<p class="">Last week I was knocked over a bit by my diabetes diagnosis flashback. how it took my life in a direction I don’t think I would have chosen for myself and how I seem to have come full circle. It’s only taken 28 years!</p>

<p class="">Before Covid, outpatient waiting lists were a serious, serious issue for people with diabetes, but now that services are resuming at reduced capacity, after a second period of cancellations and with the same understaffed levels, they have become more chronic and have added to our anxiety levels. I’ve changed my care several times in the 28 years I’ve had diabetes and I’ve added some suggestions on how to speed up the waiting list process for you. </p>

<p class="">On the 24 Jan it will be 2 years since the decision to allow ONLY 3,000 people access to the Freestyle Libre glucose monitor. Why are we still waiting? Why are the HSE focusing on savings of finger stick meters test strips to offset the cost of expanding access to the Libre and therefore forcing people to choose a CGM device that costs almost twice as much as the Libre?</p>

<p class="">in the last two years I’ve heard many stories where people have spoken up in clinics and have been treated horribly or that it didn’t make any difference. I think that this is something that our community needs to acknowledge and that we have to have a mechanism in place for people who don’t feel that they can speak up anonymously and confidentially.</p>

<p class="">catch you up at the end of my 2020 since I haven’t posted since I started college in September but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have things I wanted to share so this is a bit of a catch you up post.</p>

<p class="">Join us for our type 1 diabetes online meetup with Kerri Sparling from SixUntilMe.com on Tuesday October 20th from 8pm-9pm</p>

<p class="">Flash, Freestyle Libre, CGMs: there seems to be a HUGE, MASSIVE, GINORMOUS lack of information about what's available in Ireland and who it's available to. So I thought I would go through some of my Tips for Starting The Glucose Sensor Conversation with your Team</p>

<p class="">I’m very excited to announce the launch of the Type 2 Diabetes 100 Voices project which is being lead by my #Diabuddy of mine and fellow Diabetes Ireland Advocacy group member, Valerie Humphries.</p>

<p class="">At the beginning of the covid19 pandemic and the Irish lockdown restrictions, I was one of many people who was looking forward to my diabetes clinic moving into the virtual world. However, finding this little positive in a negative was very short lived.</p>

<p class="">Even though I have a continuous glucose monitor CGM, I was “snoozing” the early warning alarm and relying on my symptoms to tell me if the CGM was fibbing. I needed to come up with a back up plan to make sure I paid attention to my alarms and if I didn’t.</p>

<p class="">My bi-annual diabetes clinic appointment is coming up and in preparation I get my labs about two weeks beforehand. I maybe unusual in that it’s not something I get stressed about these days but that hasn’t always been the case.</p>

<p class="">I’ve been using an insulin pump for ten years but it’s really only the last two years that I’ve had frequent experience of Insulin Pump Needle clogs or occlusions as they are known. Here’s my most recent experience and how I addressed it. </p>

<p class="">At the beginning of June, after 27 years of diabetes, I don’t have to stick or prick my fingers any more because I’ve upgraded to a new CGM. The other day I was thinking about my finger sticking journey from those first days and how it evolved to come full circle.</p>

<p class="">On the 25th June, two years ago, the National Clinical Guidelines (NCG) for Adults with Type 1 Diabetes were launched and endorsed by the then Minister for Health, Simon Harris. Last week, I chatted with endocrinologist chair of the guideline committee, Dr Kevin Moore about the launch and what has not happened since.. “Our job is so much easier if people with diabetes have access to diabetes education” Dr. Kevin Moore</p>

<p class="">Diabetes has a terrible public image. What if we created an awareness campaign to address the huge stigma in diabetes, specifically type 2 diabetes, and this led to a huge increase in funding for research and care delivery for all?&nbsp;</p>

<p class="">I know that I’m not the only person who suffers from the Big Shopping Hypo where sugars crash to the floor doing the big weekly food shop, sometimes it happens while doing other types of shopping but I’m going to focus on the food shop today because of what happened a couple of weeks ago.</p>

<p class="">As the Flynn-Miesle family completed our June bank holiday 10k challenge for Diabetes Ireland and with everything that is going on in the world, my head was full of so many thoughts on community, support, awareness, loss, our friends and family in Minneapolis, missing family in lockdown, as I said, lots of thoughts to share.</p>

<p class="">I published my first blog post on the 24th May 2010 with the idea that I would share all the information I was discovering through our local diabetes support group and a little about my life with diabetes. To mark the occasion, I thought I would share a more personal post today than soapbox, and give an update on how I’m dealing with the Covid lockdown and how this is affecting my diabetes management.</p>

<p class="">A recent home school broadcast on diabetes caused distress but where did the misinformation come from</p>

<p class="">This post is about the Diabetes Ireland Advocacy Group which formed in February 2019 and how it began and what we have achieved in the short time it has been established.</p>