Welcome and making me feel really old and wimpy!! I was diagnosed at age 5, 50+ years ago, started on one injection a day. I didn’t do my own injections until 7 or 8. Watching Zane made me feel like I did when watching the Jetsons cartoon. Something from the future that was not even imagined yet in my day.
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Välkommen, @Henrik. I was in Sweden over Christmas – my partner has lots of family there, in Stockholm, Vilhelmina and Djupdal. What’s not to like about a country where cake is served several times a day!
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Hi there! I’m from Philadelphia and was diagnosed at age 6 (16 years ago). I’m currently using the medtronic 670g with guardian sensors (a little mix of automode and manual mode) as well as the dexcom g6. I struggled really hard with taking care of my diabetes while in college but since graduating I’ve got my mind set to get it more in control so I don’t feel lousy on a daily basis. Pretty much am in a phase of establishing all of my pump settings since I hadn’t touched them since I was 13. My last a1c was an 8.5 a few months ago but we’ll see where it’s at in a week or two after my upcoming endo appointment (hoping to be mid to low 7s!!!) I currently work at a market research firm on a healthcare team, loved playing field hockey in college, have 4 cats, and I’ll be going to med school starting in aug (thinking about going into endo). Anyways, I look forward to being a part of this community ! Thanks for having me
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@LarissaW, so glad to see you join us! Welcome!
I loved your story and how you told it:
Everybody welcomed you on that thread, so I thought I would welcome you here—I don’t want new members to believe we ignore new intros!
I am really proud of the fact that you are now in med school. Because of the stress and the number of hours, I know that this will not be an easy time for you with D. But, for sure, there are a lot of people here who may be able to help, or just to be around when you are a bit down! I really look forward to reading more from you.
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@Michel Thanks for the warm welcome and your kind words. I’m hoping to gather my thoughts as I get more accustomed to this forum - you’ll be sure to hear much more from me.
Thank you! But yes I’m nervous for the stress and crazy schedules of it all. It’s funny because at 3 separate med school interviews, I met other interviewees or medical students that had T1D. My mind was kinda blown as I only had met a handful before interviewing. Maybe I’ll be surprised with a miniT1D cohort when I start!
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Welcome @LarissaW, I used to work at many of the hospitals in the Philadelphia area. Lots of great physicians there.
Really glad you are excited to get on top of your management. Running higher in college seems to be a pretty common theme. Do the guardian sensors work well for you?
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@Chris Thanks for the welcome! And yup Philly is loaded with great hospitals and really well trained physicians, which I appreciate as a patient myself and as a med student at possibly one of these hospitals.
I honestly was so emotionally, mentally and physically underequipped for managing my disease in college. Avoiding it altogether ended up being more taxing on my psche in the long run though because I was forever frustrated with it.
Yes! And no! … kinda depends on what day you ask me. My thoughts on the guardian sensors:
The major cons for me are:
- need to be charged which takes about a day for me to get around doing (transmitter dies at work and charger’s at home)
- can be finnicky about callibrations
The accuracy is actually really fine for me with the guardian sensors; getting into a more controllef range on the regular has helped a lot with the accuracy. The major major pro of the guardians is getting to use AM at night and suspend before low
Drawing a comparison to the dexcom g6, I think that my guardian sensors are actually better at picking up upwards and downwards trends (I know that for most people it’s the opposite). But the dexcom is soooo much nicer that I don’t have to replace it every week and that I can get my numbers on my watch and can easily analyze my trends using the app.
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Welcome @LarissaW!
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A post was split to a new topic: My new A1c post FUD
Hi all,
I have T1D and was diagnosed at age 9, in 1995. I use Omnipod & Dexcom G6. 23 years managing this challenging disease…and this is the first time I’ve ever joined an online forum! Like many on this forum, I have only had minimal interactions with other T1D’s, mostly when I was just diagnosed. In the last year or so I have been discovering the wealth of knowledge and camaraderie within the online T1D diabetes community.
For years and years I wasn’t interested in using a pump because I couldn’t get past the idea of tubing, a port and having something stuck to me 24/7. I finally considered a pump because I was trying very hard to have better BG control and was not having the results I wanted. I am pretty sensitive to insulin, so instead of going to ‘kids’ pens w/ half unit increments, I started using the Omnipod.
This year, I’m really trying to be aware of the technologies that are available to help with BG management and use them. “Small” things can make a difference, which is why I realized I might really benefit from having a smartwatch where I can easily check my BG, instead of having to pick up my phone all the time. I did a lot of research online, looking for people’s recommendations for a smartwatch that works well with dexcom (that’s what actually lead me to this forum.)
Also an aside… I have started seriously considering either 1) changing jobs so that I can get health insurance through work (which is big because I have had the same job for 10 years) or 2) the possibility of moving to a country with a better healthcare system, where getting T1D supplied could potentially be less stressful/ frustrating/ exhausting/ financially draining.
Glad to have found this forum.
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Welcome @Sofe!
If you want a watch that can act as a collector, the Sony SW if the only option at the moment. If you want a watch that isn’t a collector but can still display BGs there are a lot of options…apple, pebble, etc. Lots of info on this site about what watches.
Nice to have you!
Hi @ClaudnDaye yes thank you! I found great info about all the smart watch + diabetes specifics here on the forum (and have been learning about what xdrip is.) I am leaning toward the Sony, so that I would have the option to try dxrip (the only reason I think I might now want to use xdrip is because I think having to trouble shoot it frequently might be frustrating for me. I’ll see how it goes without it, and then evaluate :)
) Just the idea that having a smartwatch would actually be helpful for monitoring BG is something that I hadn’t thought of before!
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Welcome! Glad you found us, and even more happy that you are trying to take better care of yourself. My son uses an iphone and iwatch and is very happy with the combination. I am assuming since you are shopping watches that you an android phone user where their are far more choices.
If you are struggling to afford your insulin, don’t forget you can pop across the border to Canada and purchase insulin for less than many pay for copays (depending on your insurance).
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Yes, my personal experience with xDrip is that there are a lot of steps involved and the data isn’t frequent enough combined with lots of errors that have to be researched and corrected. I just didn’t have the time for all that. But if I see that xDrip provides something that SugarMate doesn’t, I’ll still be getting Liam the app when he’s older and not SO reliant upon CONSTANT and RELIABLE data at all times.
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You’ll find LOTs of information here about purchasing Insulin from Canada (with no prescription required), at much cheaper prices (and fully legal)
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Welcome @Sofe! 
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@Sofe. Welcome to FUD!
If you want to get started with xDrip+, just let me know and I’ll give you all the help you need. I’ve been an xDrip+ user (using a Sony SW3 as the collector) for a couple of years with no trouble. And don’t let @ClaudnDaye scare you–I have continually gotten 90-100% collection ratios for almost all the time I’ve used it.
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I’m expressing my opinion of xDrip, @docslotnick. Just as you have had a wonderful time with it, I have had an equally bad time with it. You have the time to mess with it perhaps…I don’t. I just want something “hands-free” that just works. xDrip is NOT that…if you tell @Sofe that’s the case, you’d be misleading her.
By all means, Sofe…if you want it, enjoy it! Doc’s here to help you through the many troubleshooting sessions you might have with it. 
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I downloaded xDrip and found it to be fairly problem-free for me. I only ever used it for myself when I was using my son’s extra G5 sensors though. I guess just one more datapoint!
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If you’re downloading xDrip and using Heroku on an Android phone, I wrote a guide you can use to help you get it installed and set up. PM me your email address and I’ll send it to you if you would like it.
It’s pretty step-by-step.
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