My story with diabetes - a spouse point of view

Share My Story
1

Hi all,

It’s not a story about diabetes - I don’t have it.
It’s a story from a spouse point of view.
I had been dating with my future wife for a few months when I notice she was escaping all too often to the ladies room, especially after meals. I noted she was absent from time to time. And one day I asked her if she was diabetic - and she said yes “how did you know?”
She was diagnosed after a 3d coma at age 16, while on a trip in the US (we are from France)
She was told by her endocrinologist she would never have children.
She started gaining weight up to 80kg with old therapies and diets still en vogue in France in the late 90s.
She started intensive therapy when she moved to Germany and suddenly started to have a life.
She’s been wonderful during her 3 pregnancies and we are blessed with 3 beautiful children.
We made use of a G4 CGM for a while in 2015 but she was experiencing both alarm fatigue and stress so we stopped.
She experiences chronical fatigue and is in depression - she had to stop working.
She’s now with Libre + Omnipod since 2017 but she gained weight again - and she is always so tired…
I am working on a project to build a looped system for her - we are just fed up with waiting.
One of the reason why I joined this forum is to collect and share experience.

I’ll make another post with my plans/realizations so you can comment or get inspired

note: if this may help, I can speak German

All the best!
PierreM.

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Willkommen!

There are a few people here who do looping.
@dm61, @bkh, @TiaG, and some others I think.

Here are a few good threads to start with:

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Hi Eric,
Thanks for your prompt reply.
I plan to go on the following scheme:

  1. CGM path
    The sensor will be Libre - She finds it very convenient (nearly painless to apply, last 2 weeks), and costs are taken over by insurance here in France;
    I just purchased a BlueCon Nightrider (should receive it in a week)
    I have loaded Glim and Xdrip+ on my Samsung A5 2017 and it seems to be working OK when scanning the Libre sensor.
    I’ll post more updates when I have the Nightrider
  2. NightScout
    I am still not sure I want us to put data on Azure. I’d prefer a stand alone setup on any virtual server.
    I’m not quite there yet and not sure this is a must-have.
  3. Pump path
    I plan to go on using AndroidAPS - I think things are easier the android vs ios path (more users, more open platform, i also guess porting to other platforms will be easier in the future)
    Now I am really blocked for the moment as far as the “controllable pump” is concerned.

  • We still haven’t found a distributor for Dana R/RS in France (only in Germany and Netherlands for about 3500EUR). I’m mostly concerned with after sales service.

  • I can’t find much about the progress of the OpenOmni and OmniAPS. Any members there looking at this? This would be ideal because she likes the Omnipod as well as it being also taken over by our health insurance.

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In answer to your concerns:

  1. It is not necessary to put your data on the web. Android APS pulls CGM data directly from xDrip+.

Open Omni is not quite ready, but Android APS can deal with the Omnipod manually.

This is from the very good and well organized thread from @Aaron

And welcome to FUD!

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Hi Docslotnic - thanks for your inputs and for your warm welcom; these were very invaluable.
I have been working close to full-time on the system in the past days and I am almost there.
I got the Blucon/XDrip+ up and running and compiled AndroidAPS .apk file for open loop (target is to open loop with the omnipod) (not installed yet)
I want to share my experience once I am done - what is the best way for me to do that in this forum?
All the best - Pierre

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Pierre, feel free to share however you like in the forum, or if you are interested in a more private conversation, you can Private Message Doc.