Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) as an adult can be difficult. People often don’t know much about T1D, and don’t expect an adult to be diagnosed with the disease. As an adult, you already have responsibilities and tasks that you need to perform each day, and you may be feeling that diabetes will get in the way of what you want to do. A diagnosis of diabetes is somewhat like starting a journey on a new and unfamiliar road.
If you developed T1D as a child, your parents most likely played an active role in helping you learn to manage your diabetes. Transitioning to adulthood brings a whole series of new responsibilities to you, and a whole series of new questions; however, you will notice that, over the past several decades, living with T1D has gotten easier and easier. Still, it remains a far distance away from being easy. At home, we’ve gone from measuring glucose levels through urine tests that told you roughly where you might have been hours ago to home blood glucose tests that tell you in as little as five seconds exactly where you are right now. Insulin is no longer derived from pigs or cows, but is made in laboratories to resemble and act like human insulin as closely as possible. The days of carrying syringes and vials wherever you went have been replaced with insulin pumps, and slim, barely noticeable, pre-packed and easy-to-set dosage pens that can make giving yourself an injection a private affair, even in the most public of arenas.