National Diabetes Week 14th– 20th July 19
I’ve interviewed my friend Ammee who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for the past 20 years, being diagnosed when she was just 11. It was Ammee’s quick thinking and knowledge of the disease that made her vigilant in checking her daughters sugar levels that led to her daughter Alice being diagnosed with T1 diabetes at the age of 3.
Have a watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXBDU18VNQc
Or continue reading as I outline what Ammee speaks of in her interview. Aspiring to raise awareness for T1 Diabetes, being an autoimmune disease which attacks healthy cells essentially killing the pancreas and not being caused by consuming too much sugar or having a poor diet.
Ammee speaks of her journey to get her daughter diagnosed and following her intuition to proceed with testing.
Ammee describes Alice as being confident and takes her daily care in her stride.
Alice still has partial use of her pancreas which has surprised her specialist who wants to use Alice’s data to raise awareness for early detection.
Alice is lucky enough to have a monitor which helps monitor sugar levels and insulin. However Ammee can’t fully rely on the monitor to provide accurate information so she still finger pricks 5 times a day.
Ammee has to carb count Alice’s food 15minutes prior to Alice eating, this is to balance insulin levels with the glucose in her body.
She has to do set changes of the monitor every two days to prevent abscesses from occurring. This involves a small needle inserted into Alice’s skin.
She speaks of the challenges they are faced with daily; mood, stress, sleep and seasons can all affect Alice’s sugar levels. Alice recently has low sugars due to her body’s natural response to burn energy to keep her body warm during winter. This can cause low sugar, and if not monitored can be fatal.
Alice is restricted when it comes to sleepovers because it’s hard for others to understand the monitor and count carbs
Ammee also addresses the challenges she has with the costs involved with the equipment needed to provide a monitor and ongoing care, she also talks about Alice’s side effects, of skin rashes, gastro, reflux and hormones.
Ammee bravely shares her personal story of not waking up one morning and being revived with a glucose kit (similar to an anaphylactic needle) Thankfully Alice has a monitor which can detect low sugars to avoid her body shutting down through the night.
