November is Diabetes Awareness Month, for ANY person with ANY Type of diabetes.  No day is the same, so having a consistent support system is a necessity when dealing with this disease and here are five ways you can do something this month to help bring awareness to this disease and to drive advocacy.

  1. Reach out to your local JDRF or ADA Chapter.  If you have time, donate it!  That is the best thing you can do.  If you don’t have time to physically go to an office, a meeting or an event, try to get involved in JDRF or ADA through social media and other online support groups.
  2. If you have T1D, a great way to offer help is to become a part of the T1D Exchange community.  Also, Trial Net offers T1D risk screening for family members of those with T1D.
  3. Form a Walk team for JDRF or for ADA’s STOP Diabetes walk.  It usually only comes around one time of year, but there is definitely a walk near you! For example, all the JDRF walks just happened this past fall.  This gives you an ENTIRE year to form a team, come up with an awesome name, and fundraise!
  4.  Help Someone with Diabetes by just listening.  Asking them how they feel in a no-judgement zone feels like such a weight lifted off our shoulders.  It’s difficult to complain a lot when you know there are others in the world who are far worse off, but you still need to vent, it’s healthy.  If you are reading this and you are the support person of someone you love with diabetes, help them by offering to watch their children so they can volunteer or attend an important advocacy opportunity at their local State House. 
  5. Subscribe to diabetes related social media sites.  There is an enormous amount of information on the web, some opinion based and some very scientific and matter-of-fact.  For recommendations, check JDRF or ADA for suggestions and start there, so that you know they are credible sources.  Also, connect with Cecelia Health’s Diabetes Innovation  group on Linkedin. This group has 7,000+ members from the entire healthcare space.  One thing is for sure, you can learn SO much about what is going on in the world of diabetes.  Things are changing very fast, and in a very good way.  Technology is moving at speed faster than we can raise enough money for. 

According to the American Association of Diabetes Educators, “research demonstrates that individuals who receive diabetes education are more likely to use primary care and preventative services; take medications as prescribed; control blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol; and have overall lower healthcare costs”.  Increasing accessibility to diabetes educators; improving adherence to care plans and helping individuals develop strategies to live well with diabetes 24/7 are all goals of Cecelia Health.  Our mission at Cecelia Health is to improve the lives of people living with diabetes and related chronic diseases by providing a personalized approach that drives behavior change via technology and close interaction with a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) or an expert chronic disease clinician, that is scalable to reach the many who need that extra shoulder to lean on.

A CDE is really the guru of everything diabetes, but not only that, they are some of the most empathetic and compassionate people who strive to positively transform lives.  Cecelia Health offers a service that is there to not only help patients on their journey of disease adherence and medication compliance, but are sometimes life savers.  Out of the millions of people with diabetes, it is hard to imagine if every single one of them has someone to keep them on track and to encourage and empower them to know they CAN take charge of this disease and live a healthy life.  This is what the Cecelia Health program does, by partnering with Health Plans and Pharmaceutical/Device companies. 

We go the the extra mile in case you can’t get there on your own!