The injections are really not a significant problem for me. A lot of people may recoil at the thought of injecting themselves often, as though it's painful. It's either not painful or maybe a little, but I just don't care much.
Much worse things about being diabetic are:
* Danger of low blood sugar
* Trying to get the right dose
* Timing the dose so it is effective at the right time
* Carrying around a bunch of stuff that I need or may need, like insulin and glucose tablets
* Trying to keep the insulin cold enough or fresh enough that it retains its potency
* Keeping my phone on and charged all the time, which has my blood sugar readings, and checking it at times where it might seem like I'm rude. I'd rather use a watch or special device, but the special devices are strangely bulky and don't hold a charge, and watches apparently can't receive blood sugar readings yet (without a phone also present).
None of those things are very terrible. Treatment is much better now. But they are all way worse than the tiny insulin needle injections.
Check out XDrip. Its an opensource community built collector for CGM data. They have a version that runs on Google Wear so your android watch can act as a collector. You can also still use your phone to collect and just have the data appear on your watch.
I'm confused as to what parakeet does. I have a Medtronic 670g with CGM, and xdrip supports it. Apparently Medtronic already has an app, but xdrip uses data from it. Also not really clear where nighscout fits in. Is that just the service in the cloud to store it, and xdrip is the display?
We have a Dexcom G5 and use Xdrip to read the data directly from the CGM. It has a number of benefits over the OEM provided readers:
-no forced replacement times for sensors.
-No forced delayed starts on new sensor insertions
-predictive algorithms and treatment recommendations.
-more integrations into third party systems (like IFTTT)
-Opensource community project that keeps evolving much faster than the OEMs
Nightscout is a cloud service to store data reading and treatments. Again its community developed opensource solution which gives you complete ownership over your data. Some of its earlier game changing features are now common in the OEM solutions, but I still like the idea of owning this and it being opensource. Nightscout is a really big help for us managing our son (whos 6) since it makes it really easy to give real time access to his CGM and treatments to anyone anywhere.
Nightscout is also the unofficial hub for the Opensource development in diabetes. They've contributed so much that is now being used by OEMs. Im a big supporter.
And if you want a smart watch able to show your glucose value, get a pebble if you can find one somewhere. The battery lasts 6-7 days and the e-ink screen is easy to read in the sunlight and will not blind you at night.
I was diagnosed around 12. It was briefly a concern until I actually did it.
The blood checking pokes are much worse, because they have to actually draw blood. Usually fine but sometimes quite painful or difficult. Now I use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and it's much better.
Weirdly, it’s not age but an individual perception thing.
Many many people don’t really notice or care about the needles (me included) because as OP parent posted, we have other stuff to deal with that takes up way more mental space.
I guess this isn’t apparent because the needles are the obvious bits but then rest is all the “thinking” that invisibily surrounds the injection.
There are however many people who just can’t wrap their head around needles and can’t do it. The needles themselves are tiny so it’s not that - it’s just how they perceive the world.
Any technology that helps these people and makes their lives easier should be embraced.
The injections are really not a significant problem for me. A lot of people may recoil at the thought of injecting themselves often, as though it's painful. It's either not painful or maybe a little, but I just don't care much.
Much worse things about being diabetic are:
* Danger of low blood sugar
* Trying to get the right dose
* Timing the dose so it is effective at the right time
* Carrying around a bunch of stuff that I need or may need, like insulin and glucose tablets
* Trying to keep the insulin cold enough or fresh enough that it retains its potency
* Keeping my phone on and charged all the time, which has my blood sugar readings, and checking it at times where it might seem like I'm rude. I'd rather use a watch or special device, but the special devices are strangely bulky and don't hold a charge, and watches apparently can't receive blood sugar readings yet (without a phone also present).
None of those things are very terrible. Treatment is much better now. But they are all way worse than the tiny insulin needle injections.