Welcome to T1D Global — Four Decades of Lived Experience, Now in One Place

A journal from inside the disease

Type 1 Diabetes is a full-time, high-stakes job nobody trained you for. If you’ve lived with it — or you’re helping someone who does — you already know what the pamphlets don’t say: the unglamorous 95% of T1D is the decisions you make every hour of every day, forever.

I’m John Chitta. I’ve been carrying this disease since I was 10 years old. That was 1983. Over four decades I’ve used every insulin delivery method that existed — from one NPH injection a day, to MDI pens, to tubed pumps, to modern automated insulin delivery. I’ve tested with urine strips, then fingersticks, then CGMs. I’ve watched the entire modern T1D toolkit get built around me.

Why this site exists

The internet is full of diabetes content. Most of it is written by people who have never lived it, optimized for ad revenue, or watered down into useless “eat healthy, stay active” advice. You deserve better.

T1D Global is a patient-voice reference. Every article here is:

1. Written from lived experience — filtered through four decades of actually doing this
2. Verified against primary research — ADA, JDRF, FDA, and peer-reviewed literature
3. Clear about the difference — personal experience is labeled separately from research

I’m not your endocrinologist. Nothing here replaces professional medical care. But if you want a voice that’s walked this road for four decades — and who checks every claim against the science before publishing — you’ve found it.

The three pillars

We’ll organize everything around three long-form pillars:

Technology & Devices

From urine strips to Dexcom G7, from NPH to Omnipod 5 and Tandem Control-IQ. The full device story, including what the marketing won’t tell you.

Daily Life & Management

The 50-plus decisions you make every day: meals, exercise, sleep, work, travel. The unglamorous 95% that determines whether T1D wrecks your life or recedes into it.

Long-Term Journey

Growing up with this disease, mental health, burnout, relationships, aging with T1D — the decades-long story that only 40-plus years can teach.

What’s coming

Over the next six months, I’ll be publishing in-depth pieces across all three pillars. No sponsored posts. No hidden affiliate traps. No AI-generated filler. Just signal.

Subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of this page if you want one email per week with the new article and nothing else.

Welcome to T1D Global.

— John Chitta