It’s day four of holidays for me. Already lazy mornings, easy days and gentle plans to meet up with friends and family are clearing my mind, and I can feel the backlog of stress and exhaustion – the things that are part of everyday life – start to make way for sharp thinking and smarter decision making.

And in terms of diabetes this means more attention paid to alarms and alerts on my various devices: the calibration alert on my phone for my CGM gets attended to immediately, the low cartridge reminder on my pump is heeded at the first warning. I stop and think before blindly acting, and calmly troubleshoot as I go along.

My head is clearing. I am starting to think about diabetes the way I like, at a level that feels safe and sensible and manageable.  I make rational decisions; I take the time to fine tune what I am doing. Diabetes has a place that is comfortable, I feel better overall and far more capable of ‘doing diabetes’.

miles-study-2-logo-hires-land-colour-e1426127802906Earlier this week, the findings from the Diabetes MILES-2 study were launched. (Quick catch-up: MILES stands for Management and Impact for Long-term Empowerment and Success and is the work of the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes (ACBRD). The first MILES survey was conducted back in 2011, with over 3,300 Australians with diabetes taking part. The MILES Youth Report was launched in 2015, reporting the experiences of 781 young people with type 1 diabetes and 826 of their parents. This study formed part of the NDSS Young People with Diabetes Project for which I am the National Program Manager.)

The MILES reboot (Diabetes MILES-2) once again provides a snapshot of the emotional wellbeing and psychosocial needs of Australian adults living with diabetes. Over 2,300 people participated in this study and the results are comparable to those from the first MILES study. The Diabetes MILES-2 survey included the addition of some issues that had not been investigated in MILES, such as diabetes stigma.

Some key findings from the report include:

  • 17% of survey respondents had been diagnosed with a mental health problem at some point of their life
  • The respondents most likely to experience moderate-to-severe depression and anxiety were those with insulin treated type 2 diabetes
  • The respondents most likely to experience severe diabetes distress were those with type 1 diabetes
  • The aspects of life reported by all respondents as being negatively impacted by diabetes included emotional well-being (for those with type 1 diabetes) and dietary freedom (for those with type 2 diabetes)
  • More stigma was experienced by people with type 2 diabetes using insulin as compared with people with type 2 diabetes not using insulin

Anyone affected by diabetes knows that the psychological and emotional side of diabetes is as much a part of the game as the clinical tasks. In fact, for me, it is the most difficult to deal with. What’s going on in my head directly affects how the I am able to manage the practical side of the condition.

When my head is clear – the way it is slowly, but surely becoming as I settle into holiday mode – and I have time and space to rationally think about, and focus on diabetes, the routine tasks seem manageable. The numbers present as nothing more than pieces of information: they allow me to make decisions, act, or not act. I am able to be practical and seem to have my act far more together.

But for the most part, diabetes is not like that for me. I don’t manage my diabetes the way I want and that is mostly because I am simply unable to due to the distress and anxiety I feel about living with a chronic health condition that terrifies me a lot of the time. I feel overwhelmed and, in the mess of life, diabetes becomes impossible. I am not proud of this – but I am honest about it.

If I am perfectly truthful, there is nothing in this report that surprises me. But it does provide validation for how I am feeling – and how many others with diabetes are feeling too. And I am so pleased that there is evidence to support what so many of us who live with diabetes feel.

It’s no secret that I am a very big fan of the ACBRD’s work. Diabetes MILES-2 once again shines a light on the ‘other side’ of diabetes and serves as a reminder that unless the psychosocial side of living with this condition is addressed, we simply can’t manage well the physical side. And it forces those who want to believe that diabetes is a matter of nothing more than numbers and mathematical equations to consider the emotional wellbeing of those of us living with diabetes each and every day.

The MILES 2 report can be read online here.