There are good days and bad days.
As I write this blog today is a good day. Blood glucose levels have been in range for 79% of time (close to standard). That honey glazed breakfast wasn’t a bad idea after all.
But tomorrow could easily be a bad day or just a less good day. Highs or lows. Feeling tired, irritated, weak.
There are an estimated 42 factors that can affect blood glucose levels at any given moment. From food (What did you eat?) to biological factors (Are you stressed? Did you sleep well?).
This is the life of a type 1 diabetic. Day to day management is burdensome.
Good days and bad.
But lets take a step back and consider future scenarios.
Applying quantitative trend extrapolation techniques provides many reasons for optimism. Implantable devices point to an injection-free future, the application of machine learning and AI to tackle those 42 factors are being actively researched, and Apple reportedly has a moonshot-style project underway to allow continuous blood glucose monitoring through the Apple Watch.
I know media reports on research breakthroughs sometimes don’t feel meaningful here and now.
When I was first diagnosed 20 years ago, it was implausible that my phone would alert me to high or low blood glucose levels (this was the Nokia 3310 era), or that monitoring would be via sensor rather than 4 or 5 intrusive finger pricks per day (to the extent the picture I’ve used for this blog is now largely redundant to my diabetes management).
What other implausible futures could there be?
A cure in my life time? Maybe.
At the very least I am confident there will be more good days.