World Diabetes Day kicked off on November 14th and a number of events have been organised across the Mid-West over the month of November to raise awareness of diabetes in the community. A free information meeting is taking place in the Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick on Tuesday, 27th November 2018 from 7:30 – 9:30pm.
Key speakers Dr Mark Davies, Clinical Psychologist from Belfast City Hospital and Dr Eoin Noctor, Consultant Endocrinologist from University Hospital Limerick will address the medical and psychology aspects of type 1 diabetes. The focus of this meeting is to give the opportunity to provide the information tools to further understand the psychological issues associated with type 1 diabetes and put the learnings into practice.
This meeting will allow people living with type 1 diabetes access to expert medical advice in a pleasant, non-demanding environment at no cost to them. The imparting of this high-quality information will enable people with insulin treated diabetes to optimise their metabolic control to prevent long term complications of diabetes while minimising their risks of short term problems.
The prevalence of type 1 diabetes, an auto-immune condition, is on the rise and is typically diagnosed in childhood. People with type 1 diabetes account for approximately 14,000 – 16,000 of the total diabetes population in Ireland i.e. 10-15% of the population of people living with diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is associated with major short- and long-term very serious medical and psychological emergencies and complications. The management of type 1 diabetes is challenging, intrusive and on going for both the individual and his/her family. The person with diabetes must adhere to a complicated management regimen involving multiple daily insulin injections or learn to use insulin pumps, frequent daily monitoring of blood glucose levels, and adjustments in diet, insulin and exercise and the avoidance of hypoglycaemic events. It has been clearly shown that maintaining good glycaemic control not only reduces diabetes related complications, but is also associated with a better quality of life for people with type 1 diabetes (children, teenagers, young and older adults).
Grainne Flynn, Secretary of the Clare Branch of Diabetes Ireland and a person who has lived with type 1 diabetes for 25 years says, “I used to think that taking care of my diabetes was my responsibility and my burden and this made living with it so overwhelming and at times difficult to manage. But once I realised that my diabetes affected my family, I began to talk more openly about my struggles with it and it really does help.”
We look forward to seeing a large audience on the night. For more information on living with type 1 diabetes, events calendar and the work of Diabetes Ireland see www.diabetes.ie .
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