We’ve entered the final months of another year, and as always the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) remains lively as ever throughout social media channels.
There’s been a good mix of humor and haunt — along with more serious discussion — sprinkled throughout this Halloween month.
Here’s our roundup of fave diabetes social media posts during the month of October 2021. Please feel free to add yours by contacting us at the links below.
Of course, Halloween can be especially scary with diabetes. People fret about all the candy consumption — oftentimes triggered by well-meaning bystanders who make unnecessary comments. One D-Mom on YouTube even tackled the question, “Can diabetes and Halloween co-exist?” Not to worry, the DOC was busy dishing up Halloween fun, from creative costumes to handy candy carb count guides. This year, Diabetes UK shared a cool “spooktacular” recipe list that is Halloween-themed, but can be enjoyed any time of the year.
October marks Mental Health Month each year, and the Center for Diabetes and Mental Health offered a great ReImagine T1D workshop, delving into the myriad of psychosocial issues that come with this condition. It aired live on Oct. 21, but the free event is also available to watch after the fact for those registered to attend.
Mes de la diabetes y la herencia hispana. Yep, National Hispanic Heritage Month happened Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 and many around the DOC were sharing stories and information. Some good places to start are the American Diabetes Association’s many Spanish-translated resources, and Joslin Diabetes Center’s Latinx Initiative, offering a bilingual clinic and education program. This personal story of growing up Latinx with type 1 diabetes (T1D) is also worth a revisit.
A license plate made for the Diabetes Community? We caught this one on the Bold with Insulin feed on Facebook and Instagram, from D-Dad Scott Benner, who runs the Juicebox podcast and Arden’s Day blog in honor of his T1D daughter. He points out it’s the second state license plate of the kind that he’s seen, commemorating how juice boxes can serve as medicine for treating low blood sugars. Seriously cool! What would you do if you happened to see this one out on the road? We might have to honk.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of insulin’s discovery, and this mini-documentary film made by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) has some great history on this medical milestone in 1921. You can check it out on the organization’s social media channels, as well as directly on YouTube.
Speaking of EASD, the org held their virtual annual meeting in late September and they’ve been sharing roundups and recaps about this world’s biggest diabetes conference in the weeks that followed. Search hashtag #EASD2021 to catch up on the live-tweeting that happened during the event.
Ever wondered what it’d be like to be a world-class cellist who happens to live with diabetes? Well then, this Diabetics Doing Things podcast with Alisa Weilerstein is a must-listen. Heck, she debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra at 13 years old, played Carnegie Hall at 15, and performed at the White House at 27 — all after her T1D diagnosis when she was 9. Put in those earbuds and hear her story for yourself!
Our Diabetes Community has so many incredible artists with amazing talents, from illustrations to painting and graphics to sculpting. Fellow T1D advocate Renza Scibilia in Australia created the #DOCCreatives hashtag to share all of this wonderful D-inspired art with proper attribution, after another DOC’er discovered her drawings being posted online without proper credit by someone trying to capitalize on similar work.
Singers also abound in our community, and many have found that music serves as healing medicine. Austin Kramer, former global head of dance and electronic music at Spotify and current Tomorrowland One World Radio host, this month released a new Spotify playlist called DiaBeats. It features a mix of songs from artists impacted by diabetes, along with other tunes that inspire him, “even on days when his glucose levels are all over the place and diabetes gets the best of him,” his publicist says.
CGM access for all! The diaTribe Foundation is leading a new national coalition fighting to expand coverage for continuous glucose monitors (CGM) across the United States, as most states don’t fully cover this hugely-important diabetes technology. Through the org’s diaTribe Change platform, you can sign an online petition for CGM Access for Americans, and use the hashtag #CGMAccessNow across social media to help advocate on this issue.
When it comes to diabetes advocacy, the #dedoc group out of Germany has quite the international platform to influence change and share information from diabetes conferences across the globe. They hosted a #docday in mid-October at the big International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) symposium, and this video featuring T1D advocate #dedoc leader Bastian Hauck is quite inspiring.
First responders remain our heroes for all they do, including incredible nurses like Nicole Nichols and Laura Denison over at the real-talk podcast ScissorsNScrubs: The $#!t Nurses See. They touch on so many topics in their podcast, but one episode recently centered on “The Diabetes,” sharing the story of a person living with T1D who’s experienced diabulemia. The pair has a personal D-connection, and in this episode they delve into different types of diabetes as well as this very serious eating disorder connected with the condition. This one’s definitely worth a listen, but beware it’s not the most kid-friendly episode to play aloud.
Keeping it light, professional comedian Chelcie Rice, who lives with T1D himself, posted a fun note on Instagram this past month that immediately triggered a community-wide LOL. Whether or not you binge watch anything on Netflix or other streaming platforms, it’s a great visual with a diabetes twist:
Over at the Diabetes Connections podcast, D-Mom Stacey Simms interviewed a fellow T1D named Vanessa Messenger, who had not one but two babies during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also happens to have recently written a fun new diabetes book for children, from the perspective of a little puppy dog explaining T1D to kids. Published on Oct. 15, 2021, it’s called “Teddy Talks: A Paws-itive Story about Type 1 Diabetes.”
As the fight for lower-priced insulin continues, this past month, Pharma giant Eli Lilly announced it was lowering the price of its “authorized generic” brand known as Insulin Lispro. While some praised this as a step in the right direction, others in the #insulin4all community criticized it as yet another PR stunt that doesn’t go far enough or guarantee affordable insulin for those who need it most. In other insulin pricing news, the global advocacy group T1International shared its thoughts on the big news that the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to add insulin analogues to the list of essential medicines worldwide. The latter is definitely a win for our community, aside from varying opinions about the Lilly price adjustment.
We share our favorite posts each month and we’d love to include yours, too. Please ping us via email or on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.
Current Version
Oct 29, 2021
Edited By
Mike Hoskins
Copy Edited By
Sofia Santamarina
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