“The Internet has given birth to blogs, bloggers and many social networking sites. These now include venues by and for people with diabetes. They’re multiplying and helping people with diabetes and their loved ones connect in supportive, nurturing spaces.

I’ve observed the heart-warming growth of the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) and the network of Diabetes Advocates, the relationships it’s nurtured and the positive support it’s given so many. These observations, coupled with knowing how very unrelenting and demanding diabetes is, has led me to regularly encourage the PWDs (Persons With Diabetes) I work with to connect with Diabetes Advocates to learn, share, get and give support.

I encourage other diabetes educators to become aware of these resources and recommend them to their patients. Diabetes educators should increase engagement with the DOC, because working together we’re a powerful combination that will help patients succeed.”

Hope WarshawRD, CDE, Author, Diabetes Advocate

Who Are We?We are a collective of individuals and organizations that offers expertise, resources, and support to people touched by diabetes. We believe that connecting with others living with diabetes or caring for people with diabetes, and providing everyday emotional and anecdotal support, goes hand-in-hand with the support of healthcare providers.

What Do We Do?We help people with diabetes and their loved ones realize that they are not alone. We help the diabetes community by sharing our personal experiences, spreading the word about diabetes news and treatment options, and helping to inspire a dialog between diabetes patients and their medical teams. We accomplish this through diabetes blogs, diabetes social communities, videos, radio shows, books, newsletters, and live events.

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a lot of burnout, and I wanted to be “normal” – whatever that means – and I really wish I had been able to find somebody just to talk to, to realize that I was not alone. To just know that there were other people out there going through the same things that I was going through and struggling with. I knew that there were others, but I could never really find them.

I went on Google and I searched. Amazingly, I found a lot of other people out there who shared my experience. I read stories about living lives with diabetes. The discovery of these people has been life changing. I no longer feel alone. At times, I still feel I don’t want to do this. I have faced depression compounded by diabetes and I have found strength by tuning into friends’ stories online. I know I can pull through.”

Simon, Mila and Mike are just a few of the people with diabetes who are connecting online. They are not alone and neither should anyone living with diabetes or caring for people with diabetes be. Diabetes Advocates can help individuals connect with the support they need to live better lives with diabetes.

learn more at: www.diabetesadvocates.org

“Mi nombre es Mila. Vivo en Puerto Rico y soy la madre de tres varones. Jaime, el más pequeño, vive con diabetes tipo 1 desde el 2006, cuando apenas tenía 3 años. Cuando Jaime fue diagnosticado, vivíamos en la Florida y tuvimos la dicha de encontrar un gran médico que nos orientó y animó a educarnos en la condición. Desde el primer día nos dijo que mientras más educados estuviéramos acerca de la diabetes tipo 1 y le ofreciéramos a Jaime la mejor educación de su condición, él iba a tener una vida libre de complicaciones relacionadas con la diabetes.

En el 2008 regresamos a Puerto Rico. Lamentablemente, descubrimos que las familias que viven con diabetes tipo 1 en la isla no cuentan con tanto apoyo y educación como la que estábamos acostumbrados a recibir en los Estados Unidos. Comencé a buscar blogs de diabetes en español y los pocos que encontré eran todos para pacientes adultos. A través de las redes sociales conocí varias personas del programa Diabetes Advocates, con sus blogs sobre diabetes en inglés.

Nunca imaginé conocer a tantas personas comprometidas con la promoción de la educación de la diabetes y lo enriquecedor que sería para nosotros como padres de un niño con esta condición. Esto me animó a empezar mi propio blog en español. Queremos ver una comunidad latina educada en diabetes y por ende más saludable. No es un camino fácil, pero vamos a lograrlo.”

Mike Managing Editor, DiabetesMine™

”I’m Mike. I was diagnosed decades ago when I was 5. It’s been tough sometimes – a lot of times, especially as a teenager or in my early 20’s, I just wanted to give up. I had

Simon Author, Simon from the 70s

“I’m fragile. I’m scared and I’m insecure. This is who I am and what diabetes has helped me accept. Misdiagnosed, I found myself ten days in the hospital

with life threatening infections and severe DKA. All but blind and with limited mobility, I came face to face not

only with insulin-dependent diabetes but the reality that those I had long counted as friends had abandoned me.

Diabetes has brought me both the best and worst moments of my now middle-aged existence. It has brought me to death’s door and through the valley of loss. It has crushed and created, it has built and destroyed, it has connected and broken. It is both a harsh schoolmaster and a loving mother. It has brought me to an online community.

I have not arrived but my journey has begun. Vision and mobility improved, I am setting out on the road of life armed with experience and hope. I stumble, I fall, and I make a mess of the simplest things. I tear up and I break down, I carry more scars than souvenirs of success but now I carry them with

pride. With flights booked to visit the friends I have made in the Diabetes Online Community,

I join with them as I shout, ‘You can do this!’”

MilaFundacion Dulce Guerrero

Mila lives in Puerto Rico. She is the mother of Jaime, a child with type 1 diabetes. She blogs about life with diabetes in Spanish. This is her story: