What is the DOC (Diabetes Online Community)?

Continuing the discussion from Diabetic Online Community (DOC) Questions. Please participate!:

In all honesty, I have not yet read the migrated 2010 conversation this topic links back to. I’ll do that, but I created this new topic before getting around to that because otherwise I’d probably forget. :blush:

Rather than attempting to resuscitate the old post, I decide to spin off a new discussion mostly because, well, that was five years. :astonished: I’m not sure how much of what is said there still applies.

So … what does using the DOC (Diabetes Online Community) acronym still all about anyway? :confused:

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People with diabetes connecting online. Diabetes can be a war and many of us enjoy the catharsis of sharing war stories. From 1984-2008, I flew solo, met maybe 1/2 dozen fellow D folks, few real connections. That was when I decided to get an insulin pump. At the time, I was into fantasy baseball and felt that message boards were the best format to get answers for questions like “which waiver wire 2B will get hits tomorrow?” and, during the month between when I started getting a pump and when I actually got it, I found the online community at the ADA and started hanging out on their board. Then I moved over here a year and a half later. I wasn’t that connected on FB but have extended myself and gotten out there too. I think that it’s a great resource!!

So … DOC is just a general, abstract concept of a loosely defined collection of people? It doesn’t mean anything beyond that? It’s like “vegan” or “dog/cat person” or “PWD” or “gamer” or … ???

That’s my take as well. It might be better termed Diabetes Online Communities since there are definite pockets of groups out there. I briefly spent some time with some folks on twitter, and other locations, but these days I am mostly here @ TuD and DiabetesMine.

it’s people with diabetes however the more interesting part is how we have empowered ourselves to find each other for support. If you leave the disease out of our story, it would go “patients with a deadly disease use drugs some of which are very dangerous, and blood testing in conjunction with food, activity, stress, illness and other factors to balance their blood chemistry with a goal of ending up in a very narrow range spanning about 40 mg/ DL” One would think that such a ghastly disease would receive support from doctors and insurance coverage for what’s necessary to achieve such a challenging project however, as we have seen reported widely by the DOC, this is not the case. We support each other because we don’t get it elsewhere. Even in situations where we have a good doctor and/ or great CDE, they are only there every so often. The sun never sets on the DOC…

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I’m loving this: “The sun never sets on the DOC.” Thankfully, so true!

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Its this site and others like it and all the D bloggers. Its people and organizations that advocate or are just looking for answers… Basically its it anyone that has diabetes or is touched by it that uses the internet to reach out to others in like circumstances.

Peer to peer relationships using websites like this one, Diabetes Mine, and the many blogs create a community where, despite our relative small numbers, wide geographic dispersion and attendant time zone differences, allow us to support each other.

The greatest benefit the DOC has given me was to read about the great blood sugar control some members posted about. Their highly positive experience told me that very good control is possible. I thought, “if someone else with diabetes can do this, then perhaps so can I.” Knowing it can be done was a potent motivator to help me make significant breakthroughs in my treatment plan. I learned that I was not the only one interested in the data minutia of diabetes. Counterintuitively, increasing complexity in the short run led to simplicity and metabolic sanity in the long run.

The DOC revealed to me many people with diabetes using a low-carb high-fat way of eating as a viable method to minimize both highs and lows and in some situations to even “flatline” blood sugar continuous glucose monitor traces. It would have taken me many lifetimes to connect with these kindred souls in the real world.

As a result, the DOC enabled me to gain control of my diabetes to an extent not possible absent the DOC. Once I knew it was humanly possible to achieve the results I sought, it motivated me to persist until I did actually achieve much less volatile blood glucose numbers.

My better and more stable blood sugar numbers over the last three years have contributed to greatly improved emotional health and sense of well-being. The DOC played a crucial role in that improvement of my quality of life.

Since experiencing this improved sense of well-being I have been trying to “pay it forward,” using the DOC, to let others know how they may improve their lives, too. It warms my heart when I read that someone used my experience to materialy benefit their quality of life. This symbiotic helping environment comprises the essence of the DOC.

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The DOC has been around for a very long time. There where online bulletin boards hosted by individuals using CompuServe and later it was greatly improved by AOL/Netscape in the early 80’s. I learned how to count carbs and dose insulin from a insulin pumpers bulletin board long before it gained wide spread clinical acceptance to count carbs. I was kind of a rebel and did many things that where not clinically approved, I was surprised when I found out through the DOC that many other PWD’S disagreed with Doctors and where doing their own thing, individual treatment gave us better results…and the DOC gave us conformation that our none conformance was wide spread and we where out pacing our clinical “Overlords” with success not failure…things we would have never found out from our doctors.

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