Living with diabetes is, in reality, living making decisions.Many, every day.Sometimes I am surprised by everything I have to decide before even noon: what breakfast, how much insulin I put on, if today I do some more exercise, if I sleep a little less, if I take risks to eat it were ... and so on, one after another.
Experts sayA person with type 1 diabetes can make between 30 and 180 daily decisions related to their health.I would say that, in the complicated days, they fall short.
Each decision counts.And each influences the next.What, how do I sleep, stress, an unexpected walk or even the anger of the day ... everything has an impact on my glucose levels.They have been identifiedMore than 40 factors that influence blood glucose, but sometimes it seems that they were one hundred.There is no magic formula, only balance, knowledge and, above all, patience.
Luckily, technology has come to give us a hand.Continuous glucose monitoring sensors allow us to see how our glycemia behaves almost in real time, and that completely changes the way to decide.It is no longer just a number: it is a trend, a line that goes up, down or stabilizes, and that gives you clues about what can come.It is true that, for the moment, these predictions are limited - they are based on what has just happened, not on what * really * will happen - but each advance adds.
And there enters something that seems fascinating to me: artificial intelligence.Thanks to the huge amount of data we generate with our devices, tools that learn from us, which anticipate the changes and could help us prevent hypos or hypers before they occur.It is not science fiction: it is the future, and it is much closer to what it seems
Living with diabetes will never be simple, but every step we take towards a better understanding and prediction brings us closer to something very valuable: making decisions with less fear, more confidence and more freedom.
And that, for whom we live with this roller coaster called glucose, is priceless.
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💡 If you are interested in deepening how people with diabetes make decisions, how we rely on technology and community, I recommend the book "Live with diabetes: the power of the online community."Not only does it help to understand what it means to make 180 decisions a day ... it also teaches how to share them, how to support and how to live better with them.