Think about should you needed to frequently verify your blood sugar degree all through your life. Should you needed to spend your days counting carbs, injecting insulin, and approaching every thing with rigorous self-discipline. As a wholesome individual, I have to admit: I discover this tough even to think about. That’s why I made a decision to conduct an experiment and expertise first-hand the on a regular basis issues an individual with diabetes should face.
On this article, I current my observations after two weeks of carrying a glucose sensor so that you just don’t need to think about. You may hopefully use my expertise to grasp.
Religion within the energy of expertise
To be clear, I don’t have diabetes. However I do know folks with each kind 1 and kind 2 diabetes. Sort 1 diabetes is when the physique is solely depending on exterior insulin dosing. Sort 2 is when the physique can produce a portion of insulin. However it’s not sufficient to manage blood sugar ranges — or the physique can’t metabolize insulin accurately.
Provided that I don’t have diabetes, I discover it exhausting to think about how it might really feel to need to plan each meal. To need to compose each plate of meals in such a method that it wouldn’t influence my blood sugar ranges; to calculate what number of models of insulin I’d want at any given time. I’ve additionally by no means skilled diabetes-related signs like waking up in the midst of the evening with very low blood sugar — often known as hypoglycemia — or waking up within the morning with very excessive blood sugar, known as hyperglycemia.
I additionally haven’t skilled the sensation of my blood sugar spiking or dipping so quickly it might make my head spin.
The one method I can know what it’s like is to hearken to the individuals who’ve confronted the challenges. And to learn tales in regards to the struggles, difficulties, small successes, and hard-hitting failures of their every day struggle in opposition to the illness.
…However why put myself by way of all of this?
Effectively, as a result of I’m a technical individual. I’ve a biomedical background. And I imagine that expertise can revolutionize the best way we deal with situations. I’m satisfied we will use technological options to assist folks with totally different illnesses to stay a standard life — offered we perceive the context.
And that’s the place my story started.
Understanding the on a regular basis issues of a diabetic
In the future, I made a decision I wished to be the co-creator of an answer that might assist folks with diabetes self-manage the illness. I made a decision regardless of understanding little in regards to the expertise diabetics use of their every day routine. On the identical time, I had no private expertise of the issues these with the illness face.
Nonetheless, I used to be intent on beginning this mission. Now, my day had arrived. Plus, I knew what I wished to realize, and I had a plan — no less than, so I believed.
However after the preliminary euphoria, I bumped into an issue with my technical method.
You see: I had determined to construct an algorithm to foretell glycemia over a particular time horizon. I had information from folks with diabetes: about blood sugar degree, insulin dosages, ingested carbs — and I’d ready them to make use of as inputs for a machine studying algorithm.
However after I began engaged on the algorithm, making an attempt to foretell blood-sugar ranges from historic information, I noticed that information alone shouldn’t be sufficient.
I struggled to interpret the outcomes of my work, and I had no clue find out how to enhance the algorithm I had constructed. Right here was when the plain dawned: I noticed I might by no means clear up the issue till I understood it: as you first need to stroll within the sneakers of the folks you wish to assist earlier than you possibly can assist them.
…however I couldn’t simply ‘get diabetes,’ so I’d need to discover a totally different path.
I joined diabetes assist teams on Fb. I researched the well being issues related to the illness. I learn each article, ebook, and paper I might discover on treating it. Then, I began to take a look at the expertise: insulin pens, glucometers, insulin pumps — and steady glucose monitoring methods.
This was when my curiosity morphed right into a fascination.
What’s steady glucose monitoring? And the way does it work?
Steady glucose monitoring (CGM, for brief) is my new favourite expertise. It’s an ingenious answer that lets folks management their blood glucose ranges with no need to prick themselves.
The machine contains a small sensor that sits anyplace on the physique — normally the arm — and a receiver, like a smartphone app or one other machine. The CGM helps folks with diabetes restrict their use of glucometers, solely needing these units after they wish to verify the accuracy of CGM readings or if they’ve hypoglycemia.
The merchandise are extraordinarily highly effective, but just some firms produce steady glucose monitoring/flash glucose monitoring methods. The preferred of them are:
Nonetheless, I noticed the CGM as essentially the most promising remedy expertise. Furthermore, it was a tool I might truly use — then, in the future, such a chance arose.
I wore a CGM sensor for fourteen days
I spent fourteen days with a small sensor on my arm. The plan was easy: scan my blood sugar ranges as typically as doable, word all carbs in my meals, observe bodily exercise, and document any extra related data.
At the very least, it sounded easy — however was it?
Simply in the future into the experiment, and it grew to become clear it wasn’t. Scanning the sensor was no problem, and a smart-band on my wrist recorded each bodily exertion. Nevertheless, counting the carbs in each meal was a horrible process.
I rapidly turned to meals monitoring apps. However I simply as rapidly realized they didn’t meet my wants — so guess what occurred subsequent? Certainly.
I ended recording what number of carbs I ate.
I noticed it’s far simpler to trace what you eat — particularly when you’ve gotten a weight loss plan plan — than to watch the person ranges of carbohydrates, fat, and proteins. And despite the fact that my ‘easy’ plan had spectacularly failed, I nonetheless had a degree of management over what I used to be consuming, with an thought for what I’d do subsequent.
I stayed interested in how totally different meals and situations — each inside and exterior — have been affecting my blood sugar. And I made a decision to comply with my blood sugar ranges after several types of meals.
After fourteen days on the brand new plan, I can say this was not such a tough process. Nonetheless, what if I had to do that for the remainder of my life?
I’m unsure it might really feel easy eternally.
See additionally: How Synthetic Intelligence Is Reworking Diabetes Care?
My observations after 14 days of carrying the sensor
After fourteen days carrying a steady glucose monitor, I got here to understand how well-adapted our our bodies are to altering situations:
- I recorded a major distinction in my blood sugar ranges when consuming mild versus darkish bread
- My blood sugar ranges have been recognizably decrease after consuming home-cooked meals versus meals ready in eating places or factories
- I seen how otherwise my physique reacted to the identical meal consumed on totally different days
As soon as I studied my blood sugar ranges intimately, I started to understand the phenomena of satiety and starvation in a unique mild. I seen how bodily exercise would have an effect on sugar ranges: and that I wanted to think about goal depth earlier than deciding what to eat earlier than train.
Every single day, I discovered new inside and exterior components that affected my blood sugar ranges. Nonetheless, I didn’t have to fret about insulin dosing as my pancreas was dealing with the spikes and troughs.
Every time my goal glucose vary rose above a threshold: my pancreas would ship the precise insulin dose to convey the degrees again to the place they need to be.
And may my physique enter a state of midnight hypoglycemia — my sugar ranges as soon as dropped to beneath 50 mg/dL — my liver would convert glycogen to glucose, which was channeled straight into my bloodstream to revive the stability.
Which means every morning, I woke with sugar ranges inside, or very close to, the conventional vary. So I’m grateful to see my regulatory system is working wonderful.
Sadly, not everybody can say the identical.
Did the experiment meet my expectations?
Completely. My fortnight-long journey confirmed me greater than I ever anticipated. I nonetheless can’t say I’ve skilled every thing an individual with diabetes should face — however the experiment taught me how exhausting the lifetime of an individual with diabetes is.
Not least as a result of it’s so difficult to take care of a gentle blood sugar degree and nonetheless stay a balanced life with out letting self-discipline slip.
In spite of everything, few persons are dieticians, nutritionists, or private trainers. And fewer folks have limitless entry to such specialists. That’s why most of us are compelled to belief the knowledge we discover on-line or elsewhere.
This leaves most individuals with diabetes in a state of self-reliance as soon as they’ve obtained steering from a health care provider. And so, many seek for technological or home-grown options, quite than hope that Huge Pharma will journey to the rescue.
As a ‘wholesome’ one that solely needed to comply with a small a part of the lifetime of an individual with diabetes — and for simply fourteen days — I do know it’s no small process. Furthermore, I can see the way it’s a lot greater than merely sticking to a meal plan.
Moments of resignation and powerlessness are comprehensible. However as with each illness, routine finally sneaks in.
Even I began to scan myself at evening if I seen the reader inside arm’s attain. And I can solely think about how somebody with diabetes might, sooner or later, unwittingly dose insulin in a state of sleep-induced semi-consciousness.
Conversely, it’s simply as simple to overlook to take insulin in good time earlier than a meal; or to fail to document a carbohydrate depend, leaving you in an anxious state.
In spite of everything, everybody makes errors. However if in case you have diabetes, one mistake can have far-reaching penalties — and carrying a CGM helped me perceive this level higher than I ever might have hoped.
Enjoyable information from my fourteen-day CGM expertise
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Summing up my glucose sensory expertise
Some issues appear simple to unravel. However they not often are: not till you perceive the complete context. Nevertheless, you possibly can’t at all times put your self within the sneakers of an individual with a particular illness — and I’d by no means urge anybody to take action.
You might want to discover your personal path to an answer. Mine simply occurred to contain expertise as a result of I’m a technologist at coronary heart, and the method held no dangers for me.
My steady glucose monitoring expertise helped me find out how my physique reacts to the meals I sometimes eat. Furthermore, it gave me a extra focused method to an issue that, till then, I might solely have a look at the speculation.
The expertise has taught me I shouldn’t suggest an answer with out understanding all of the features of the issue.
Furthermore, it has proven me how we will use expertise for extra than simply facilitating routine actions. We will attempt to create options for many who want them essentially the most — in such an space, creativeness is the one restrict.
That’s why at DLabs.AI in addition to DiabetesLab (our personal mission that helps folks in controlling the sickness utilizing AI), we’re at all times trying past the norm.
In reality, we’re engaged on an answer that might in the future assist 1000’s of individuals with diabetes stay an easier life.
Do you wish to study extra about our diabetes self-management app?
Contact us or simply obtain our free demo.