Dr Ashley Ng

Just because I live with diabetes, doesn’t mean I’ll be an amazing diabetes clinician. Mostly because I haven’t practiced clinically in a while. But I remember the first time I had to teach carb counting to a client as a student. I knew all the concepts and tips and tricks like the back of my hand. Yet, I struggled to form cohesive basic explanations of it to someone else. Lesson 1: when you’re too close to something, it can make it harder to break it down to others who have no idea.

Then there’s also the “diabetes hacks” you pick up along the way as a person living with condition and managing it 24/7. I loved that my diabetes education sessions always had caveats alongside being taught the “proper way”. We would always go through the textbook version of how to do things and it’d be followed up with “some people tend to do x, y, z instead”. I appreciated that my educator would then run through the risks of not doing things the textbook way and left it for me to make an informed decision around what works for me.

But why are these “hacks” needed, you may ask. Financial burden of diabetes is a huge factor. Diabetes technology and medication aren’t free. Even though they are subsidised, it becomes a considerable cost in a bid to have the same quality of life compared to someone without diabetes. A classic example is with insulin pumps. Although the consumables are subsidised to be about $50 a month if eligible, there’s the added, sky-rocketing costs of private health insurance.

Then there’s convenience or making diabetes fit in with your life rather than the other way around. For example, it’s advised that our change our pump sites every three days to minimise the risk of infection. Some people stick to this to the letter. Others change it on set days to make it easier to remember. I change mine when there’s a certain amount of insulin left in the reservoir. There’s enough on my mental to do list as it is. So if there’s a system or trick that helps to reduce mental burden of diabetes logistics, I’m taking it.

I’ve seen healthcare professionals with horrified expressions when I talk about these things. Nothing in life plays out exactly like in the textbooks. Diabetes management is hard enough by itself. If there are little shortcuts that mean we can live our lives a bit easier, don’t judge us for using it. This is real life diabetes. This is our life.