iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Two years ago I had no idea that T1 actually shows up in adulthood for two-thirds of cases! I was 47 when it got me. Pumps sound intriguing but also rather problematic.

I didn't realise you were in our lovely club! How long has it been? I'm only a year and a half in, and still getting the hang of MDI. I have good overall numbers but weird patterns, and it's so stressful!

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Yeah, sharps bins are a bit small for that, at least the size they give us. You doing OK, pet?

That's not picking anything up, but I know there are a few variations, and I haven't looked them up to try yet. I've had proper vertigo where the room is spinning, and it's not like that, but it's not ordinary dizziness yet. Also eep. Do not want. Really do not want.

Oof. The gastro who is vaguely handling my MCAS got me to go off just my fexofenadine "to check whether you really have it" and I had the most horrendous reaction, so if you think this will make you ill as fuck, do tell them! I really don't think he expected it to be that bad.

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Sue Fletcher-Watson @suereviews.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Is there some bug going around which causes dizziness or possibly vertigo? It feels somewhere between the two, the world isn't actually spinning. I'm a hermit who masks etc., but I also have crappy immunity. Also I have a nice cat, please admire my cat.

Ninja Kitty Go, a small black cat of seventeen wearing a harness and lead, is prowling through a park. The autumn sunlight is bright, and the fallen leaves look crunchy on the grass. Photo from my partner Robin when he walked her this morning.

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Reposted by Eve

If you have experienced mental health problems during or after pregnancy, please consider taking part in this study The project is designed to develop a new perinatal mental health measure, which is inclusive of neurodivergent experiences tinyurl.com/PeriNDWell

HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES DURING PREGNANCY OR AFTER GIVING BIRTH?

We are creating a new mental health questionnaire for pregnancy and the post-partum period that reflects the lived experience of autistic/ADHD people.

Who can participate?

Identify as a woman or assigned female at birth
Experienced mental health challenges during pregnancy and/or up to one year after birth in the last year
Aged 18+
Living in the UK You do not have to be neurodivergent!

What does participating involve?

Complete questionnaires in an online survey (about 20 minutes).
All responses are anonymous, questions are optional, you can stop at any time, and your data is kept securely.
You can win 1 of 4 £25 vouchers.
Access the survey here
www.tinyurl.com/PeriNDWell

Contact details: Valeria Garau Trainee Clinical Psychologist v.garau.1@research.gla.ac.uk

Approved by the MVLS Ethics Board Ref: 200250182

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London is huge and contains a lot of different cultures, not just Cockney, plus I left it thirty years ago. So it's entirely possible that the term was being used 15km away from where I grew up.

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Yep, I need to do something with my eyes and hands in order to listen to a book, and I need to have a book on to quilt.

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Oh, no. Sending all the hugs. Does E have it too?

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I wonder how common it is, is it a regional thing? I'm London/Edinburgh and hadn't heard it before today. My cousin married a Moroccan Israeli called Fanny, mind you. She'll be in her mid fifties.

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Of course it is. I remember my uni choir director, who was the Dean, being horrified that one of his students listened to Mozart's Requiem while doing the washing up. It's fascinating how we all have different ways of concentrating on and enjoying something.

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Yeah, the "gaining consciousness" bollocks is like when people say, "Would you stay vegetarian if stranded on a desert island?" or, "How would you get hold of insulin in a zombie apocalypse?" and about as uninteresting to discuss.

@robinjohnson.bsky.social has got me watching some of the Granada Holmes! We've seen two so far, and the whole adoration of Irene Adler thing finally makes sense. It's a gay man admiring an opera singer! Now he can be allowed hyperbole and not need to be in love with her!

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Before we started it, she'd been hissing and swatting when she was being picked up on her walks, for, hmm, a few weeks? That stopped immediately, and she's trotting happily as usual. She's curling up more easily, too.

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In case it helps, the gabapentin is being great for her. Apparently it helps with appetite for about 30% of cats, and we can tell she's in less pain (they're all arthritic at this age). I was doubtful because it can be a rough drug for humans, but the vet was right. She's 3kg and getting 12.5mg.

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I bet they did, it sounds amazing. I have a cauli pasta bake I haven't made in ages, where the key part is a bit of cumin and sundries tomatoes. I must figure out how to make a version my newly torpedoed pancreas will accept, it was so nice.

She's such a beauty. Kiss her for me. How old is she? We've had a few scares with Ninj (17), but sub-Q fluids and Porus One are really helping the CKD, and now a low dose of gabapentin is helping the arthritis and even her appetite. Though the minx did just kill my sleeve. No idea why.

My very own little old lady cat, a glossy black beast wearing a yellow strappy harness and lead, on her daily wall. She's sitting up next to some flowers growing at the bottom of a wall, her tail curled happily.

Here she is curled up on a hand sewn velvet quilt in fiery colours, with a heat pad involved, with her paws in a messy bundle. This is, let's be honest, how she spends most of the day, and she looks very happy.

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Have one on my left leg right now, can confirm.

My temperature regulation is beyond ridiculous, so I rely on the forecast to help me figure out what to wear for Outside. Thr forecast has been betraying me lately.

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Talk about adding insult to injury. Hugs on the rough time, hope it improves.

What was going on with quicksand?! (I grew up in London, quicksand was not on the menu.)

I now have a condition where if things get bad, I really will have to go to hospital. But now I'm type 1 diabetic, they treat me so much better, and I have nurses and even doctors on call if need be. Still dreading possible hospital trips, because I've still got ME, EDS and MCAS.

I've occasionally basted quilts with a curved needle, and they're really hard to use.

Yeah, the trap-neuter-return programme for shoes never really took off.

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I'm 48. At this age, if you're cishet and non-disabled, and your friends generally are too, then the impression I get is that most people you know have kids. My friends are mostly queer and disabled, and few of them have kids. We're doing well to afford keeping pets.

When queer folk had kids back then, it was usually from previous relationships, and it was much less common. The main barrier to having a family when you're disabled is that 90% of us live below the poverty line. I don't think that was better in the 40s.

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Bear in mind we're talking about the 1940s here, so assisted reproduction is only available at the basic syringe level. Which, to be fair, is what my queer friends and family have used (the only people I know who've used IVF were straight), but it wasn't culturally common back then.

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The next generation will be much smaller, because we're less likely to reproduce, and mostly will be straight/non-disabled (though not quite at the same rates as the general population, especially with neurodivergence). It won't be a disabled or a queer country, not past the first generation.

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I don't know about you, but I'm queer, disabled, and was raised Jewish. If you put a lot of Jews in the same country, reserved just for them, then ensuing generations are going to be Jewish. (Few leave Judaism.) So it remains a Jewish country. This won't happen with disabled or queer people.

Did you just compare the genocide of trans people to grumbling about BUYING EGGS? By the way, there are several countries in the UK, and a multi-party system. Stop equating it with your two party system, which behaves nothing like ours.

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Being queer or disabled isn't an ethnicity, has remained stigmatised in other cultures, and it's significantly harder to have children. Better point with Roma/Sinti people, but again, stigma. Someone else made the point about European countries assuaging their guilt for centuries of antisemitism.

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So total nonsense, in other words? I sew entirely by hand, which is why I don't know.

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Gah, I could do with a three week break from eating!

Ooh, you know you can actually get little lamps which connect to the CGM and glow different colours according to your BG? They're called Glowcose, sold in the UK by Lewcose.

I've got MCAS, though, so I've got ridiculously fussy skin. There's a good Facebook group called Dexcom and Libre Rash, or something like that, if she ever has trouble. All the best with her recovery!

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Upper chest is the other site I've used. Four fingers down from the collar bone and in from the armpit, just in from the bra strap. It sits very flat and doesn't get knocked like arms do, so I didn't generally need a patch. I used that for a year, but then started getting worse skin reactions.

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I somehow didn't realise Flo was your partner and guessed you were talking about a child! But hey, I came down with T1 last year at 47 and still went straight for the glitter option. Is she having more balance issues after the stroke? I'm a bit wobbly myself.

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Come on, folks, they're nearly at goal! Let's get them there.

Since this will be an issue for your household, the answer is no, I don't seem to get compression lows when the cat sits on my sensor. Also you can get rainbow holographic glitter stickers for them from Etsy. Very cheering, and cheap.

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Yay! Have you found a brand of over patch that works for her skin? I like D-patch (smooth type), and I put down two layers each of Beconase and Cavilon sprays before I insert a new sensor and put on the patch. I also wear them on my thigh, as I get compression lows if I put them on my arm.

Oh, well, I vaguely remember visiting Luxembourg on the uni orchestra tour when I was nineteen, maybe they'll let me run the place or something?

Would you be OK talking about this by DM, if for no other reason than I'd have it saved and it would be linear?