The Diabetes Alliance in South Africa will be organising the second edition of the South African Diabetes Summit in November 2023. The Inaugural Diabetes Summit…
Sweet Life Posts
Meet Lurina Fourie, aka The Glucose Glitch. She’s 42 and was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 16 in 2000 – which means she’s currently on Level 26 of life with Type 1 diabetes!
We often talk about the challenges of diabetes with our South Africans with Diabetes community – and that’s okay! Diabetes has many challenges. But it’s also helpful to think about what a good day with diabetes looks like, and how to try to get more of those…
Life is busy. Add in diabetes, and life is really busy – as anyone living with the condition knows. Sometimes it feels almost impossible to fit three healthy meals into a day… Which is when meal replacements might be a good idea.
How to make better food choices is one of the hardest things when you’re living with diabetes. We chatted to Thapelo Serumula from Dietitians24 based in Polokwane, Limpopo about her perspective on diabetes and the challenges people with diabetes face when it comes to healthier food choices. This is what she shared with us.
In this monthly column, Sweet Life co-founder Bridget McNulty discusses something that’s on her mind in the diabetes space. This month, she talks about telling all the stories of diabetes.
When our co-founder Bridget wrote this column about 15 things diabetes taught her, she was overwhelmed by all the excellent feedback from our South Africans with Diabetes community. So we gathered it up. We asked our community: What has diabetes taught you?
Exciting news for all Dexcom fans in South Africa – the brand-new Dexcom G7 launched this week! We’re one of the first countries to get access to this exciting new tech, so we thought we’d find out a bit more about it…
One of the things we don’t talk about enough is diabetes and male complications. We want to be telling all the diabetes stories in South Africa – representing all the various lived experiences of people with diabetes. Gavin van Wyk shares his, below….
One of our big goals for 2023 is to share Sweet Life Diabetes Community with anyone who needs it. We’re South Africa’s largest online diabetes community, but we have so many more people to reach…
Kids spend half their lives at school, but how do we create safe spaces in schools for kids with diabetes?
We all know that vitamins and minerals are important for our health – even more when we’re balancing diabetes and blood sugar all day long… But did you know that Vitamin B is essential for your nerve health?
In this monthly series, Sweet Life co-founder Bridget McNulty talks about something personal related to diabetes… This month she’s tackling the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
Are you ready for the 2023 Diabetes Journal? It is (if possible) even more beautiful than the previous years…
Gosh, but National Diabetes Month 2022 was busy! November is always busy, but this year was even fuller than usual… We ran our popular #WearBlueForDiabetes…
For those who didn’t catch the disgusting racist rant blamed on diabetes earlier this month, no need to watch this! But for those who did, here’s what we had to say about it…
Warren Driscoll is Freddie Mercury – at least in the show ‘Queen: It’s A Kinda Magic’. And he’s living with Type 1 diabetes. “How?!” you…
Now this is a story we haven’t heard before! Patrick and Keegan are twins – both living with Type 1 diabetes… Patrick was diagnosed at 13, Keegan at 18. We asked them for more details – read on!
Alongside the diabetes basics leaflet we developed, we also created a leaflet specifically for those living with Type 1 diabetes.
One of the core education projects Sweet Life has worked on is our diabetes basics leaflet for public clinics: TEEL. Here’s how we developed it.
Eating with Type 1 diabetes can feel tricky. While there’s no such thing as a ‘diabetes diet’, registered dietician Ajita Ratanjee has a few tips that she always shares with her clients living with Type 1 diabetes. Here they are.
It might seem as if there aren’t that many options to claim CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitors) or flash glucose monitors (like the FreeStyle Libre) from your medical aid, but that’s simply not true. Here’s how to claim CGM from your medical aid.
We created this free Healthy Food Guide to help people with diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol make healthier choices. It’s also useful if you…
We had the most wonderful Facebook Live session about being the partner of someone with diabetes, and wanted to share it with you.
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) can be life-threatening: Here’s what you need to know.
Your emotions affect your blood glucose. How you feel can have a huge impact on your blood glucose. We all know what it’s like to get angry about something, and notice our blood glucose rising… Which just makes us angrier, and keeps our blood glucose sky high.
Let’s come together to create awareness around diabetes in our schools and communities. Let’s #WearBlueForDiabetes!
What do you do with your unused and unwanted diabetes supplies? Diabetic Accessories have launched a drive for donating diabetes supplies to distribute them to people in need.
November is National Diabetes Month, and the 14th November is World Diabetes Day. We’re delighted to share the many events on offer for people living…
Living with diabetes is tough – we all know that. But if you need to see someone for diabetes burnout or depression (or any other reason), how can you get your medical aid to cover a psychologist?
World Diabetes Day (WDD) is on Monday 14th November. We’re excited to share some information with you from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) about how you can get involved and raise awareness.
One of the most important ways of managing type 2 diabetes is through a healthy, balanced diet, ofcos besides taking medication and exercising. Being mindful…
Having one of those days (or weeks or months) when diabetes is getting you down? Here are some things that might help. Some days, diabetes…
To celebrate 15 years of diabetes, Sweet Life’s co-founder Bridget McNulty shares 15 things she’s learnt from having diabetes…
Learning to accept a diabetes diagnosis is a big task… We asked our South African diabetes community for their best advice – here it is.…
Have you heard of Congenital Hyperinsulinism? Read on to hear Lienke’s story, and the challenges she has overcome.
SA Diabetes Advocacy has recently launched a 4 week Diabetes Advocacy Training course. It’s entirely online and totally free, and they want to empower as many diabetes advocates as they can. We asked them to explain more about the course…
What kind of information are you looking for in a sex and diabetes course? What do you wish healthcare providers knew about sex and diabetes? What’s your lived experience?
As Heart Health Awareness Month (September) draws to a close, here are a few reminders why people with diabetes need to be aware of heart health.
We’ve been talking about diabetes burnout a lot lately – what it is, what to do about it and how to help during diabetes burnout. The other option we want to discuss is how diabetes coaching can help.
Diabetes burnout is unavoidable, when you’re living with diabetes. But how can you help during diabetes burnout? What can you offer someone you love who is struggling?
None of us would choose diabetes, it’s true. But many of our community members have found a silver lining to diabetes with their diabetes-inspired businesses . Here are some of their stories – women who started a business specifically because of diabetes.
When Lize reached out to say that both she and her daughter Liya-Lome have Type 1 diabetes, we had to know more… Here’s their mother-daughter story.
If you haven’t read our Annual Report yet, what are you waiting for?! If you’re just looking for the highlights, though – here’s our year in review…
While diabetes has some common symptoms – particularly before you are diagnosed – there are also some less common side-effects of diabetes, when you live with the condition every day.
I could not be more excited to share The Type 1 Diabetes Guidebook – for parents with you. Here’s how to download your copy!
Sweet Life was so delighted to support the Mitchells Plein Diabetes Community Wellness Group at their recent seniors support camp. They are one of Diabetes SA‘s support groups, doing such wonderful work.
A recent announcement on the radical reduction in price of dulaglutide (Trulicity) will be welcomed by prescribers in South Africa. The DISCOVER study by Dr…
We love sharing our community’s stories of life with diabetes – including how to accept a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Here is Mokopane Bohlale’s story.…
We all have good and bad days, and it’s hard to stay motivated on the bad ones. It’s even harder when you have a chronic condition.