The Diabetic Mogul

Participants in blue and facilitators in red We successfully hosted a powerful integrated camp for young people living with Type 1 Diabetes, Sickle Cell Disease, and Rheumatic Heart Disease at Mkoba Teachers College, Gweru, from the 26th to the 30th of August 2025. The camp was organized by the Midlands Diabetes Interest Group, in collaboration with SolidarMed, and in partnership with the Lili Grace Foundation, Panorama Global/T1D Community Fund, Size Investments, Harare Institute of Public Health (HIPH), Profmed, Diamond Pharmacy, Lions Club Gweru, Gweru Children’s Specialist Hospital, and Gweru City Council. What made this camp unique was not only the diversity of conditions represented but also the holistic and interactive approach taken. Every session was designed to encourage questions, dialogue, and real-time learning, ensuring that the content was not just theoretical but directly relevant to the participants’ daily lives. Highlights from the Sessions 1st Session We opened with ...

Group photo From the 8th to the 10th of July 2025, I had the absolute honour of attending the 2nd International Conference on PEN-Plus in Africa (ICPPA) held in Abuja, Nigeria. What a phenomenal gathering it was—a convergence of policymakers, implementers, donors, civil society, and people with lived experience, all rallying behind one shared mission: to scale equitable, decentralized care for people living with severe chronic NCDs across Africa. Alongside my dear colleague Neema Mohamed, we had the distinct privilege of representing Voices for PEN-Plus, and let me be clear—we didn’t take this lightly. As has now become tradition, I’ve penned this brutally honest reflection not as a box-ticking exercise, but as a call to remember, act, and deliver. The stakes are high. People are watching. People are waiting. A Voice From Within the System: No Longer an Afterthought This year’s conference was unlike any other. For the second time, Voices for PEN-Plus were not just included—they were he...

On 28 June 2025, we hosted an unforgettable and deeply meaningful workshop at Sally Mugabe Children’s Hospital under the theme “Diabetes and Wellbeing.” This full-day engagement was a collaborative effort between our clinic, the Pediatric Diabetes Clinic from Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, and the phenomenal support of #dedoc° , through our remarkable friend and ally, Bastian Hauck. The program brought together teens, young adults, and their families, creating a safe, supportive, and educational space where knowledge, advocacy, and lived experience intersected. Session Highlights: Tinotenda Dzikiti opened the session with “T1DM Overview and Lived Experience,” He provided a foundational understanding of type 1 diabetes as an autoimmune condition, highlighting its key symptoms. He reflected on the emotional impact of diagnosis, sharing how isolating the early years were for him—navigating life with T1D while relying mostly on adults living with type 2 diabetes for support, simply becau...

Let’s talk about a brutal truth: the global diabetes care playbook was not written with the Global South in mind. It was written in boardrooms, clinics, and conference halls in cities equipped with continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), insulin pumps, closed-loop systems, and endocrinology specialists on speed dial. And then—without pause—it was handed down to us as the gold standard. But here’s the kicker: while the benchmarks are aspirational, the tools to achieve them remain locked behind the towering walls of inequality. For people living with diabetes in Africa and across many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the standard of care set by high-income countries (HICs) is not just unreachable—it’s stigmatizing. Take “Time in Range” (TIR), for instance. It’s a concept that makes perfect sense when you’re wearing a CGM and adjusting basal rates on an insulin pump. But when you’re injecting premixed insulin twice a day without a glucometer or test strips, it becomes an abstract met...

Travel is often celebrated as an escape — an opportunity to break free from routine, explore new cultures, and broaden one’s perspective. But for those of us living with type 1 diabetes (T1D), travel is less of an escape and more of an intricate balancing act — one that demands heightened awareness, recalibration, and constant decision-making, especially when shifting between time zones. When I first travelled to the USA, I was still on Multiple Daily Injections (MDI), armed only with my Freestyle Libre 2 CGM — a gift from friends abroad. I was grateful for it, deeply so. But even with a CGM, navigating blood glucose management across continents was a physical and mental marathon. My body — used to one rhythm — was suddenly thrown into another. Meals, insulin doses, activity levels, even sleep — nothing matched anymore. My target range quickly became more of a dream than a standard, and glycemic control slipped through my fingers. There was no pump to automate anything, just me, my p...

Omnipod Eros & Dexcom G6 Four months ago, I embarked on a hybrid closed-loop journey, armed with an Omnipod Eros, Omnipod Dash, Medtronic pump, Freestyle Libre 2, Dexcom one, and Dexcom G6, and the unwavering support of my closest friends in the diabetes DIY community. If you had told me a year ago that I’d be managing my diabetes with a fully integrated loop system, I probably would have laughed—partly in disbelief and partly because, let’s be honest, technology and I have had a complicated relationship. Yet, here I am, looping away like a tech-savvy T1D warrior, all thanks to the relentless kindness, generosity, and “we’ll-make-it-happen” attitude of some truly incredible people. From “Would You Wear a Pump?” to “Here’s Everything You Need” Medtronic 754 It all started with a simple yet life-changing message: "Hey Tino, if you’ll come to ISPAD, tell me what I can ‘collect’ for you that you are using for your personal T1D management. I’ll be happy to share what I can.” Imagin...