Losing the ability to sense low blood sugars is one of the
scariest things for those of us living with diabetes. For one
college student at Purdue University, that hypoglycemia
unawareness led to an average of three ER visits a week (!) Even
with a CGM, this young man diagnosed with type 1 at age 5 wasn’t
able to avoid the insulin reactions because they came on too
quickly. It got to the point where he was close to leaving
school, unable to finish his degree in chemistry. But with the
help of a diabetes alert dog named Tippy, that college student
cut his ER visits down to zero, pretty much eliminated his
insulin reactions, and is now finishing his college degree. This
was the story told recently at the American Diabetes
Association’s Scientific Sessions, as this young man and Tippy
the dog were the first to be a part of a venture between Eli
Lilly and the Indiana Canine Assistant Network (ICAN) in
training hypo alert dogs. But more than that, their story is
paving the way to providing the first-ever scientifi