Staff at Windsor's only diabetes specialized clinic aren't exactly celebrating World Diabetes Day today, but they are marking the occasion.
The Diabetes Wellness program at the Windsor Essex Community Health Centre on Lauzon Parkway held an open house today.
Diabetes patients can visit the clinic and the staff also visit other locations to help people with the condition.
Sandi Dennison is one of the specialists at the clinic and has also lived with Type 1 diabetes her entire life.
She says people with Type 2 diabetes don't often know they have the condition for some time.
"The symptoms don't usually show up early. So by the time the symptoms are there, you've had diabetes for close to 10 years probably. And so people don't really feel ill when they first develop it."
She says the condition is not something you can take a pill and forget.
"Managing diabetes is so important and it's 24 seven, it never goes away. So you wear out and that's why a place like Diabetes Wellness offers support."
She says new technology in the past few years has made quite a difference in monitoring diabetes.
"The monitoring with the flash monitoring, or the continuous glucose monitoring, does, you're more aware of what's happening so you make changes. The new technology of insulin pens and all the new insulins there are."
It's estimated there are nearly 4000 people in Windsor Essex living with some form of diabetes.
Over the next decade there are expected to be one-third more people living with diabetes.