Diabetes is a medical condition that should come with its own dictionary.

I’m not exaggerating. A diabetes diagnosis means having to learn what feels like a whole new vernacular in order to thrive with it. Words and terms like bolus, basal, CGM, A1c, among many others, can be straight-up confusing – especially if you didn’t grow up with diabetes like I did. It only recently occurred to me that I avoided a tough learning curve by receiving my diabetes diagnosis early in life. I knew the meaning of “hypoglycemia” and “endocrinologist” at an age when most kids were just trying to figure out how to say simpler phrases like “the cat sits on the mat”. I grew up speaking diabetes, a second language that I don’t always give myself credit for knowing as well as I do.\

I know it so well, in fact, that I’m often sprinkling in diabetes words and phrases into my regular daily conversations. I expect my close relatives and friends to know what the difference between my “pod” and my “PDM” are, but I sometimes forget that colleagues or acquaintances might find my diabetes terms confusing. That’s one reason why I added a “diabetes dictionary” section to this website. It’s definitely not complete, but it’s a solid starting point for anyone who’s trying to understand the many acronyms and fancy-sounding medical terms that make up the language of diabetes. And a second reason, that goes hand-in-hand with that explanation, is to hopefully make it a little easier for newer readers and visitors to this website to pick up on the diabetes-related words that I use throughout most of my blog posts.

So feel free to peruse my incomplete diabetes dictionary here – I promise it’s a much shorter read compared to a traditional dictionary. And let me know in the comments if there’s anything you think I should add there, as it’s been a minute since I revisited it.