Every year, the "blue versus red" argument comes up as diabetes bloggers and patient advocates discuss the relative merits of the American Diabetes Association, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Diabetes Research Institute, the International Diabetes Foundation, and World Diabetes Day. This week, however, the color of diabetes is pink.
Diabetes UK pink.
I'm not sure how and why the different diabetes organizations decide which weeks to use for "diabetes awareness" -- but considering how widespread the conditions (or the threat of those conditions) are, the more awareness there is, the better things are likely to be for those of us who have diabetes. Ignorance, as we too painfully know, is not bliss when it comes to diabetes research and diabetes management.
Amongst their Diabetes Week activities, Diabetes UK has extended the hours of their phone-in Careline -- a hotline for those with questions about diabetes. While hotlines cannot and should not replace one-on-one consultation with one's personal healthcare professionals (HCPs), responders can reasonably provide callers with questions to ask their HCPs, reasons they might be reacting in a particular manner to a new medication, and ways nondiabetic caregivers can support their pancreatically-challenged loved ones. As far as I know, none of our US-based organizations has the sort of 24-hour hotline which the parent of a newly-diagnosed child can call if she's not sure about a reading, or if one has accidentally confused his long- and short-acting insulins, if serial rage bolusing refuses to bring down a stubborn high, or if one can't figure out how to analyze a dish that's neither in Calorie King nor the USDA database.
Midday Tuesday, Diabetes UK ran a live Twitter chat, under the hashtag #dukchat, with their careline personnel answering diabetes-related questions from anyone who cared to tweet in.
Most of the Twitter chats I've seen, or participated in, have been moderated affairs where people introduce themselves and respond to one or more predetermined questions (for an example, check the Diabetes Social Media Advocacy site for previous weeks' questions and transcripts). While there is one moderator, it's one large conversation. The Diabetes UK chat was more on the order of the old "expert" chats on Diabetes Talkfest or the old Science Fiction Channel celebrity chats on IRC -- except, of course, there's no way to "mute" the questions and side chatter or shunt them off to a separate room or channel.
The questions in #dukchat fell into the usual categories: prediagnosis ("Could so-and-so have diabetes?"), medications, testing (both traditional and CGM), getting CGM coverage approved, and caregiving were the most frequent, with a couple of folk interested in diet management or smartphone applications. What struck me most was, compared to what I see in our primarily-US-based social networks and communities (dLife Community, TuDiabetes, Diabetic Connect, etc.) was how alone and without peer networks many of the participants seemed to be. To be fair, the folk at @DiabetesUK did direct folk to their forums. Since these appear to be accessible only by paid subscription, I have no way to compare them to our own forums here at dLife, or the forums over at the ADA or at Diabetes Daily -- much less subgroups such as United Kingdom Diabetics over on TuDiabetes.
[Correction: per the folk at the Diabetes UK, their forums are freely accessible at http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk]
In the end, I think I should like to see one or more "branded" diabetes entitites available 24/7 to answer basic questions on Twitter and to provide a private (phone-in) hotline, as well as having "the usual crew" of patient advocates/activists (constantly expanding to include people from all nationalities and living in all countries) feeling free to chime in when we have something constructive to offer.
Meanwhile, take a look at the #dukchat transcript while it remains available.
