Medical News Today summed up ten of the best diabetes blogs. Sadly, we weren’t one of them (there’s no justice in this world), but they did make some great suggestions that I want to check out.
Why blog about diabetes? When I was first diagnosed, there were few opportunities to meet other people with diabetes. Weirdly enough, I grew up in a tiny town (population sub 2,500), and five of us were diagnosed with type 1 in a short space of time. I did have other diabetics around me, and my mum ended up developing a close friendship with the mother of one of them.
That said, though – we didn’t have that much information at our fingertips and in those days, the GP, the consultant and the diabetic nurse were autocratic figures. No-one challenged them or the recommendations they made.
Fast forward thirty-odd years and millions of people share their experiences of living with diabetes, types 1 and 2. Obviously, we don’t all have medical qualifications, and can’t and shouldn’t offer medical advice but we can tell stories about what has worked for us.
We can share our experiences of how we exercise, what we eat, what we do to prepare for holidays – it’s all about how we live as well as we can with the ol’ sugar curse! Online friendships and communities can’t replace real-life meetings and connections, but they do go some way to making you feel less alone with your diabetes.
So, here are some of Medical News Today’s best blogs about diabetes that I’m going to be investigating…
Bitter-Sweet – Karen Graffeo was diagnosed at the age of eleven and remembers daily insulin injections, a strict exchange diet and sugar monitoring involving urine and glass test tubes. (Me too!)
She started Bitter Sweet in 2008, tagline “life with diabetes isn’t all that bad”.
The College Diabetes Network sounds useful for anyone (or the parents of anyone) about to go off to college/university. It can be scary for both prospects, and the site provides the tools and resources that can help people with diabetes live well as students. Categories include clinics, student rights, job opportunities, dining hall eating, relationships and more.
The FitBlog is run by husband and wife team, Tobias and Christel Oerum. Christel has type 1 diabetes, and the site is for people to find out more about exercising safely and efficiently when you have diabetes.
Diabetes Diet 
Which of the ten do you think is the most helpful to diabetics and their families Emma?
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Hard to say, as we all have such differing questions and concerns.
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Bittersweet and CDN are really good sites. Karen is a buddy of mine.
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Thanks, Rick! (Diabetes is a small world, really…)
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Here are 4 others I think you might enjoy. I did not read the list, but these are 4 of the best blogs out there. All with very different approaches.
http://www.type1writes.com/
https://testguessandgo.com/
http://www.ourdiabeticlife.com/
http://atjax.net/
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Thanks for these additional suggestions, Rick.
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in my opinion you and the ones i mentioned above are the best pure writers in the diabetes space. Molly and Frank especially are just awesome.
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*Blushes*. Bright red. I should have said earlier that I appreciate your blog too. Especially for its honesty and integrity. Here’s the link, folks! http://www.radiabetes.com/
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Most of the blogs I’ve read – and the heart disease ones too – are FAR too radical to be listed!
“When I was first diagnosed, there were few opportunities to meet other people with diabetes. Weirdly enough, I grew up in a tiny town (population sub 2,500), and five of us were diagnosed with type 1 in a short space of time.”
Fascinating observation! To my knowledge one of my father’s brothers was the only Type 1 anywhere in either family. My father developed Graves disease when he was young (I waited until I was over 60) and my mother developed Crohn’s though it was wrongly diagnosed for many years.
All autoimmune, and all occurring when they lived in the same village. I wish I could dig them up and find out if these all occurred around the same time – and what else happened then.
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Hi Chris, the autoimmune thing is indeed fascinating and it makes you wonder what is/was going on.
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Indeed, and I can’t recall if I mentioned here but I’ve known a few families who have genetic precursors (HLA?) and who mostly have at least one and often more autoimmune disease each. Sometimes different individuals develop different diseases at the same time, often following some trivial infection. There’s a not-quite pattern evident which could do with some digging into.
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