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“There’s not a lot of work going on right now so it’s not that affordable,” said Kyle Hamilton.
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Kyle Hamilton is a farm worker in the Battlefords who says continuous glucose monitoring has changed his life. Photo courtesy Kyle Hamilton /.Courtesy Kyle Hamilton
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Kyle Hamilton trusts his continuous blood glucose meter with his life.
If his blood sugar drops while he sleeps, he knows he’s going to sound an alarm to wake him up before he has a seizure. Before he got the monitors, he joked that he was relying on his parents to hear the sound of his head banging against the wall.
“If I were awake it would just feel like I was asleep … I wouldn’t know what happened,” said Hamilton.
Saskatchewan’s latest budget brought good news for people with diabetes when the government kept a promise to fund these monitors for people 18 and under.
The 21-year-old Hamilton hopes that the government will soon expand this age group so that he no longer has to pay for the sensors out of his own pocket.
The subscription costs about $ 300 a month, he said.
“There’s not much work going on right now, so it’s not that affordable,” said the Battlefords farm worker. “My parents help me pay for it, but if anything ever happened to them, it would be me alone.”
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Most people’s blood sugar is self-moderate, but people with diabetes either don’t make enough insulin or can’t at all. This is why they need to regularly check that their sugar is in a healthy range.
This is often done with a manual fingerprint and blood test. Continuous blood glucose meters, however, use a sensor in the skin to constantly monitor the body’s blood sugar levels.
Regina pharmacist Gavin Bush, an attorney for Diabetes Canada, said the sensors had changed his family’s life for the better. They help his six-year-old daughter with diabetes keep track of her blood sugar levels even when she is at school. If her blood sugar drops overnight, as it sometimes does with Hamilton, Bush receives an alarm warning before it reaches dangerous levels.
“We got some sleep,” said Bush.
He was excited on Tuesday when the Saskatchewan government made an election promise to cover the cost of these monitors for people like his daughter. The $ 5 million announcement also includes extending insulin pump funding coverage to everyone in the province, regardless of age.
Hamilton said using the devices helped him keep his blood sugar in a healthy range, making him feel healthier and improving his long-term health.
“When your blood sugar is stable, you feel differently than when you have high blood sugar,” said Hamilton. “It affects your moods and overall how your body will feel.”
He and Bush hope that eligibility will continue to increase in the years to come, especially as technology improves and the use of the devices becomes more common.
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“Type 1 diabetes doesn’t go away as you get older,” noted Bush. “It is something that will always be with you. And I hope that one day we will get to a point where it is funded for everyone, not just people under the age of 18, because I think it’s a really life changing technology. “
“My wallet or my health”: Saskatchewan patients are calling for insulin pump funding
Hundreds of people die of diabetes every year in Saskatchewan – but why?
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