Famous Friday Celebrity: Nick Jonas

I was originally going to write a weekly post. Then one of my besties gave me a great idea. She told me I should write about celebrities with Type 1 diabetes and I was so excited to begin this. So we are going to call this segment Famous Fridays and learn about a celebrity who has Type 1 diabetes each Friday. I love learning when a celebrity has Type 1 diabetes because to me it gives us a common ground. I feel like I can walk right up to them and be like I have a MiniMed what do you have? Then we would bond and be best friends forever…Right?!

My first Famous Friday celebrity is Nick Jonas. Nick Jonas and I have a few of things in common. One is we both have type 1 diabetes. The second thing is we both were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on the same month and the same year! And the last thing we have in common, we both decided daily injections were the most frustrating thing on the planet and switched to an insulin pump. He uses the OmniPod and I use Medtronic MiniMed. This is wear he and I differ he loves his OmniPod and only wants that and I love my MiniMed and only want to use Medtronic.

I have always had a small crush on Nick Jonas and part of it was because he had diabetes….and a fun singing voice…ok, ok he is easy on the eyes which makes me feel so weird because he is way younger than I am. But back to his story.

Nick Jonas was on tour with his brothers when he started to get the tell all signs of diabetes. He was grumpy, losing weight, constantly thirsty and constantly having to run to the restroom. When he went to the doctor he was told to go immediately to the hospital where they found out his blood sugars were over 700mg/dl that is a crazy high number. I was only at 250mg/dl when I found out about my condition. When he got out of the hospital he began using insulin injections while on tour and later decided to check out other options because insulin injections were just not the answer. He later switched to the OmniPod and now his blood sugars are in better condition.

One problem he has found with his active lifestyle is low blood sugars. To treat a low blood sugar you have a few options. You can drink juice, use glucose tablets, or eat a small meal or piece of fruit. Nick prefers orange juice. We don’t have that in common because I prefer apple juice. What we do agree on though is that drinking something is the quicker and easier solution to treating your low blood sugars.

His fans now have a game online called spot the OmniPod where they look at old photos of Nick before he announced his diabetes and see if they can see it. Nick has actually help motivate a lot of kids with diabetes feel comfortable about their condition and be more open about it. Which is something that makes me smile. Well can you spot the OmniPod?