Celebrating 100 years of insulin during Diabetes Awareness Month

Sudbury -

November is Diabetes Awareness Month and one woman from Manitoulin Island is sharing her story in hopes of educating people about the disease.

Laura Shilliday was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2014. Although she was experiencing many of the symptoms associated with the disease, she never dreamed diabetes would affect her.

“I had a lot of the common symptoms polydipsia -- really thirsty, peeing a lot, bad taste in your mouth, not feeling well," Shilliday said. "I remember going on snowshoes and cross country skiing and having to eat snow and being like is this normal."

With type 1, the body is left completely without insulin. It requires people to take injections of manufactured insulin to help control blood sugar levels. However, type 2 is the result of not enough insulin being made, and can be sometimes managed without injections.

This year's awareness month is a special one as it marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin.

“There’s so much new technology coming out," said Shilliday. "New, faster insulins, incredible insulin pumps that talk with continuous glucose monitors so that there’s a lot of hope for anybody who’s diagnosed. I want them to know that I feel joyful and hopeful."

Dr. Ilana Halperin is Shilliday’s endocrinologist. Halperin said while it may seem like a simple thing to eat healthy and exercise, for some people, the support to do that just isn’t there.

“We know that access to well priced, healthy options can be a problem, especially on reserves, so we have lots of things to do from that sort of societal perspective to still to try to promote health lifestyle and diabetes prevention,” said Halperin.

She said physicians are seeing a spike in diabetes among First Nations communities, particularly affecting youth.

“We know that it is not just genetics but intergeneration trauma related to a lot of policies that were in place for hundreds of years here that seem to be related to some of the stresses that led to increased risks of type 1 diabetes,” said Halperin.

While there are a lot of programs to help people pay for their medication, some are having to choose between things like food and rent or insulin.

“You're going to choose what matters today and then 10, 15 years down the road they end up being a cost to the system because they end up with dialysis, heart attack or amputations because their diabetes wasn’t well managed," said Halperin.

While support is there for some people, it's lacking for others, she added.

"There’s a huge gap between 25 and 65 if you’re self-employed or contract worker and you don’t have benefits and you’re paying out-of-pocket for your diabetes supplies," she said. "That’s a huge problem. We don’t have a universal health care system if we can not provide the tools that people need to stay healthy.”

According to Diabetes Canada, every hour of every day, at least 20 people are diagnosed with diabetes. They recommend anyone over the age of 40 should be tested for diabetes every three years. If you have one or more risk factors, you should be tested earlier and more frequently.

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