FDA Approval of Inhaled Insulin Has Been Life-Changing for This Teen with Diabetes

Jennifer Seigrist (left) and her daughter Taisie Seigrist (right). Photo by Jennifer Seigrist The FDA has approved Afrezza, an inhaled insulin, for children and adolescents. Taisie Seigrist is a 15-year-old who took part in the clinical trial for Afrezza. Seigrist said the needle-free option has changed her life. When Taisie Seigrist was 10 years old, she began experiencing persistent thirst and the urge to urinate frequently. “She would come home from school and drink five glasses of water instantly,” her mom, Jennifer, told Healthline. Concerned that Taisie might be ill, Jennifer turned to her sister-in-law, who lives with type 2 diabetes, for help. Jennifer asked her if she could borrow her glucose meter to test Taisie’s blood sugar. The device revealed that Taisie’s blood sugar was 684 mg/dL, which is dangerously high. “We called our doctor, and he said go straight to the children’s hospital, so we did, and we were there for about a week,” said Jennifer. Doctors diagnosed Taisie with type 1 diabetes in 2021. “It was scary for both of us to hear,” said Jennifer. Learning to live with type 1 diabetes While Taisie left the hospital with a continuous glucose monitor that helped manage her condition, she also relied on mealtime injected insulin shots, as often as seven times per day. “A pump wasn’t really a good option for us because of our lifestyles,” said Jennifer. For the first two years after Taisie’s diagnosis, her mom administered mealtime shots for her. Then Taisie began doing them herself. Because Taisie didn’t have a lot of body fat, she had to keep returning to the same injection sites. “Taking shots really hurt, especially doing it in the same place,” Taisie told Healthline. The shots also affected her quality of life. Injected rapid-acting insulin takes about 15 minutes to start working and stays in the body for 2 to 3 hours, which made it difficult for Taisie to administer during school and at track and cross-country. If her blood sugar needed correctin