Living With Sharps Every Day: A Personal Perspective on Managing Diabetes
11 March 2025
When sharps are discussed in healthcare, the conversation often focuses on hospitals, clinics and professional care environments. Yet for many people living with diabetes, sharps are not confined to clinical spaces. They are part of everyday life.
Insulin pens, lancets and blood glucose monitoring devices are used regularly to manage the condition, often several times a day. Over time, these tools become woven into daily routines in ways that many people outside the diabetes community rarely see or consider.
In this blog, we hear from Brett Cooper, who has lived with Type 1 diabetes since early childhood and will be featured in an upcoming Sharpsafe Instagram series exploring what it really means to live with diabetes day to day. Brett’s story offers an honest look at the routines, responsibilities and small adjustments that come with managing the condition over a lifetime.
To better understand what living with diabetes looks like beyond the clinical setting, we spoke with Brett about his experience, from being diagnosed as a child to managing the condition as an adult. His reflections highlight how sharps become part of everyday life, and how the habits formed around their use and disposal become second nature over time
You have lived with diabetes for most of your life. Do you remember what it was like when injections first became part of your routine?
I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was about four years old. At that age, I don’t remember every detail of those early days, but I do know it was a big adjustment for my family. For my parents in particular, it was a steep learning curve. Suddenly they had to understand insulin, blood glucose levels, injections and how to keep everything balanced.
It was stressful at first. Managing diabetes involves a lot of responsibility, especially when a child is too young to manage it themselves. My parents had to learn quickly how to give injections, monitor my blood sugar and recognise when something wasn’t quite right.
As I grew older, I gradually started taking on more of that responsibility myself. Over time, injections and finger pricks simply became part of everyday life. What might seem confronting to someone unfamiliar with sharps eventually becomes routine when it’s connected to staying healthy.
For people who don’t live with diabetes, it can be hard to picture what daily management looks like. What does a typical day of managing diabetes look like for you?
For me, living with diabetes is really about balance. Each day involves thinking about food, activity and insulin, and how those things interact.
A big part of it is diet. You try to eat as well as you can most of the time, avoiding too much sugar, carbohydrates or fatty foods. Of course, you can still enjoy those things occasionally, but keeping things balanced helps maintain stable blood glucose levels and can reduce how much insulin you need.
Exercise also plays an important role. That might mean structured exercise or simply staying active throughout the day. Movement helps regulate blood sugar levels and is another factor you learn to account for when managing diabetes.
Then there’s the ongoing monitoring and insulin management. You need to understand how much insulin is required depending on what you’re eating, and timing matters too. For example, insulin often needs to be taken around 20 minutes before eating so it can begin working at the right time.
Technology has made a big difference over the years. I now use an insulin pump, which helps manage insulin delivery and makes balancing all these factors much easier than it used to be.
Even with these tools, diabetes management is something you think about many times throughout the day. Checking blood glucose levels, adjusting insulin and paying attention to how your body responds all become part of a normal routine.
Using sharps is a normal part of diabetes care, but it also comes with responsibility. What do you think about when it comes to handling and disposing of sharps safely at home?
When sharps are part of your daily routine, you quickly realise they need to be handled responsibly. Lancets, needles and other sharps can’t simply be thrown away with normal household waste.
Over time, safe handling becomes second nature. After using a needle or lancet, the priority is making sure it’s disposed of properly so it doesn’t pose a risk to anyone else in the household. That includes family members, visitors or even people who may handle the waste later on.
For people living with diabetes, this awareness develops naturally because we’re using these tools every day. When sharps are used regularly in the home, having the right disposal options, and building safe habits around them, is an important part of managing the condition responsibly.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVfSbbNCalQ/?igsh=emlsa2E5Z3Q4eTRoThinking back to when you were first diagnosed, were you given much guidance about sharps disposal, and do you think people today receive better education about it?
When I was first diagnosed, most of the focus was understandably on learning how to manage diabetes itself, how insulin works, how to measure blood glucose levels and how to recognise when levels are too high or too low.
Since then, education around diabetes care has improved significantly. Today there are far more resources available, and healthcare professionals such as diabetes educators and endocrinologists play an important role in helping people who are newly diagnosed understand how to manage the condition.
There’s also greater awareness now about the importance of safe sharps disposal, both in healthcare settings and at home. People have access to better information and better tools, which makes it easier to build safe disposal habits into everyday routines.
After living with diabetes for so many years, what advice would you give to someone who has just been diagnosed?
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that diabetes doesn’t define who you are. It’s something you manage, but it doesn’t stop you from living a normal life.
Growing up, I always tried to think of myself as just a normal person who happens to have diabetes. There are extra things to think about, and sometimes you need to plan ahead a little more than others might, but over time those considerations simply become part of your routine.
There will be periods when things feel more challenging, particularly during big life changes like puberty, stressful times at school or navigating social situations and alcohol as an adult. All of these factors can affect blood sugar levels, so you learn to adjust and adapt as you go.
The good news is that you’re never managing it alone. There are many healthcare professionals who can help along the way, including diabetes educators, endocrinologists and other specialists. Technology has also made living with diabetes much easier than it used to be, with tools like insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems providing more information and support than ever before.
Most importantly, you learn to understand your own body over time. With experience, routines that once seemed complicated begin to feel natural.
Stories from people living with diabetes offer an important reminder that sharps use is not limited to hospitals or clinics. Safe disposal is part of everyday life for many individuals managing long-term conditions. Sharpsafe designs its containers with this reality in mind, creating solutions that support responsible sharps management across both healthcare and home environments.
To watch the full interview with Brett Cooper, visit:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVfSbbNCalQ/?igsh=emlsa2E5Z3Q4eTRo