Diabetes Youth Conference report 8: Doug Burns

21 September 2009
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Ex Mr Universe Mr Doug Burns was both the keynote speaker at dinner on Saturday, and final speaker at the conference on Sunday. Doug has had T1 since he was seven years old, and is now in his 40s… so he’s seen a lot of technology and improvements in the field come and go.

There wasn’t anything specific in his talk which I picked up on, apart from how good it was to have such a charismatic, enthusiastic, funny world champion in fitness telling his diabetes story and passing on his enthusiasm to everyone in the room. He – like Sean – didn’t have any other bodybuilding T1 role models to follow, so he chartered his own course (and he…

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By Nic on 21 September 2009 at 12.36 pm
Posted in Conferences
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Diabetes Youth Conference report 7: Sean Busby.

15 September 2009
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Sean Busby was one of the international speakers brought to the conference, and in my opinion perfect as a role model for Diabetes Youth. You’ll see from the clip above that Sean was already a successful snowboarder at the age of 14 and was absolutely at the top of his game by the time he got to the age of 19. However he got increasingly sicker and sicker at that point in his life, and continued to struggle with intermittent bursts of uncontrollable vomiting. Alongside this, he lost shedloads of weight. It took him nine trips to the emergency room (A & E) for someone to finally pay attention to how sick he really was. It was at that…

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By Nic on 15 September 2009 at 3.20 pm
Posted in Conferences, Exercise
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Diabetes Youth Conference report 6: Dr Carol Atmore.

10 September 2009
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I didn’t take that many notes during Dr Atmore’s talk, which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it or get a lot out of it. Dr Atmore is a GP living in Greymouth, who recently had a son diagnosed with Type 1. I’ve often thought how lucky I am that I live in Auckland and have easy access to a variety of services as and when I need them. In the last year I’ve been to North Shore Hospital to be hooked up to a CGMS; to Waitakere for my regular care, again to Waitakere to get my retinopathy screening done, and of course to Auckland Hospital for the fantastic level of care I’ve had pre-pregnancy and during…

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By Nic on 10 September 2009 at 9.26 pm
Posted in Conferences, Medical Services
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Diabetes Youth Conference report 5: Dr Craig Jefferies.

8 September 2009
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Dr Craig Jefferies is a Paediatric Endocrinologist, and the Director of Diabetes at Auckland Starship Hospital. I was looking forward to hearing him speak as his topic was listed as ‘latest technology and treatments’, which anyone who reads this blog will know I’m a fan of. To be honest, he didn’t reveal anything neeeew-new: in fact if you’ve been reading this blog or keeping an eye on overseas trends in general, you would have been nodding along, more than furiously taking notes for researching later. Nonetheless, he was a great speaker, and had us all paying full attention for the whole time he spoke. Some of the nuggets I picked up from his talk:

The kids with diabetes coming through

…

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By Nic on 8 September 2009 at 8.25 am
Posted in Conferences, Kids & Teens
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Diabetes Youth Conference report 4: Elissa Renouf.

2 September 2009
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Again, Elissa being part of the conference was a big drawcard for me. I first read about Elissa and her amazing ways with her family a couple of years ago, and the company she started in order to make products for kids with diabetes, Diabete-Ezy.

For those of you who are less familiar with Elissa – here’s a quick background on her. Married to Australian Rugby League fella Steve Renouf (they were high school sweethearts), Elissa has five children: four boys and one girl. Three of the boys have type 1 diabetes, as well as Steve – so in a family of seven, 57% of them have type 1. Of the three boys who have diabetes,…

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By Nic on 2 September 2009 at 8.56 pm
Posted in Conferences, Exercise, Food, Hypos & Hypers, Insulin Pumps, Kids & Teens
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