Advancements
in technology are
making diabetes
management
smarter – with less
pokes and prods
into a five-year-old recognising
she didn’t feel right and knowing
she could sip on some juice if she
didn’t feel well,” says Francesca.
Diabetes has always been a
data-driven disease (the more
you know about your numbers,
the better equipped you are to
manage your BGLs), but it hasn’t
always been convenient to check
BGLs or keep track of results, let
alone predict where your BGL
might be headed next, or monitor
a loved one’s BGLs from afar.
Today, advances in glucose-
monitoring technology and
insulin-delivery systems are
making all of that possible.
“The devices we use to manage
our personal lives are penetrating
into diabetes care and allowing
patients to learn more about
their condition,” says
Jennifer Sherr,
a paediatricendocrinologist and associate
professor in paediatrics at the
Yale School of Medicine. All that
information means two things:
the ability to more effectively
manage BGLs and the freedom
to worry less over highs and lows.UPGRADED METERS
Most meters work the same way:
the user inserts a test strip, they
prick their fingertip using a
lancing device to get a tiny drop
of blood, and the strip is touched
to the blood to produce a meter
result. Many meters let you save
readings and add comments
to that data. But seeing
long-term trends
or relaying your
data to a loved
one or
provider? ➤Doctors handed Claire Bickel
a diabetes diagnosis the day
before her fifth birthday. Her
mum, Francesca, learned to stick
Claire’s finger to check her BGLs,
and began monitoring her levels
eight to 10 times daily. As a newly
diagnosed kindergartener, Claire
headed to school each day with a
juice box in her backpack, just in
case her BGLs dropped at school.
That was more than a decade
ago; Claire is
now a high
school student.
“In 2007,
there was no way
[for me] to know
what her levels
were [at school],
nothing that could
tell [me] she was
trending down.
I had to put all
my faithgoes
diabetes
DIGITAL
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