Father of a child with diabetes, community pharmacist and Diabetes Canada advocate Gavin Bush, who is a former Estevan resident and now resides in Regina, came to the Energy City to talk about diabetes and the equipment available for people living with this disease.
About 15 people joined him for that vital talk that took place at the Estevan Public Library on Sept. 18.
Bush said that the presentation went well with a lot of interest and questions from the public.
“I think it went pretty well, we had a pretty good turnout,” said Bush.
In the presentation, Bush introduced the new technologies that are now available to treat Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, with which the body destroys the cells that create insulin in the pancreas. That typically happens a little bit quicker and sometimes even in childhood. That is the disease that hit Bush’s daughter Bridget, who was diagnosed when she was four years old.
Type 2 diabetes is the result of insulin resistance, which means that the body is resistant to the insulin that it makes and that typically happens later in life. Both types of diabetes are chronic diseases, which affect blood sugar or glucose regulation.
In the presentation, Bush looked at specific systems that now can be utilized by people with different types of diabetes.
“We talked about some different types of injection aids, some things like continuous glucose monitors, then some insulin pumps as well,” said Bush.
The technologies that were discussed at the presentation can be used for both types of diabetes, but as Bush pointed out, “It’s less of a treatment and more of management.”
“For Type 1 diabetes the only treatment is insulin itself because the body doesn’t make insulin, so they need an injection of insulin, something like an insulin pump. It’s just a different way to deliver the insulin to the body,” explained Bush.
“Then things like the continuous glucose monitors, they can basically take your blood glucose or approximation of the blood glucose every five minutes. And that can be used for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.”
Bush made two presentations while in Estevan, one was open to the public and attended by either people who have diabetes themselves or family members who are affected by it, and the other one was at the St. Joseph’s Hospital and was aimed at professionals including pharmacy staff, nurses, educators and others.
Bush explained that his goal as a professional and T1D dad is to increase awareness about the contemporary technologies that are out there. So he reached out to Dexcom that manufactures continuous glucose monitors and Insulet, which produces insulin pump OmniPod and asked them to help him arrange the presentations. His daughter uses both technologies to manage the disease.
Prior to coming to Estevan, Bush also presented in Yorkton and Moose Jaw. He hopes to do some more presentations, but probably not until the spring.
“We are hoping to do something like this every six months or every year. Maybe not to the same locations, but to go throughout Saskatchewan and possibly into other provinces to meet people and just increase awareness,” said Bush.
He outlined that diabetes is growing, and the incidents of people having diabetes are increasing. So along with Diabetes Canada, they are trying to get the federal government to make a national strategy to “combat the epidemic of diabetes,” which he also talked about during the meeting.
“There are more and more people over time who are being diagnosed, so it’s important that people know whether they have diabetes, and what their targets are, and how they can still lead the healthy lifestyle.”
More information on Diabetes Canada advocacy can be found at www.diabetesstrategynow.ca.
