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‘I’m bored with diabetes. So, so bored.’That was how I opened last week’s appointment with my endocrinologist.
She nodded at me. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time someone had commented on the boring nature of diabetes. It’s programmed into the DNA of the health condition we live with. She waited for me to go on (she really is the master of not filling silences).
‘What can I do to shake things up? What should I be doing?’
It was a repeat performance of my last appointment back in February. I walked in with this need to shake things up; do more; be more proactive; add stuff to my routine.
My endocrinologist, thoughtful as ever, waited some more for me to finish my brain dump. So, off I went…
‘I am doing so little to manage my diabetes these days. I’m not burnt out – that’s not what I am saying at all. I’m not doing that thing where I pretend I don’t have diabetes. I am doing everything I need to do, except these days, it seems I don’t really do much. Loop keeps Looping and I really feel that my only input is making sure there is insulin in my pump and a working cannula and sensor in place. I bolus as required.
‘But it doesn’t seem enough. There was time each day that I had set aside for diabetes that I don’t need anymore because managing rollercoaster glucose levels, or responding to countless alarms, or managing those hypos that resulted in multiple lost hours…these things just don’t happen anymore. Or if they do, they take so little time to address that it almost seems insignificant.
‘I feel like I am not doing enough. So…what can I do?’
When she knew I had finished sharing my stream of consciousness, she looked straight at me and said: ‘You do exactly what you are doing. There is nothing more that I would suggest or recommend that you do. You asked last time about adding some different therapies to your current management, but there is nothing that would suggest any benefit to that.
‘If you were not looping and doing what you used to have to do and all that entailed and telling me what you are telling me: that you are feeling well, you feel your diabetes is in a good place, you are not feeling burnt out and that you are happy with how and where your diabetes was tracking right now…and if that was accompanied by the A1c you are running, I don’t think we would be having this conversation. I doubt that you would be asking what more you could do. You would know that you are meeting all the targets you want to and are feeling overall great about your diabetes.’
Of course, she was right. That was my situation two years ago: I was feeling fine about my diabetes (or as fine as I ever was going to) and was thrilled with my A1c (which wasn’t as low as it is now). And I certainly wasn’t thinking that I needed to do more. I accepted that I was putting in the effort and for once was seeing the outcomes I liked. The idea of adding more tasks to my diabetes life would never have entered my mind!
‘I know you are right,’ I said to her and then mentioned the talk I’d heard at #DData last year when fellow DIY-er, Justin Walker, said that since using OpenAPS he saved himself about an hour a day. ‘An hour a day. That’s a lot of extra time I didn’t have before. I don’t know what to do with it,’ I paused. ‘Maybe I should take up knitting.’
‘You could learn a language in that time,’ she suggested, helpfully.
It has me wondering if this is a thing for others who have embraced the DIYAPS way of life. Have you all just embraced this renewed freedom and extra time and run with it, or are you too wondering what to do with your hands?
Nineteen years of constantly focusing on the minutiae of diabetes, and second guessing myself and having to DO SO MUCH diabetes is a really hard thing for me to unlearn. The last two years have been really, really different. Who knew that my response to finally getting that break that I so desperately wanted would be to not know what to do with myself and want to do more?!
Since Looping, diabetes has taken a back seat in my life because the daily demands are far fewer. Sure, the emotional toll is still somewhat there – especially when it comes to the fears I have about the future. But the daily frustrations and intrusions are not there. And that means that as well as having to physically do less, I think about it less. I had no idea just how much that all took until I stopped doing it.
I get that this is coming from a position of extraordinary privilege, and feel free to file it away under not only first world, but also first-class problems. And ignore me. (Seriously, I thought of myself as insufferable when I was having conversation last week.)
Or send me knitting patterns. In the meantime, I’ll be over in the corner conjugating irregular verbs.
I am not really the type to analyse reports of glucose data. I’ve never been like that, except for a brief period where I was overly obsessive. Or, as it is more commonly known: when pregnant. Then, I was all about entering numbers into Excel spreadsheets, (hey – it was the early 2000s), and I searching for patterns in the 15-20 BGL checks I was doing every day, circling anything even closely resembling a common theme in green. (Oh – green circles may always have been my thing…!)
These days, even with reports and graphs and all sorts of other fancy pants data at my fingertips, I don’t really do any analysis.
The reason I love Loop is because of how it makes me feel in the here and now. By reducing so many of the tasks I do, and my diabetes needing less urgent attention, plus dealing with fewer lows, fewer highs and fewer pretty much all the other shitty stuff, it means that my in-the-moment diabetes is far easier to manage.
Sure – I occasionally have a look at what my Clarity app is telling me, but it’s only ever the snapshot page: TIR, average glucose level and hypo risk.
Since being on Loop, my hypo risk has always looked like this:
Minimal risk. Take that in for a moment.
Diabetes – the condition that demands so much of us in terms of being able to complete highly complicated calculations factoring in pretty much every single variable imaginable and a million more, dosing a potentially lethal drug and really, no room for error.
Diabetes – the definition of a high-risk health condition.
And my personal risk of lows? Minimal.
So, remind me again: How is Loop (or other DIYAPS options) unsafe?
I’m back on deck at work today after a whirlwind ten days in Europe for meetings and a conference. I started in Amsterdam, then flew to Florence and finally flew to Copenhagen (via Pisa). Those ten days were busy, long and interesting. And, perhaps best of all, packed full of others from the diabetes community.
Spending time with others living with or around diabetes is restorative. I know I get jaded at times, and burnout – in all its forms – takes its toll. I’ve been feeling a little advocacy burnout lately, and that has the tendency to make me feel that I need to step away from diabetes for a bit. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I could be bothered with the inevitable onslaught that comes when these sorts of activities happen.
Instead of hiding away (which is what I half wanted to do), I got on a crowded plane to Europe to spend almost two weeks ‘doing’ diabetes advocacy in different forms. By the time I got to Nijmegen – an hour and a half out of Amsterdam – for HypoRESOLVE I was already feeling better. I felt the darkness of burnout slip away as I sat in meetings, speaking up and providing PWD input into the project. And there, alongside me, were others living with diabetes. We leaned into each other, stepped back so another could take their turn, and supported each other to feel comfortable and relaxed. We reminded each other that there was a reason we were there – because people with diabetes must have a seat at the table and that we must be heard. We lived, breathed and ate ‘Nothing about us without us’ throughout that meeting and by the time I boarded a hideously early flight to Florence for the next meeting, I was raring to go – further boosted by a diabetes in the wild encounter.
Two days of meeting in Florence with friends and peers from the diabetes community talking about our experiences in the diabetes community continued to see my mojo return. We spoke about difficult topics, how the community works best and the place everyone has in there. I was reminded that the community ebbs and flows, and that it is not static. Sometimes, that rut that I find myself in means I forget that all communities change and grow and develop. This is actually a positive, because as it shifts, more people come in, some people step away (for good or just a bit), we reconfigure how it fits us, and diabetes makes sense in new ways.
Some much needed downtime meant that I could reconnect with peers and feel myself being completely and utterly filled up in a way that only comes when surrounded by people who get diabetes and this weird diabetes space. We don’t all have diabetes – we represent different corners of the community, but we know diabetes in a way that is particular to those who live close to or with it. Our dinner after the second day of the meeting saw us finally able to breathe and take some time out of diabetes speak, and instead revert to a steady flow of laughs (shrieks, actually).
The next day, a friend from Italy just happened to be in Florence. We met up and I met her family, including her son who has diabetes. As we drank coffee just over the Ponte Vecchio, diabetes was spoken about a bit, but mostly, I got to learn about this young man who is clearly going to take on the world. He is smart, funny, delightful and inquisitive. His questions about Loop were intelligent – far more so than anything I would have thought to ask before I started using the tech! I hugged his mum as we said good bye, noting that she had just introduced someone else to our tribe.
By the time I arrived in Copenhagen (at 2.30am thanks to high winds in Florence, a bus ride to Pisa to take a diverted flight and some first-rate Italian disorganisation), I was exhausted, but at the same time felt more enthusiastic about the diabetes space than I had in some time. The next morning when I arrived at the conference venue, I was ready for a packed day of speakers, and to do my own presentation in the afternoon. I looked around and saw that there were a number of people living with and around diabetes that I knew, as well as a whole lot of new faces in there. The event was for HCPs, but as always, those of us with a truly personal connection to diabetes searched each other out. I met members of a support group known as ‘Diabetes Dads’ who meet regularly to speak about their kids with diabetes. They were there to support their friend who was speaking about his Looping son.
At lunch, I sat at a table with two PWD I knew. Two other people joined us and we quickly found out they too have type 1 diabetes. The conversation flowed – we understood each other, and our shorthand of diabetes speak easily fitted into our stories. We nodded as we heard stories that sounded familiar, even though they were being told by someone from another country who, until we sat down with our overflowing lunch plates, we had never met before. One of the women at the table had asked during an earlier session about how to wear the devices required for Loop, and I pulled out my RileyLink and showed it to her. She held it and weighed it in her hands. She’d wanted to know how to wear it with a fitted dress and I was able to show just how easily I could tuck away everything, even with the straight dress I was wearing for the day.
We may have all been there because of an interest or curiosity in DIY diabetes, but there is far more than that to draw us together. Just like as at the earlier meetings. As always, diabetes brings us together, but it’s far more that keeps us that way.
By the time I boarded the Dreamliner at Heathrow, all traces of burnout, and questions about how to manage in the sometimes tricky maze of diabetes community had completely subsided and were replaced with the reminder that when we find out tribe and surround ourselves with them, the burnout is replaced by feeling supported. And that’s how and why we show up. We do what we do, we show up, we speak up and we try to get stuff done. Ten days of that and I feel so much better. Which is good. Because as it turns out, those ten days are just the start …
DISCLOSURES
My flights to Amsterdam and accommodation while in the Netherlands was covered by HypoRESOLVE. I am on the Patient Advisory Committee for this project. My flight to Florence and two nights’ accommodation were covered by Lilly. I was in Florence for a DOCLab Advisory Meeting. My accommodation in, and flight home from Copenhagen was covered by the Danish Diabetes Academy. The Academy invited me to speak at their Diabetes DIY Movement conference.
On Saturday I was invited by Diabetes Victoria to be part of the diabetes technology panel session at their Diabetes Expo. (Disclosures at the end of this post.)
The session was on the program as being about ‘The ins and outs of diabetes technology’ and promised to offer perspectives from people with type 1 and 2 diabetes, a researcher, endocrinologist and CDE.
The panel involved two of my favourite endocrinologists – Professor Peter Colman and Professor David O’Neil. I have known both for a number of years and they are, without a doubt, absolute giants in the diabetes clinical and research world. I love that they accept and acknowledge there are limitations to current tech and are not afraid of DIY solutions. Even more, I love how they are very respectful of the expertise of PWD and understand that choice is essential. How wonderful to be on a panel with HCPs who regularly deferred to the PWD sitting alongside them to answer questions and further the discussion.
The session got off to a slightly rocky start as we diverted a little from the designated topic, but we got back on track eventually with the panellists being able to share their experiences and views about just where we are with diabetes tech in 2019, how it can help people living with diabetes, the frustrations tech can lead to and what we hope for the future.
I enjoyed the question about whether tech makes life easier for PWD. I honestly believe this is a double-edged sword – technology is designed to make our lives easier and that’s what it promises to do on the box, but the reality can be very different.
This is something I speak about when explaining my love/hate relationship with tech. Getting things right so that I don’t want to tear devices from my body and throw them out the window takes time. My first encounter with CGM was shocking and I swore to never use it again. The first sensor insertion caused so much blood that the Medtronic rep helping to teach me how it all worked actually gasped and then claimed never to have seen anything ‘so scary’ before. That was not reassuring. The words scary and gory weren’t on the box.
Then there was the data overload, unstoppable alarms and inaccuracy. How was this device meant to revolutionise my diabetes treatment (thatwas promised on the box!) if it was inaccurate, caused me to bleed everywhere and caused me so much frustration and distress that I never wanted to see, let alone use, CGM as part of my diabetes management. Ever. (Fast forward a number of years and thank god that’s not the case anymore!)
There was a lot of talk on the panel about how far we’d come and how lucky we are to be living with diabetes in 2019 rather than in 1959 or 1969 or anytime other than now. We were reminded of glass syringes that needed boiling and needles that needed sharpening. And days before home glucose monitoring, back-pack sized insulin pumps and the good old days where things were really not so good. Just old.
I won’t for a moment deny that we have come leaps and bounds since those days. In the twenty-one years I’ve lived with diabetes there have been lots of tech changes and improvements.
We were asked by the panel moderator how we feel about tech in 2019 and the answer from other panellists was that they feel hopeful and appreciative. The CDE on the panel has lived with type 1 diabetes for thirty-seven years and obviously has seen a lot of changes in that time. The two endos on the panel said that they feel that there have been huge strides made in tech – rapid and very significant in recent years.
When it got to me, I acknowledged what the other speakers had said. ‘I am really pleased to be living with diabetes in 2019,’ I said. ‘I use tech and I generally do love that it is available to me to use, despite the frustrations.’ I paused and looked around the auditorium. I had more to say and I had a split second to decide whether I just left it there, saying what I felt people expected me to say. Or I speak the truth – my truth.
I lifted the microphone to my mouth. ‘But actually, I’m angry,’ I looked around again, settling my gaze on the group of people in the room I knew. ‘I’m angry because we are where we are, and PWD are being given a rough deal.
‘Technology should be easy and accessible and affordable for everyone and it is not. I use a DIY system that means that I am the least burdened by diabetes than I have ever felt. But to get this system, I had to build it myself. It is unregulated, it is experimental. And people like me, doing what we do are largely met with scepticism and suspicion from HCPs who don’t understand the technology. We are accused of not taking our safety seriously – often through passive aggressive comments from not only HCPs but also device companies about the only safe devices being those that have been through RCTs and regulatory bodies. When we talk skin in the game, those of us who have these devices actually attached to our skin have the most at stake, so suggesting we don’t care about safety is ridiculous.’
I paused long enough only to take a breath.
‘The technology is available to do what I am doing, but it takes so long for device companies to get new things to market and through regulators, and even then we are stuck with set targets and limited customisation. We are languishing with older, nowhere near as useful tech. We are expected to accept that and just deal with it and be grateful for it. THAT is why there is a hashtag and a movement called #WeAreNotWaiting. That is why I am not waiting. And it’s why I’m a little angry.’
I don’t know everyone who was at the tech panel session on Saturday, but there was a group that I did know. They were the ones who applauded after my little rant. When they hear a group of panellists claiming that we are fortunate because the current available tech is so much better than what was available 70 years ago, they shrug their shoulders and know that there is more. They are the ones who have started down the DIY road or the Afrezza road (as one audience member explained).
We should not feel that we have to be appreciative, or that what is offered is the best there is. I am so, so glad that there are people out there who have not been prepared to just accept what was on offer, and instead go out there and make better tools – make the current tech better. They were not satisfied, and their smarts and determination has meant that many more of us don’t have to settle for the vastly imperfect tools available. Sure, DIY solutions aren’t perfect either, but they are certainly better.
I’m not really sure how my comment was taken by the broader audience. I suspect that a lot of them weren’t too sure how to take the woman waving her hands about, even after I promised them that I’m really not angry all that much and that I am actually quite delightful (not sure I fooled anyone on that point).
Probably the message that resonated most throughout the panel discussion was that choice is important and that there is no one size fits all solution to diabetes technology. That is definitely true. But that extends to there being no one size fits all to how we feel about the overall tech landscape. And the way I feel is that I am not willing to accept the status quo.
DISCLOSURES
I worked at Diabetes Victoria from September 2001 until January 2016. I was not involved in the planning of the 2019 Expo. I did not receive payment to speak at the Expo.
Hi, my name is Renza and I never update software, operating systems, apps or anything that needs updating on anything. If I needed some sort of personal software update each year upon my birthday, I’d still be running whatever I was using when I was seventeen. I don’t have auto updates set up because 1. I’m an idiot and, 2. I used to, and once that caused problems with…something. Can’t even remember what, but obviously it left some deep scar somewhere and now I won’t do it again.
Most days, this apathy makes no difference to anything at all. I eventually get around to updating and on I go. No big deal.
Except for when it becomes a big deal. Because then I find myself #LooplessInMelbourne.
On the morning of Good Friday, my Riley Link died. Let me set the scene here by saying my RL had been dying for some time. This was not something that ‘just happened’. It had started needing a charge around mid-afternoon as well as the overnight charge it had been getting since I started using it in August 2017.
But on Good Friday, it decided that was it. No more charging. My Loop turned red and that was it. RL dead. Done. Gone. Finished. Just as it had been warning me was likely to happen for a few weeks.
Now, someone smart would have thought this through as soon as the RL started to need extra charging, and understood the following: 1. RL needs replacing, 2. make sure back up is available, 3. double check Loop docs for how to swap out old RL for new one, 4. follow instructions.
I got as far as step 2, and that was it. I was supercilious in my back-up planning skills and took my spare RL out of my diabetes cupboard, leaving it on my desk as though that was enough to miraculously sort everything. Idiot, thy name is Renza.
On that (not so Good) Friday I put all thoughts of sorting it out of my mind and set about my day. It was a public holiday, so I figured I’d fix it all later. I also thought it would be just a matter of switching RLs over.
Not so much.
Around midday, I sat down and read the Loop docs and immediately realised that I needed to update my Loop app to use the new RL. I’ve rebuilt the app before and I know it is a simple process.
I scanned through the docs and saw that I needed to make sure that all operating systems and apps were up to date. Suddenly every single update notification that had popped up in the last year flashed before me. So did every post, plea, warning to update everything from Katie DiSimone on the Looped Facebook page.
I set to updating my Macbook, iPhone and Apple Watch. Easily done. Then, I came to Xcode. And the wheels fell off. (Xcode is an app and needed to build Loop.)
I don’t think I’ve updated Xcode since I loaded it onto my Macbook, back when I first built Loop. I do remember it taking FOREVER to upload and install. The update took longer. The first time I tried to update, it took almost three hours to not work. The second time, it took four. By this stage it was late on Friday. Clearly, I was paying no attention to what was going on because when I saw that it had finished updating, I assumed that all was good and off I went to rebuild my Loop app.
Building Loop is simple because the instructions have been written for people like me in mind. Technologically hopeless, but eager to understand. They are step by step and, honestly, if you follow every step as laid out, you cannot go wrong.
So, off I went. Step by step. And then…
Red error message.
I read the errors page and tried all the suggestions, but the same error message came up. It was getting late and I was exhausted, so at 1 am, I went to bed. I was over it and figured that fresh eyes in the morning would do the trick.
I woke on Saturday and with those fresh eyes I realised straight away that Xcode had not updated. That’s right – the second attempt had failed too, and I had been trying to rebuild Loop using an outdated version.
As it turns out, third time’s a charm and while eating Easter lamb at my in-laws, Xcode updated successfully.
After lunch, I opened the new version of Xcode and followed the instructions to build Loop. That took under 5 minutes and no brain power or tech know-how (from me, that is – a lot of people had used a lot of brain power and tech know-how to make it so easy for me).
Shortly after, the Loop app appeared on my phone. I entered all my relevant info (another 3 minutes work from me) and then almost straight away my Loop turned green.
And I’ve been happily Looping ever since.
So, here’s the take home: Keep everything updated. If I had done that, the rebuild of Loop would have taken a total of 15 minutes. And most of that would have been sitting and waiting for Loop to re-install on my phone.
I was telling someone about this whole (actually rather boring) story the other day and a little smugly they said ‘That’s why I won’t use a DIY system. Sounds like a nightmare. They can’t be relied upon.’
But actually, that’s not the case at all. What is unreliable is me and my inability to do the basic updates that all our devices require. Our commercially available apps (such as Dexcom) require us to update occasionally. In twenty months of using Loop, I’ve updated the app once (when I got a new iPhone).
Being #LooplessInMelbourne wasn’t really a big deal. It did, however, remind me why I am a huge fan of DIYAPS as the right tool for me right now. And it also reminded me that I really am not much of a fan of DIYDiabetes. That’s really not for me at all!
Loop’s back, baby!
Diabetogenic 