The insulin pump is with Liva everywhere. But occasionally she is allowed to take it off.
– I take it off when I play football. I press “Supply stopped” and take him off. It works quite well, says 11-year-old Liva Grindheim Opdal from Haugesund.
The pump has a thin tube that goes into the thigh. In addition, she has a glucose sensor in the same place that measures blood sugar.
The two units talk to each other and regulate how much insulin Liva needs.
– The pump has helped me quite a lot, says the 11-year-old.
The insulin pump has helped Liva Grindheim Opdal to a simpler life.
Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / NRK
In addition, he and his family count carbohydrates.
Before Liva goes to school in the morning, mum Ingeborg Grindheim Opdal has put a note in the lunchbox. It says how many carbohydrates are in the snack.
Ten minutes before Liva is to eat, she enters how many carbohydrates the food has, and the pump then calculates how much insulin she needs.
After Liva Grindheim Opdal has prepared her school lunch, mum Ingeborg puts a note in the lunchbox with the words on carbohydrate. Ten minutes before Liva is to eat, she has to enter the number of carbohydrates into the pump, and then the pump adjusts how much insulin she needs.
Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / NRK
In sum, this means that Liva and her family have a completely different weekday now than when Liva was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was twelve years old.
– Technology means that we can now sleep at night. There have been many wakeful nights, but a lot has happened in these ten years. From having diabetes in the frontal lobe all the time, to now being able to take breaks. It has been absolutely fantastic, says Ingeborg Grindheim Opdal.
Every year, approximately 400 children get type 1 diabetes in Norway. A total of around 3,000 Norwegian children have diabetes.
Are you wondering what diabetes is? Check this video.
If our body does not manage to make the right amount of a substance called insulin, we have a disease called diabetes.
Huge progress
Senior doctor Heiko Bratke at Haugesund hospital has followed Liva and her family for all these ten years. At the same time, he has written a doctorate.
In the course of his research, he has made discoveries that show that blood sugar levels in Norwegian children and young people with type 1 diabetes have dropped significantly over the past ten years.
– That’s very good. That is what we want. A lower long-term blood sugar seems to reduce the risk of late complications when they become adults, says Bratke.
Senior doctor Heiko Bratke’s research shows that the blood sugar in children with diabetes 1 has fallen markedly in the last ten years.
Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / NRK
The research has resulted in Bratke having a scientific article on the topic published in the journal Diabetes Care at the end of April.
Bratke’s findings show that the drop in blood sugar levels comes from technological advances such as insulin pumps and glucose sensors, carbohydrate counting and a new methodology in children’s wards in Norwegian hospitals.
In Norway, 98 per cent of all children with type 1 diabetes are included in the Child Diabetes Register. The children annually submit a variety of data, and in this way you can see what works from treatment and how well it works.
In 2022, 40 per cent of children reached the international target for long-term blood sugar. Ten years ago, this figure was 10 percent. The national figures for 2023 are not clear, but the trend seems to continue.
– The children have a much better everyday life today than they had before. Among other things, they get much better training in handling their illness, says Bratke.
Liva, and not least, mum Ingeborg, can sign off on that.
– For us, the aid we received was worth its weight in gold. They contributed to her being allowed to be a child and play in peace, while we adults could take care of the treatment itself, says mum Ingeborg.
For Ingeborg Grindheim Opdal and her family, the technological advances have been invaluable.
Photo: Gisle Jørgensen / NRK
The long-term effect
Norway is right at the top of the world when it comes to how many people get type 1 diabetes. Why the Nordic countries have the most cases of diabetes in relation to the population, no one has found out.
At the same time, statistics from the Child Diabetes Register show that girls generally have slightly higher average blood sugar than boys. The experts also lack an answer to that.
– We have to work on that in the future, and try to make it equally good for both sexes, says senior doctor Heiko Bratke.
But the progress in blood sugar levels makes Bratke believe that the children growing up now will be better off when they get older than today’s 50-year-olds with diabetes.
– The children will also have a completely different life when they grow up. Those who developed diabetes 50 years ago had a high chance of developing heart and vascular disease, kidney disease and eye problems. I think that in the future we will see much less late complications, and that is very good.
Ingeborg Grindheim Opdal hopes that the technology will make new progress.
– We have dreams and hopes that more will happen on that front.
Tags: insulin pump life easier Liva diabetes NRK Rogaland Local news radio
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