World Mental Health Day
It’s World Mental Health Day and that seems as a good as any a day to speak about diabetes and mental health. Actually, every day is a good day for that, but with every health organisation’s social media manager’s attention turned to today’s health promotion day, I’m jumping on that bandwagon and adding this post […]
Mental health & diabetes & coronavirus (oh my!)
Burnout. It’s absolutely on my mind at the moment. I am burnt out with diabetes; I’m burnt out with advocacy. And I am burnt out with coronavirus – especially the bit where everything I see and read keeps mentioning that it’s all really just mild…except for elderly people and those with chronic health conditions. Oh […]
What’s missing in ‘Australia’s Health Revolution’
NOTE I work at Diabetes Australia. It is important for me to highlight this because I am writing about a TV show that has not been especially complimentary to that organisation. That is not why I’m writing though. I’m not here to defend or respond to the claims made about Diabetes Australia. This post is […]
Access+Respect+Choice+Health
Everything is turning blue. In the US, today marks the start of Diabetes Awareness Month. Apparently, Diabetes New Zealand are also using November as an awareness opportunity, this year focusing on encouraging Kiwis to ‘Act now to live well with diabetes’. (You can read about their activities here.) While it’s not Diabetes Awareness Month in […]
KISSing for good health
When there is a lot going on in any aspect of life, the KISS principle makes a lot of sense. And given that when I’m busy, I often get stupid, keeping things simple is a really good idea. At the moment, I am just waiting for one or more of the balls I have in […]
Deserving more than a cupcake
Hey, do you remember a couple of weeks ago when it was International Women’s Day and women got a cupcake (probably baked by a woman) and a breakfast (probably organised by a woman) and then we all agreed that gender equality didn’t need to be spoken about for another year? Look, I know I sound […]
Diabetes, and suicide and intended self-injury
C/W This post contains content about diabetes and suicide and intended self-injury. If you need help, this Wikipedia page has a list of mental health crisis lines around the world. And for a list of contacts actively updated and maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, go here. We talk a lot about taboo topics in diabetes. For years, there […]
The misplaced guilt of diabetes waste
Diabetes comes with a side serve of guilt in so many ways. Glucose levels above target? Guilty that I’m contributing to developing diabetes-related complications. Need to stop to treat a hypo? Guilty that I’m not participating fully in work, or focusing on family and friend. Forking out for diabetes paraphernalia? Guilty that the family budget […]
Interweb jumble #40
One of my favourite memes on social media is the response to people who tell the world they’re taking a break from or leaving social media groups or platforms: ‘This is not an airport. There is no need to announce departures.’ (Aussie airports at the moment are full of cancelled flights, so departure announcements seem to be […]
TikTok has entered the chat
This morning on ABC Melbourne’s Conversation Hour, the topic was how people are using the internet to self-diagnose mental health conditions using TikTok. Apparently, HCPs are seeing more people claiming to have undiagnosed mental health conditions based on videos they’ve seen on the app. The question being posed in the discussion was this: Are Dr […]
Diabetogenic 