Diabetes is a chronic Life long condition, which in a life will affect a person and their surroundings completely. These costs are emotional, physical as well as financial. Without a cure,effective management becomes the  only key issue in a diabetics life without it we are doomed to complications from blindness to limb amputations and ones mortality is never fay away from thought.

It costs an upward of  $ 12,000 a year and a cost of up to 400,000 in a lifetime to treat someone with diabetes so it is a pretty expensive disease to manage.

 While  some of us are lucky to have good medical coverage that will pay for the financial cost of our medications, Insulin, pumps, meters and test strips, things tend to get dicey for those lacking medical coverage.

Diabetes management becomes more of a luxury than a necessity when the out of pocket costs become unaffordable. Many are left to do anything and everything in their power just to make it on a daily basis.

When I was diagnosed 11 or so years ago I was simply working a minimum wage job without health benefits and after my initial Insulin regimen wore off, I couldn’t afford to buy as much as I needed. The only option I had left was to do what I could.

• I was taking less insulin than what Iwas prescribed, and sometimes only when I felt the symptoms of hyperglycemia. 
• I started testing less frequently until I stopped entirely since I couldn’t afford the test strips.
• I was re-using syringes by boiling them in hot water to sterilise them. 
• I could not keep up my follow up appointments
• Never attended my psychological appointments that would otherwise have helped me with my adjustments to the disease

My final play was to stop treatment and management altogether because I just couldn’t afford it and for years after that I went without.

Mine is not a unique story however, I have met a lot of people in my shoes who are the working poor of the middleclass that lack medical coverage from their employer but make too much to qualify for medicare and medicaid.

For them diabetes management is not a necessity but rather a luxury.