Is there any hope?

SurreyDad said:

Evening all,

My 5 year old daughter was diagnosed with T1 about 4 months ago and has been an absolute star - she even injects her own insulin in her legs!

Obviously, we are all holding out for a cure!

Is there any hope out there currently? What have you heard? What can we look forward to?

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Yes, I think there's definitely hope

Islet cells 'encased' to protect them for an immune attack; efforts to get existing islets to reproduce; work on the immune attack itself - a number of approaches

Your daughter sounds like she's doing really well

I would recommend getting in touch with Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, they do alot of research in type 1, they also do meet ups across the country so your daughter can meet people her own age and also get involved in fund raising, very worthwhile stuff. Now more than ever I think we know alot more and are doing a lot more to research causes in type 1 and the technology is there to manage much better than ever before so there is definately hope

It sounds like your daughter is doing amazingly, but I think along with hoping for a cure, looking at the smaller picture should give you even more hope. When I was diagnosed 30 years ago, syringes felt like pencils, glucose meters were no more tan a tube that you matched by eye ... and took 120 seconds to "develop" and you were either 7, or 14mmols, that was as accurate as it got, and the lancets were attached to a guillotine (with a "thwack" sound, to match)
We already have pumps to replace injections, CGM and flash GM to (almost) replace blood tests, closed loop systems in testing to create artificial pancreases and even pancreas transplants ... I honestly hope we will have a cure soon, and I have every faith it will happen, but already, the future is positive!

Hi,

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this; it must be very difficult to get to grips with.

There is hope but I think it's one of those things that you need to put to the back of your mind in case it distracts you and your daughter from dealing with the here and now of diabetes. A cure seems to be perpetually 10 years away as far as I can see.

As has been said there is a lot of good kit available and I'd urge you to embrace that as much as possible.

In the meantime I'd say make sure you get access to the best diabetic clinic you can find; that means one at a large teaching hospital and get your GP to refer you there. They will tend to be the most advanced in their treatment; not all clinics are the same.

There's some very good information on here so try and absorb as much as you can.

Your daughter will be fine!

Best

Dillinger

A cure may be 10 years away, equally it could be 100. Although the latter is unlikely

The best approach going forward is to have your body (in this case your daughter's) in the best nick possible for the time the cure arrives. This means gaining as a tight a control as possible so that the complications are fended off.

As mentioned, there are so many great technologies on the market now that have come such a long way even in the last 5 years!

The most important thing is, even so young, your daughter has grabbed the bull by the horns and is getting the job done

The most exciting news I've read to date is with regards to islet transplants. The procedure, although not a cure for the type 1 causing immune system defect, is still a huge step forward - although not out of trial stage as far as I'm aware. But think of it this way, if diabetes can be temporarily stopped even now, then surely we mustn't be far away from a permanent solution!

http://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/islet-transplantation-on-the-verge-of-mainstream

There's always hope and always someone worse off. At least we're still alive

Edited by a mod

Grant