Upon my release from Joslin Clinic after being diagnosed, everything we knew about diabetes was collected on paper in three places: a red three-ring binder that Joslin created to give to patients, a spiral notebook that my parents carried to each class given on management of diabetes (Back then, Joslin had an in-patient unit and an extensive class schedule for caregivers and PWDs), and a book purchased on our way out written by Dr. Elliott P. Joslin.

That was it. All our knowledge.

If we wanted to learn about new drugs or research, it came from visits to my endocrinologist. My parents would occasionally meet another parent of a T1, but there wasn’t much sharing of recipes or information. I didn’t really know another T1 and it was very…lonely.

No more. With a pitter-patter of fingers on my keyboard, research and information and community is immediate and in my living room. If I want to learn about a particular topic, Google becomes my first line of attack. Here are some of my favorite places to get research and good, trusted information about diabetes.

• PLOS ONE - Diabetic endocrinology - this is not for those who want to read small words or not look at graphs, but it is for those of us who want the latest in the scientific research world. (The general site is great, but I’m linking specifically to the diabetes section.) You can read exciting research with titles like: Telemedicine Application in the Care of Diabetes Patients: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. It’s not for everyone, but I like reading the articles.
• Diabetes Journals, published by the American Diabetes Association. These are the “professional publications”, which means they won’t bore you with the introductory “Diabetes is…” paragraphs and answers to the same questions. You can read abstracts from Diabetes, Diabetes Care, Clinical Diabetes, and Diabetes Spectrum  - and a brand new one called BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care (So brand new that they haven’t published any content yet, but will soon!). Some articles will not help you understand diabetes or what’s going on unless you’re a researcher, but others (especially Diabetes Spectrum) has some great tidbits. You may have to pay to access certain articles, but often you can get the crux of the article by reading the available free abstract.
• Diabetes Mine began in 2005 by Amy Tenderich, has grown to be a great source of all things diabetes for me. Michael Hoskins has given us information that I wouldn’t have been able to find on my own, such as this investigative article about the new Medtronic 530G and Wil Dubois gives a CDE and T1 perspective when answering some tough questions.
• DiaTribe is the Donny & Marie, the Sonny & Cher, the peanut butter & jelly of the diabetes world (These are all good things!), combining research and the psychosocial aspects of diabetes in issues of this magazine that I read from… well, I’d say cover to cover, but it’s online. Subscribe to it and you get the updates as they become available.

These are the places online where I go to get information about diabetes, but they’re certainly not the only good sources. Where do you go to get yours?