[jmb12686]

My wife (33 years old) was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last month. A healthy, under 120 lbs 5 foot 4 woman, who busts her ass for our young children, now has to learn how to keep her blood sugar in check with 4 shots and 6+ finger stick tests per day. Worst of all, accidentally taking too much insulin, or not accounting for unknown variables such as stress, illness, exact carb count of meals, snacks, and exercise, can and will kill you quickly.

I'm disgusted with the current technological advances (aka lack of them) in the diabetes space. The limited tech out there to support an "artificial pancreas" was initiated by a community of hackers [1], and is only supported by a handful of outdated insulin pumps. The manufacturer (medcom) has since "fixed" the vulnerability that allowed outside control inputs. There are a couple decent continuous glucose monitors out now, one by Abbot la s, another by Dexcom, but this only solves half the equation. A true closed loop system feeds continuous glucose monitor readings straight into an insulin pump to administer, algorithmically, microdoses of insulin. This completely eliminates the risk of hypoglycemia and effectively forms an artificial pancreas.

The only reason I fear this kind of tech isn't readily available for all type 1 diabetics is sadly, what's the profit motive to big pharma? They are making a killing off of crap solutions currently available. Trust me, you'd think decades old insulin and glucose meter supplies are affordable by now. These low tech items cost 1000s a month (insurance paid portion).

1) https://openaps.org/

[ericmason]

Check out Loop https://loopkit.github.io/loopdocs/ it’s an iPhone app and works with Omnipod in addition to the old Medtronic pumps. My wife uses it and it’s a game changer.