The interview of Patrick

Hello Patrick, could you introduce yourself in a few words

You'd think you were at a meeting of diabetics anonymous :-D My name is Patrick ( Hello Patrick! ) but seriously, I live in Montpellier and I'm 62 years old. I am retired, former sales manager for France for an industrial company, which meant 5 or 6/7 day hotel/restaurant.
My passions: running, music, photography and life.

When was your diabetes diagnosed? What do you remember about the first period after the diagnosis?

I was diagnosed at 39 years old (yes, it's late for a T1D) and after the announcement I found myself alone without any explanation of the pathology; in short I had to manage my new life alone. Running started to be part of my daily life at that time, in order to manage my blood sugar levels.

Diabetes is still not well known to the general public. How would you explain to someone what diabetes is and how it affects your daily life?

The problem with diabetes is that the same word designates different pathologies and the amalgam between type 1 and type 2 diabetes among others is "annoying".
Type 1 diabetes: in simple words, the pancreas no longer produces insulin, an essential hormone that regulates our "sugar" level. This continuous variation of blood sugar in our body becomes complicated to manage and we spend our time avoiding hypoglycemia (not enough) and hyperglycemia. Diabetes is a pathology where we often find ourselves in failure (not always within the limits) and it is necessary to be psychologically strong to not give up in the less good periods.

The preconceived notion that you want to debunk at all costs?

Obviously the one that comes to mind is that we became diabetic because we ate too much sugar

Tell us a positive or funny story about your diabetes.

When I start a tough race, like a marathon, I know I'm going to enjoy the atmosphere and the challenge. But when I'm in a moment of discouragement, I can't help thinking about the meal I'll be able to eat afterwards without any real impact on my diabetes.

What advice would you give to someone who has just been diagnosed with diabetes?

Diabetes is not an end in itself. It's just another way of living, the diet of a diabetic is the diet we should all have, that is to say EAT BALANCED. And now with new technologies, our life is like everyone else's, yes we are a little bit electronic but it makes managing our companion so much easier.

Kaio-Dia was created because many accessories were either boring, of poor quality, or uncomfortable. We would really like to continue to change this, as we have already started to do. For that, we would like to know what you need, like, dislike or miss in your daily life.

It is true that one of the disadvantages of diabetes is that we carry around, almost constantly, a multitude of things, gizmos and gadgets in greater or lesser numbers to meet all the possibilities of our daily lives.
We also need to find accessories that allow us to contain and / or protect our pumps, our sensors that are directly on our body and there it gets complicated.
The materials are not always suitable or too tight or too wide, do not dry fast enough, too thick and not always fun.