Sometimes I feel that we as diabetics, especially T1Ds, may come across as a little ungrateful for all the advances made in the struggle against diabetes. One hundred years ago, I wouldn’t be alive. Chances are, if you’re T1D, you wouldn’t be either. I’m grateful for all the advancements, all the technologies, as annoying as they can be sometimes, that give me another day with my loved ones.
Even in the last thirty years, I am grateful for technologies like the infusion pumps that have led to better treatment, better outcomes, and better lives.
I don’t think there aren’t many T1Ds or T1Ds affected families who aren’t grateful. Granted, there are parents of T1D children, who rightfully wish they could do away with this insidious disease. But the advancements have been phenomenal. I wonder if there is another disease that has shown so much improvement in the ways of treatment and outcomes? I doubt it.
Sure, we see a lot of things we think could be improved upon. Nothing is perfect. But we’ve come a long way. I find myself grateful to all the medical researchers toiling away in labs, the medical professionals seeking new ways to help us, and the clinical trial patients who have volunteered to help make our lives and future lives better, and those of who volunteer to spread news and information that can help others, like the founders and administrators of this blog. I often feel we don’t thank those people enough, or at least I don’t. Thank you.
In particular, I am truly amazed at the technology (and saddened by complaints) surrounding CGM sensors. It's nothing short of amazing that researchers have been able to develop materials/techniques that allow a foreign object to remain viable for 7-10 days despite the host's truly impressive ability to reject such invaders.
CGM's are different from other implants in that they must be able to accurately measure the surrounding environment thus proscribing the use of more common anti-rejection features found in 'inert' implants.
Good post. After years of peeing in a bottle to test my sugar and while at times I get frustrated, we are truly blessed how technology has helped fight this disease. I remember as a kid seeing the syringe my dad used. He had a sharpening stone that he kept next to it. If he could see the technology that we have today, I’m sure he would of essentially thought it was a cure.
When I started they trained me on glass syringes with removable needles and sterilizing with boiling and "Yale Solution" and grinding needles! I'm thinking they just had some extra glass syringes at the local hospital because after I got out of the hospital I never used anything but plastic syringes.
And not too long after I got started on urine testing with test tubes and the fizzy hot tablets. Then I got turned onto home bg testing. To me the big revolution was home bg testing. Before that, literally to know what my bg was, my parents would take me to the local hospital, they would draw blood, and then the next day they would phone my parents. Urine testing was about as vague too.
Like many of us, I'm so grateful that I have diabetes today & not in the 1980's. I was in nursing school then learning about diabetes and I remember the HOT fizzy test tubes & then trying to decide how much insulin to give based on those results. If only BG meters were the only improvement, that still would be miraculous.
I'm in awe of those of you who lived thru all of those archaic modalities and are thriving today despite how inaccurate it all was.
