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ATTD Updates for PWD

The CWD Team traveled to Florence, Italy, to attend the annual Advances in Treatments and Therapeutics in Diabetes conference and learn about the latest updates on diabetes care. Here are some updates that may be pertinent for PWD, their loved ones, and any healthcare professionals who work in diabetes. Artificial Intelligence for AID Algorithms Throughout the last couple of years, more research has been focused on using artificial intelligence to enhance the algorithms for AID systems. Multiple groups are pursuing this path, including Dr. Boris Kovatchev and Marc Breton at UVA and Dr. Roman Hovorka at Cambridge. Both groups presented […]

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Wrapping Up ATTD 2024

Buongiorno! The Children with Diabetes team has just returned from ATTD 2024 (Advanced Technologies and Treatments for Diabetes). We can’t wait to tell you about our gelato-filled experience in Italy. Let’s grab a cozy chair, close our eyes, pretend that we are surrounded by the Tuscan countryside, and get started! ATTD is the leading international forum where clinicians, diabetes care providers, researchers, industries, start-ups, investors, regulators, and people with diabetes assemble with the goal “to ameliorate the care of people with diabetes at the fastest pace.” Distinguished professionals in the diabetes field give presentations and discussions throughout the week on […]

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When Your CGM Fails Away from Home

When traveling with T1D, we try to be prepared for anything. We pack extra supplies and keep them in our carry-on bag. We bring extra insulin so we don’t run out. We bring a meter and test strips even though we rarely use it anymore with CGM. But sometimes, we may not have enough of the supplies we need to ensure we have a backup for our trip. Or our backup fails and we don’t have a backup to the backup. When your CGM fails Recently, I traveled to Colorado from Ohio with my children and husband. It was a […]

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Behind the Scenes of CWD & FFL

Despite being a small team, Children with Diabetes (CWD) is a non-profit organization that is able to accomplish many things! For two decades, it was run by only two people, Jeff Hitchcock and Laura Billetdeaux. They worked tirelessly and took few vacations for twenty years to grow CWD into the trusted, global resource that it is today. CWD now consists of six employees, the most it has ever had, and the small but mighty team does a lot to help the mission: Care today, Cure tomorrow. Friends for Life Conferences Most people know CWD for our major events for people […]

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Automated Insulin Delivery Systems 2024

Diabetes technologies are changing quickly, so we at CWD want to make sure you have the up-to-date information on what’s available to you in the U.S. For your reference and to help with any decisions you may need to make, we put together this chart of the current Automated Insulin Delivery (AID) systems for people with diabetes, as well as some helpful information about AID in general. Some Quick Definitions: Basal – Background insulin Bolus – insulin taken for food or correcting a higher than target blood glucose CGM – Continuous Glucose Monitor Open Loop –  when the pump is […]

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Super Bolus – A Game Changer in Diabetes Care

Most of us are familiar with the Super Bowl, but you may not be familiar with a super bolus. Here is all you need to know about this relatively new concept in diabetes care. What is a super bolus? A super bolus is a 1.5x normal pre-meal dose of insulin and suspension of basal insulin for 2 hours.1 Stopping the basal insulin helps ensure that there is not too much insulin circulating in the bloodstream at once and lowers the risk of low blood sugar from the bolus. Why would you do a super bolus? This is typically done when […]

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A Guide to Navigating Diabetes Care without Insurance

One of the harsh realities of life with a chronic condition in the United States is the possibility of losing insurance coverage – or never having it in the first place. Growing up with diabetes, I felt conditioned to prepare myself to have job opportunities that would provide adequate insurance coverage. A young man with Type 1 Diabetes shares a similar sentiment on the Diabetes Link, “Any T1D knows that health insurance is arguably the most important perk when deciding whether or not to take a job.”1 This is the reality of the current systems in the U.S., for better […]

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Pro Tips for Enhancing the Effects of Insulin

When you have diabetes, sometimes it feels like no matter what you do, your insulin is not working how it should. There are many very real reasons why it may not be working – the dose may have been too small, you could be injecting into scar tissue, the insulin could have denatured (gone bad), to name a few. Then there’s insulin resistance, which is happening more and more for people with type 1 diabetes, despite it being a key characteristic of type 2 diabetes. Here are some insulin hacks/tips to help make sure your insulin is working as effectively […]

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Visiting Lilly

Since CWD team “headquarters” is in Ohio, situated only a couple of hours from Lilly headquarters in Indianapolis, three of our local employees were recently invited to Lilly for an inspiring afternoon. We were invited to present Journey Awards to a handful of Lilly employees who live with diabetes. Lilly was the first pharmacy company to make insulin in the early 1900’s. In the main building, there is a beautiful hallway featuring the original brick building facades. According to our Lilly partner, Sarah Noel, this hallway still had a residual smell from the decades of bringing in animal pancreases to […]

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CWD’s Site Visit to Falls Church

Last week, the Children with Diabetes team headed to Falls Church, Virginia, to prepare for our Friends for Life 2024 Spring Conference. Falls Church holds a special place in many of our hearts, as we have held four conferences at the Falls Church Marriott Fairview Park. Though this location is familiar to us, we were met with a beautifully renovated venue as soon as we walked in the lobby doors. We are excited to bring our old and new families back to Falls Church for the first time post-COVID. We spent the next two days meeting with our friends from […]

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