When I was a teenager, I slept a lot. And I could sleep through anything. There are stories of the whole family being woken by thunder storms or possum fights in the ceiling or other things that go bang in the night, and me sleeping blissfully through it all. My family would guess how quickly I would fall asleep as we piled into the car heading off on a family drive. (Typically – in under 5 minutes.)

For a number of years, I never saw a plane take off. The taxiing jet would lull me to sleep and I’d be dozing by the time the plane took off.

I’d never ever had trouble sleeping, ever. I’d hear of tales of insomnia and never believed it could happen to me.

I loved sleep. I needed sleep. So, I slept. And I’d wake in the morning feeling refreshed, alert and ready to take on the day.

And then I was diagnosed with diabetes and sleep suddenly became an interrupted mess.

I was thinking about this the other day when I looked at the JDRF T1D footprint. Apparently, I’ve lost 4,070 hours of sleep. ‘Yeah, I’d believe that,’ Aaron said when he saw it. And he’d know. He’s kept me company for many of those hours. Sometimes my clattering around would make the house; other times, Aaron would be up, making toast or getting me juice to help lows, or refilling my water glass, or even holding my hair back while I threw up thanks to highs.

As much as I still loved and needed sleep, I was no longer sleeping soundly.

And then, I started Looping.

Living with diabetes, we know that our sleep is affected. We all have those nights where lows or highs need attention. Pump lines get pulled out in our sleep and need to be replaced. Devices alarms – CGMs alert to out of range numbers, pumps demand refilled cartridges.

But even when there are no alarms waking us, or glucose levels that need ‘fixing’, our sleep can still be affected.

This became very clear when I started wearing CGM. I’d wake exhausted in the morning after a night of unbroken sleep, thinking that I should feel rested. A glance at my CGM trace would show hours and hours of low glucose, or bizarrely high levels. Or a combination of both, with rollercoaster lines overnight.

Since Looping, that just doesn’t happen. Back in January this year when I first spoke with someone who was using Loop, the thing he told me that stood out the most was that he was sleeping so much better. ‘I wake every morning between 80 and 90,’ he told me. I quickly divided by 18 and shook my head in astonishment. And suspicion.

I was really quite sceptical about it, to be honest. There are far too many variables that affect our glucose levels – even at night – and I couldn’t believe that there was anything that was able to deal with those variations. How could an algorithm manage ovulation or the arrival of my period? Or stress or delayed food absorption?

Well, somehow, Loop does manage them! Every morning, I wake up with my Dexcom showing a number in the 5s. Every single morning. And the CGM trace is straight.


What’s not straight, however, is the basal insulin delivery rates. They are ALL over the place, with constant tiny changes – dozens of them.

Those better nights of sleep are not just about me. ‘The hours of lost sleep are a lot less since I’ve been Looping, right?’ I said to Aaron and he nodded. ‘Definitely!’

But more than simply not losing sleep, my quality of sleep is so much better and I wake feeling refreshed. And I am a much nicer person, even before my first coffee!