That looks pretty cool. I have friends with a type 1 diabetic kid; 11 years old, active, athletic and fit. Then BAM, one day hit with diabetes. He would be a perfect user of this thing. I'm emailing his mom the link.

It's now 1:26, night, in here. I'll get some sleep, and check this tomorrow. (if someone is expecting to get a reply or something... damn tired)

I love how photos showing kids doing something related to Product(tm) always have them in super-clean clothes. From my experience, clothes on kids are clean for about five seconds.

It's the same thing with ads for truck companies or similar businesses: perfectly clean clothes.

Except these are kids with diabetes. If they don't stay clean, they die.

I think that's AIDS, not diabetes.

Really? I think it was leprosy?

Eh...

Diabetics can have nerve damage (like lepers, actually) that they are totally unaware of. This is one of the reasons they are in danger of losing their feet and other limbs, the fact they don't spend much time looking at them (also they are kept in sweaty, cramped spaces) means they may not be aware of anything wrong.

That said, I rarely ever hear about young people having this problem, more people who have struggled into middle age or old age.

What do you do with diabetic kids, "kept in sweaty, cramped places"? Sounds like a sweatshop operation going on there, and that aint legal in most countries.

It's okay, it's a long 'ea'. it's pronounced "swedeshop'.

Swedish kids? Now that aint alright.

It's okay. It's a Finnish site.

Yes, and along with the nerve damage, they can have poor circulation, which can help lead to poor healing of wounds, serious infections and tissue death. It's mostly an issue with advanced Type 2 diabetics who have had it for 25-30 years. Until fairly recently, most Type 2 diabetes didn't start until adulthood, and so it was mostly an issue with diabetics in their later years. But these days, even young kids are getting Type 2, so it's becoming more common in mid-life.

As I understand it, Type 1 is an auto-imune disease where your body destroys it's own ability to produce insulin. Type 2 is a problem of years of poor diet messing up your body's insulin regulation system. Type 2 tends to go along with being over weight and physical inactivity, which both contribute to the poor circulation issues. This isn't as much of an issue with Type 1, so the risk of amputation is much lower.

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. I just happen to have friends with both types of diabetes.

its, dammit.

type 2 can also be infection, while I am sure my Parents diet was not the best both of them became diabetic after a hospitalizing kidney infection. blood sugar regulation is not just pancreas, as they have tried pancreas transplants for diabetics, and usually without replacing kidneys as well the new Pancreas doesn't work efficiently enough. Too many others need kidneys to make it impractical to give transplants to most diabetics.

My dad has type I, and there are still weird neuropathies there. Recently, he's been feeling like he's about to faint or feels like "this could be the end", and doctors can't really figure it out. He's had the whole gamut of tests and scans, and the best they can say is that it doesn't appear to be life-threatening and that it is related to nerve issues caused by his diabetes. Pretty scary when that feeling lasts for tens of minutes or hours.