New Possibilities for Type 1 Diabetics
Tony Di Giovanni was one of the first patients to receive a kidney pancreas transplant while suffering from ongoing foot infections, curing him of his diabetes.
"After almost 50 years living with type 1 diabetes, Tony was cured"
After living with Type 1 diabetes for almost 50 years of his life, Adelaide resident Tony Di Giovanni was one of the first patients to receive a kidney pancreas transplant while suffering from ongoing foot infections, incredibly curing him of his diabetes!
Tony was managing his diabetes until his kidneys began failing and as a result in 2007 he began dialysis for four hours a day, three times a week at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Hampstead.
Initially, Tony was told he needed to amputate his leg before being accepted onto the transplant list for a kidney. This was due to ongoing foot infections from an ankle injury, which led to his ankle being cut out and ending up in a permanent moonboot.
“I was having a lot of operations on my foot with bone grafts and metal plates, but it wasn’t healing,” Tony said.
“In 2011, with the support of my doctor Professor Toby Coates, we stopped the operations and for the next year, Prof Coates closely monitored my foot through medical imaging to make sure I had no infections.
“After that I went on the transplant list and in June 2014, I received a call from Westmead Hospital in Sydney and they had a kidney and pancreas for me. I had the transplant that same day and spent six weeks recovering.
“It’s a very big operation and the doctors closely monitored my foot for any potential infections.”
The risk of infections increases after a kidney transplant as patients are required to take immunosuppressant drugs to prevent the body’s immune system from attacking the new kidney.
Tony’s success has opened up new possibilities for doctors to treat other patients with leg infections without having to amputate it.
“It’s pretty incredible how far medical research has come,” Tony said.
“Back in the ‘70s the management of diabetes wasn’t as advanced as it is today. I still even remember using glass syringes and thick needles for my insulin injections and having to complete three daily urine tests for my sugar levels. It wasn’t a simple pin prick blood test like it is today.”
It’s for this reason Tony supports Kidney, Transplant and Diabetes Research Australia so that medical advancements can continue to improve the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes.
