Jimmy's Story

I have been type 1 diabetic since the age of 17 (nearly 23 years) and have struggled with controlling my blood sugars for the most part. Before being convinced to use an insulin pump and start properly carb counting I had an HBA1c (average blood glucose) of 75 and over, giving me an AVERAGE blood sugar of over 11.8mmol/L (should be between 4 & 8).

After using the Minimed 780g insulin pump for around 6 months it dropped down to around 65. After seeing such drastic results, I decided to trial the Guardian II CGM which goes with it...and what a difference that has made.

 My usual HBA1c is now around 49, giving me an average blood glucose of 7.6mmol/L.

 I am a shift work maintenance engineer, so my day has varied amounts of activity, and this makes it difficult to structure a regular eating regime on some days, depending on the workload. Having the CGM has made life so much easier as I don't have to constantly check my blood glucose, and I know that if my blood glucose dips or rises it will send an alert to the pump and my phone which gives me time to rectify it. On top of this, as the glucose rises it will tell the pump to give more insulin, or if it drops the pump will stop giving insulin. It is as close to normality as a type 1 diabetic can get in terms of control.

 Given that the pump (which has an RRP of roughly $10,500) is fully funded, one would only think that the time will come - hopefully sooner rather than later, where the glucose monitor that has a WEEKLY cost of $85 per sensor (every 7 days) also gets funding.

Even if there were say....a part subsidy from the government to ease the burden of this ongoing cost it would mean the CGM is available to more people in this country who desperately need to get better control over their diabetes before it's too late. I am lucky in the fact that I made the choice before I began to suffer from many complications.

 All in all, thanks to this system my health, motivation, enthusiasm and just all-round quality of life has improved drastically due to having better control over blood sugars and can go on living a more or less "normal" life.

 - Jimmy