utter dedications and passion.

During this year, we have watched our online community grow and grow, making us feel less alone with diabetes. About a month ago, our Thriveabetes Facebook page reached the milestone of 500 page likes and we have 240 people signed up to receive our weekly blog post by email. This alone is like being hugged 500 times:-D

In June, myself and Rebecca were invited to be part of the Diabetes Ireland and Diabetes T One Delegation to the Dail. We asked the 42 public representatives who attended to commit to developing a multi-year financial plan to implement the services required for all people with diabetes in Ireland. Starting with approving a request for an additional €5 million per year to implement all the recommendations on the Paediatric Diabetes Model of Care, improving not only the quality of life for all children and teenagers with diabetes but for their families also.

It was at this point in our journey that we realised how supportive our community was. The number of TD’s and Senators who attended this briefing seemed to be unprecedented and quite a lot of them told us of the numerous emails they had received from their constituents - that was you guys!!!

In Autumn, we were approached by two companies asking us to share their product news with you all - this told us that we may have some influence in the diabetes community and we very quickly realised that with this influence comes great responsibility. We will promise to always be transparent where this is concerned and to never take advantage of this influence…. Unless, of course it raises the cash needed to pay for Thriveabetes 2018;-)

In January, now that we are fully recharged, we will put the hunt for venue 2018 into high gear. In late Spring, we will organise a fundraiser raffle to raise the venue deposit and from there on until spring 2018, we will recruit exhibitor, sponsors and the remaining speakers openings that we have.

To all of you, we give you our deepest thanks and hope that you will continue to give us your feedback to improve Thriveabetes all the time. Happy Christmas!

From the Team Pam, Ken, Davina, Phil, Brian, Christine, Grainne, and Rebecca.

Review of the New Contour Next One Blood Glucose Meter and App

In October, Ascensia (formerly Bayer) launched its newest blood glucose meter and integrated app-The CONTOUR®NEXT ONE meter and the CONTOUR®DIABETES app. You can find out more about the specifics of this new meter and app here. DISCLAIMER;

Thriveabetes was asked if we would share information about this new product with our followers and subscribers. I was really interested in this meter, I asked if I could have a meter sent to me. Both the meter and the app are free for everybody and the meter had already been launched in Ireland (details of how to get it at the end of this post).

Once I received the Contour Next One meter and I downloaded the app from the Apple App store. I volunteered to do the blog post review and have not received any payment of any kind to do this. I have tried to give an unbiased review but I feel that maybe I’m a little spoilt when it comes to the diabetes devices. I would like to re-enforce that my opinion is just one opinion. What works for me is not going to work for every person with diabetes.

In writing this post I realised that checking my blood glucose on a meter alone isn’t enough for me. That I really do appreciate an app that allows me to input the information associated with that blood glucose reading. I need to include if this reading is before or after a meal, if I am using this reading to calculate insulin dosage, how much carb I’m about to eat, physical activity, etc. I have been using the MySugr App to log my blood glucose readings for almost two years and I love it.

This meter is one of the few existing blood glucose meters that is integrated with a smartphone app. BG results captured throughout the day are automatically synced and logged. It removes the need for uploading to a desktop computer or laptop.

Last week, I listed all the key features of this meter, how it works, how to get it and what devices it works on. Read here.

I also found out that my smart devices are all “iOld” and not fully compatible with the App but I could still use it effectively and I’ve taken that into consideration in my review.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

This meter sends your blood glucose reading straight to the app, via bluetooth, which can be accessed on a smartphone, tablet or computer. This meter & app is ideal for parents of a child who has type 1 diabetes because you can have multiple users of the App. If your child has an SNA at school who is helping him/her with her blood glucose checking and has the app on their phone, the parent at home has access to the same information on the app on their phone, tablet or desktop.

THE GOOD.

My first impression of the CONTOUR®NEXT ONE was how compact it is and could easily fit in a jeans pocket.

It was easy to perform a blood glucose check. To be honest, if you have to consult a user guide to do this then the meter is an epic fail! So, phew on this one:-)

I really like that I could chose to turn off the features that unsettled me such as the beeps (sound effects). It’s comforting in a room full of people with diabetes to hear the beeps but not when you are not in a room full of people who do not have diabetes.

It’s extremely easy to add additional information to your blood glucose readings.

The extended graph, accessible by turning your phone sideways does provide you with useful information that may improve your diabetes management.

The App has the basics of a really useful App.

THE “TO BE IMPROVED”

The lancet device is an exercise in cruelty, even at it’s lowest setting and changing the lancet each time. I stuck with it for 4 days and my fingers were in such pain that I went back to my old lancet device from my previous meter.

I had to consult the user booklet several times to figure out some of the bells and whistles, such as the meal tagging, how to switch off the coloured lights and the sounds, how to see the extended graph.

Traffic light reading; I can see why some people might like this but not me. I'm not a big fan of having each blood glucose result graded by like this. This feature is on the MySugr app, but it tells you how you did for the day and not per reading. So after a couple of checks I turned this feature off.

The extended graph on my phone was not easy to interpret. It was lots of coloured dots that told me what my average blood glucose reading was for that time of day. But this is not as good as having the percentage of time I was above or below my target range. So this app did not help me improve my diabetes management.

The app only allows you to enter insulin in half unit increments and as a pump user this wasn’t much use to me. I would need to be able to input .05 units of insulin.

The screen can sometimes be difficult to read.

Medtronic Insulin Pump users will be disappointed to know that this meter, for the moment, does not sync to the pump.

MY OVERALL IMPRESSION

So my impression is that I would definitely use this meter for it’s accuracy and it's convenience. But I won’t be using this meter right now because I am tied to the Animas Insulin Pump software; Diasend which allows me to upload my pump, my current meters, because they're made by the same company, and my dexcom cgm. The app, in my opinion, is a good start, but as I’m using a well-established app, I found the Contour Diabetes App user interface needs more development.

I look forward to the day that this app syncs with whatever meter I like to use, or a meter company comes up with an app that is equal to the one that I currently use (because it’s really good and easy to use).

I'm extremely optimistic that meter companies are realising that this is what people with diabetes have been asking for and are taking steps to achieve it.

HOW TO GET IT?

The Contour Next One is available through their website: https://www.contournextone.ie/free-meter/ Or by telephoning 1 890 920 111 (Mon-Fri, 9:00am-5:00pm).