[Diabetes-Talk] Alarming at public events

[Schlenker, Emily Devaris]

Hello, I have a couple of thoughts from the perspective of someone who is blind and is also studying in a health profession.
Number One, I am guessing that there are people in all stages of their diabetic journey, and for a lot of them who are just getting started, there are a lot of new things to which they must get accustomed. Monitoring one's blood sugar accurately and consistently is probably intimidating and may come along with other difficulties related to an adjustment to blindness/assistive technology or learning to deal with a labile disease. I present this as my first concern, because I don't think the majority of people want to be disruptive or want to feel exposed while they are struggling with the above.

Number two, I can tell you that I would rather be disrupted than have a peaceful meeting only to discover that someone is in dire straits from a very low blood glucose.
All of that is to say that I am not sure that there is one solution for this problem.
To be fair, I do not have direct experience regarding how much seminars are disrupted, either.
I think that as long as the diabetes action network gains new members, this will persist.
These are my immediate thoughts, and it sounds like the practical side of this has been well addressed by others giving headphone recommendations, so I will sign off and return to studying.
Kind Regards,
Emily Schlenker
P2 Student KU School of Pharmacy


-----Original Message-----
From: Diabetes-Talk <diabetes-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Gary Wunder via Diabetes-Talk
Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2024 12:26 PM
To: Diabetes Talk <diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Gary Wunder <gwunder at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Diabetes-Talk] Alarming at public events

One of the things discussed at last year's meeting of the diabetes action network at our national convention was the difficulty with alarming from CGM devices that takes place during public meetings. While we certainly want to be notified when our blood sugar runs low or high, how do we manage the frequency of noise that is generated in public events, especially those with a large number of blind diabetics? This may be an agenda item we can discuss at our Knowledge Is Sweet seminar, but only if we have good ideas. I know, for example, that if I wear an Apple Watch, the watch will vibrate rather than my phone. I also know that I can go into the Libra application and temporarily disable alarms if I am confident that my blood sugar will not go low or high.



Please share any thoughts you have about how you would go about handling this situation. Your contribution may well make a big difference at the seminar. Thank you.



Gary Wunder

gwunder at earthlink.net <mailto:gwunder at earthlink.net>



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