The First Artificial Pancreas - MiniMed 530G with Enlite

So I know I've shared with y'all that I am Type 1 Diabetic, and I have been for almost 23 years (since I was 5 years old).

Well today is a BIG day in the diabetes world!

Let me give you a bit of background first: Type 1 Diabetes is the disease that is basically the result of your pancreas shutting down.  Your pancreas produces a hormone called Insulin that helps you process, digest, and utilize your food.  It also keeps what's called your "blood sugars" (the number that represents the amount of glucose in your blood stream) within manageable levels.  Without insulin and a working pancreas, you can get too much glucose in your blood stream and, in effect, literally poison your body.  When you have type 1 diabetes, the pancreas doesn't work, at all, so it is basically just taking up space in your body.  Therefore, you have to take artificial insulin via injection or a device called an "insulin pump", which is a machine that can deliver insulin to you via a little "inset" on your abdomen, reducing your number of "shots" from 4-5/day to 2/week.  This keeps your blood sugar levels manageable to a certain degree, but it's not as good as a fully working pancreas.

Now, this new device - the MiniMed 530G with Enlite - is an insulin pump still, but now it includes a second device embedded in it that tracks your blood sugars, and AUTOMATICALLY CHANGES THE AMOUNT OF INSULIN THE PUMP SENDS TO YOUR BODY!!!  It's basically an...

Artificial Pancreas

For people with diabetes, this is BIG news!  This is the closest we can come to feeling like a "normal" person, and the closest diabetes has EVER come to a cure for type 1 diabetes.  This is going to revolutionize care and control for type 1 diabetics everywhere.

I plan to get mine in May of 2014, and I can't wait :)