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Type 1 and Tech Conference - Sat 16th October

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SteveG4 said:
Any information on accessing Type 1 tech would be most welcome but I cannot attend. My 44th anniversary with this, still on MDI, little in the way of complications but sick to the back teeth of MDI and just observing what I'm missing. Not a priority in the eyes of my diabetes team. Psychologically its doing my head in.
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Sorry to hear that @SteveG4

Hopefully there will be some blogs / posts / video coverage after the event that you can catch up with?
 
An excellent conference. Lots of useful information about new tech for diabetes management. My personal experience is that type 1 is very much focused on children and young people, so very pleased to hear from Pat Ireland who was diagnosed with type 1 in later life.
 
Again I found I happily spent four hours at my loom listening in to the presentations and stopping to take notes when necessary. I particularly like Partha’s introduction when discussing how people respond in the chat: make conversations meaningful, polite and kind. A good mantra for this forum too.

My notes were these
  • Emotional and psychological impact of tech
    It was interesting to read how others reacted to the regular alarm with pumps, whether in closed loop or not. They also discussed how people dealt with the issues around shared access to data and how this was used.

  • Top tech tips
    Choose what suits you. We are all different.
    Don’t feel pressured to take things on just because others find it useful.
    Make use of training such as ABCD that is available
  • Apps
    Carbs and Cals can help with eating out
    The apps linked to pumps for bolus calls, and also the development of Smart Pens for those on MDI
  • Tech and pregnancy
    I went of for coffee!! At 66 I am not concerned about this but the key message for anyone with T1 was plan ahead. It matters from the start of the pregnancy, before you would know you are pregnant if it wasn’t planned.
  • Sport, exercise and tech
    Interesting to hear how people used different types of exercise, adjustments to bolus insulin and eating carbs to address different situations and different types of exercise.
  • Getting older with type 1 and using tech
    I was just thinking that it seemed very focused on the impact of T1 on children and their families when this came up (I had not looked at the programme). Great to hear about the impact of a diagnosis later in life, and the impact of the tech available, as well as different experiences in accessing this.
  • Future plans for tech
    So much has changed so quickly. What next!!!
    there is a need for:
    - better cross access to data
    - faster acting insulins
    - more funding for research
    - more access to tech and understanding of the barriers.
There was also Parthia Kar‘s reminder, that we have access to
Self management. Peer Support. HCPS (BUT this amounts to < 0.01% of the year!!!)
A focus on Peer Support (such as this forum) will have a bigger impact than your HCP team. Having said that we each need to know enough to be able to make use of this.
The major part of our care is self management and the HCPs need to enable us to achieve this as well as signposting us to various sources of peer support.

I have a list of things to follow up, including possibly making use of some social media, in order to access some useful resources around diabetes tech. Well worth attending.
 
Diabolized said:
An excellent conference. Lots of useful information about new tech for diabetes management. My personal experience is that type 1 is very much focused on children and young people, so very pleased to hear from Pat Ireland who was diagnosed with type 1 in later life.
Click to expand...
Here here. Such a useful addition.
 
There was some support for FatSecret (as an alternative to the Carbs and Cals app) which seems mostly about weight management but has carb information for lots of food and is free.
 
Sounds like it was an excellent event - just as I expected it would be.

Unfortunately it was my first ‘free’ Saturday since mid-Sept, and the garden called!
 
SB2015 said:
My notes were these
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I'd add (or repeat) a few things.
  • If you're curious about technology (how it really works out, how best to use it) your best bet is to find people actually using it (so peer support of some kind). Likely to be much more honest and useful than professional advice. (And Partha Kar again said they wanted to set up local peer groups across the country.)
  • Expect NICE to issue updated guidance for continuous glucose monitoring (Flash GM and CGM) probably November, and he expected it to further widen eligibility.
  • No clear answer for what you can do if you get a pump that (as it turns out) doesn't work out for you, though it's recognised as a problem and there are ongoing discussions with manufacturers.
 
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jaitkenhead said:
Thank you. I used to have a bit of involvement with the charity when I was a boy, when it was the BDA. Much appreciated.
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Ah! I still have some BDA leaflets somewhere 😛
 
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