One of the factors not included in Diatribe’s 22 factors that influence glucose levels is the weather. Sometimes the weather plays with my diabetes management. And here’s how. Do you remember that really, really wet day we had last week? It seems like a distant memory now and I don’t think it had a name, like a storm name, but most of the country was flooded under a yellow weather warning. When I got up that morning and look out the window I thought “ Nope, I’m not walking,

Last week, Johnson & Johnson  Diabetes, who own Animas, announced that it was “exiting” out of the insulin pump business, effective immediately in the US and Canada. And eventually in the rest of the world. Once I read all the way down the press release to realise that it was just USA and Canada for now, I was relieved. Then I was seriously miffed, but not completely surprised. Since the Vibe insulin pump was introduced, a number of years ago, innovation seemed to have stalle

My children have been back to school for almost two full weeks now and since their first day back I've been spending a couple of hours most days planning Thriveabetes 2018. A month ago, at our fundraiser, I was asked to explain what Thriveabetes is, why people with diabetes need it and why I was asking people to give money to it. After my nerve wrecking speech, several people commented on how they had no idea that living with diabetes was so involved and required so much wo

I've been using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) since November 2015 and it has made a huge difference in my diabetes management. It has narrowed the glucose swings so much and it has been a huge relief in my anxiety relating to trying to avoid hypos. And I have worn it 24/7 since I got it. Last Friday, I had an MRI on my stupid 83 year old hip (another story) and I had to take my sensor off. So I decided to go the whole weekend cgm-free. I thought it would be nice to have

It's summer in Ireland. But summer in Ireland means wearing a rain jacket a lot of the time or a cardi. However, the weather has warmed up enough recently and has been a bit drier to go out in short sleeves. This feels a little uncomfortable for me. Why? I wear a gadget thingy on the side of my upper arm. It looks odd and in short sleeves it’s hard to miss. Especially, when I've been wearing it for a couple of weeks when I've had to put extra tape on it to keep it stuck on an

It’s summertime and the living is easy, fish are jumping and people are travelling, Including me! I specifically want to share my most recent travel experience by air. My stress levels ramp up a couple of notches at the thoughts of traveling through airports. Airports equal airport security and as a person with diabetes I have a lot of organising to do to make this go as smoothly as possible. I’ve travelled quite a bit but there is always something unexpected about it and I’v

<p class="">Has anyone noticed their blood sugar/glucose numbers dropping lately as the Spring temperatures tease us? Welcome to Spring, where it’s hot, it's cold, it's summer one day and winter the next.</p>

I've been using an insulin pump for almost seven years and it's unlikely that I will go back to injection pens. However, I know that things change over time and how I feel about things also change, so I will never say that I will never go back to injection pens because the future is unpredictable. This week, I have been thinking a lot about all the times I've changed the way I manage my diabetes and how difficult some of those changes were.  I remember when I was transitionin

Last May, I was asked by the organisers of the Future Health Summit to give a presentation on how I became an empowered person with diabetes. Some friends asked if I could blog about it. The reason for my topic choice was because the theme of the conference was Empowering the Patient, Information, Choice & Accountability and I decided to focus on Empowering the Patient element for my presentation. I feel like I am one, that diabetes does not have power over me, I have a lot o

It's summer, which means for a lot of people it's holiday time. “They” say that diabetes never takes a holiday but what “they” don’t tell you is that when you take a holiday you should be warned that your diabetes will behave as if it’s gone wild in Ibiza and partying like it’s 1999. I took a holiday for the last couple of weeks. I didn’t go anywhere though. My brother in law and his family were visiting from America, hubby took ten days off work and the kids are on their sum

I have been using a Continuous Glucose Monitoring device (CGM) for six months and I feel that I have enough information now to share what I have learned about my diabetes management in those short months. A couple of weeks ago I shared how I came to get my hands on this little golden nugget and you can read about that here . So here it goes, in no particular order, what I have learned. Rapid acting insulin is not that rapid at all! If my blood sugar levels dare to go ⇑ and be

The end of May marked six months since I got CGM'd. WOW! It just flew by.  After two years of persistence, I finally got my CGM on November 27th 2015. When I announced this on social media I has a number of queries about how I managed to get approved and how difficult others were finding their quest. As always, the one thing that the diabetes community is brilliant at, is sharing knowledge through our personal experiences for the benefit of others. So, here is the story of ho

This train wreck started with a decision to skip the spud at dinner, in my opinion. We were having Chicken Maryland and so there was enough carb on the breading to double my usual dinner carb count and I decided to forego the mash potato. This middle/2nd dip below the blue line in my photo opposite shows the low blood sugar after dinner. I, mostly, eat low to moderate carbs to help maintain good blood glucose management. It’s a decision that I made for myself and I would neve

This week I’m  taking part in the 7th annual Diabetes Blog Week , which runs from 16th to 20th May. Founded by Karen at Bitter Sweet Diabetes . My Day in Food - Wildcard WARNING - this post will be boring!!! I feel like I’m the only person with diabetes in the world who doesn’t cook. I hate cooking!!! It goes back to my childhood where as the eldest girl it was expected that I would cook and I do NOT like being told what to do.  It was also enabled by my husband, who when we

I’m  taking part in the 7th annual Diabetes Blog Week , which runs from 16th to 20th May. Founded by Karen at Bitter Sweet Diabetes . Today's topic is  The Healthcare Experience Most people who live with a chronic illness end up with a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with health care. How would you improve or change your healthcare experience? What would you like to see happening during medical visits with your healthcare team? How about when dealing with your heal

I hate when the hypo just comes out of nowhere and hits you hard! It a very rare occasion that I have a hypo around lunch time. But yesterday, totally unexpected and without hardly any warning a 2.6 mmol/l (46.8 mg/dl) knocked me for 6. I had been working upstairs doing light household chores. I decided to take a break and make some lunch because my CGM alarmed telling me that my blood sugars were 4.3 mmol/l (77.4 mg/dl) and I felt a bit on the shaky side but not much. I thre

As promised, the Not-So-Good Day of Diabetes.  When I was trying to decide which "Not-So-Good Day" experience to post about, I had too many to choose from. On this occasion I choose this one because it's not all to do with diabetes. It's the other stuff that affects diabetes or vice versa. When I wrote this post I hadn’t had an uninterrupted night's sleep in about 4 nights. It’s my diabetes but it’s not just that. It’s the decisions I make too. Like to have 2 squares of choco

As we celebrated St. Patrick's Day last week, I began to reflect of what it’s like to be a person with diabetes living in Ireland. As we celebrated St. Patrick's Day last week, I began to reflect of what it’s like to be a person with diabetes living in Ireland. The luck o’ the Irish is often referred to in movies, etc, but in actual fact, when it come to diabetes, I think we should called it lucky to be born in Ireland. The luck o’ the Irish is often referred to in movies, et

I wrote this post on Saturday 10th January because it was such a good day and worth recording. Don't worry though I will balance it with A Day of Diabetes - A Not-So-Good Day! And be assured that I do have many of those too:-D It's also written before I got hooked up to my continuous glucose monitoring system. The alarm went off at 8:28am, I feel well rested but still want another snooze. My husband's alarm went off at 8:30am and I was afraid that I would actually fall back t

Before I state one of the benefits that an insulin pump provides me with, I would like to point out that I believe that they are not for everybody. Off the top of my head, I can name three people who have public profiles who do not use insulin pumps and still do brilliantly with their diabetes management. Good diabetes management is possible while using multiple daily injections. An insulin pump won't magically fix most of your problems with your diabetes - they are a lot of