Type 1 Diabetes

You see people every day and never really know what they deal with. Like Susanville Market Produce Department’s Clinton McGill. This young man is friendly, hard working and active but in 2009 Clinton started losing weight, throwing up and noticed his eyesight was terrible. He was diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes at 12 years old, now 21 and on an insulin pump rather than injections, Clinton has to input his carbs and blood sugar, to a pocket size meter he carries, 4 times a day. He says the pump is awesome. Today he has energy, he can see clearly and says he can participate in everything unless it was "like a cake eating fest”.


Or owner of Belle en Vie Salon & Day Spa, Erin Clausen. Such a vivacious and hard working woman who would guess she suffers from an auto-immune disorder? Erin was diagnosed at 42 years old with Type 1 Diabetes after becoming seriously ill. Since Type 1 has long been known as Juvenile Diabetes she said “But I thought mostly babies and children got Type 1” The doctor told her that about a quarter of all Type 1s were diagnosed after the age of 25. Many are diagnosed in their 40s and 50s. Erin also uses a insulin pump but in addition has a continuous glucose monitor implanted under her skin that sends a reading to her phone and Apple Watch every 5 minutes.


Type 1 Diabetes is an auto-immune disorder. While great strides have been made for Type 1 diabetics it remains an incurable disease. Here are the early warning signs from the JDRF website~
*fatigue
*changes in vision
*fruity smelling breath
*extreme hunger and unexplained weight loss
*unusual behavior

To learn more about it and how you can help find a cure check out www.jdrf.org and I urge you to read Erin’s full story, in her own words, at ~
https://thediabeticjourney.com/misdiagnosed-with-type-2-diabetes/

Hometown Health Awareness.