i am right there with you acid rock!
Well said and blessings, my friend, panceraswanted...
Me, too, Acid and panceraswanted.....
>>>>You too can be a T2 for a day. Just do it! Double up on your basal injection for the day, and do not bolus with any fast-acting. If on a pump, just do a temp basal increase, and don't bolus.
Done that....(for several years)
In 1977, when I was diagnosed, the standard treatment for T1 was 1 shot of Lente per day (or in my case mixed Lente + Ultralente). No Regular (short-acting) insulin as it was considered old-fashioned. Eat a strictly controlled diet with a fixed number of exchanges and eat at a fixed time each day (half hour late for dinner = hypo!).
No test strips in those days, but I suspect that BG profiles comprised big spikes after meals grafted onto an underlying trend of constantly dropping BG. I don't think the experience was anything like being T2.
Joel
Oh, and you've shown yourself to be an absolute paragon of tolerance, haven't you. But I'm a T1 so I'm "ignorant", aren't I. Give me a break.
I don't care about being a T2 for a day.....and I can truly only feel my pain and suffering. Can I show empathy.....yes, but I can never walk in your shoes and a common mistake made on the web forums is, the written word is too sharp,too heavy,and way too bitter.
Dave you could never go back in time and see how much damage diabetes has done to a T1 or what it's like to have your life altered in so many ways...
Example: Go back in a time machine to high school, nice sunny day and all of your friends are walking home from school or headed to a friends house....NOT YOU, mom will pick you up and it's strait home for you...
Date night (Saturday night) 3-4 hours only...and you must be back home...YOU can only go out of the house one night a week, the worrying and waiting for that 3-4 hours is practically unbearable for your mum, sitting buy the phone waiting for that call, are you going to need help or even worse.....
Friends headed out on skateboards, NOT YOU, YOU cannot get around the block most days without going low...That killer NPH.....yes insulin is better now, but the bitterness of the old insulin is hard to forget....
Every day is a new Bete's story...and yes we have good days...without a few good days there would be no hope at all for a T1.......
In the long run it's not about the insulin...it's about the quality of our lives.....
I truly hate when we treat each other poorly. We all have diabetes. We all deal with various aspects of diabetes and we have a lot more in common between T1 and T2 than we have differences. And we should all be working together on the issues of education and misunderstanding. The problems within our community are nothing compared to what we face with the naive public. So I'd like to post a list of my reasons that I feel being T2 truly bites. I bet many of us would agree with a number these no matter what type of diabetes you have.
Brian’s Ten Reasons it Bites to be a T2
- You get personally blamed for giving yourself diabetes
- You get told you are fat and that is why you have diabetes
- Your diabetes and treatment actually makes you fat and sicker
- You are told that you can’t have test strips cause testing is useless and a waste for T2s
- You are denied insulin, access to pumps and CGMs
- No matter what you do, your blood sugar still goes crazy
- You are given truly bad dietary advice, almost to the point of being dangerous
- You are constantly treated as non-compliant by your doctor just because your diabetes doesn’t “get better.”
- You are mistreated, not given needed tests nor a proper diagnosis and then given expensive, potentially dangerous drugs with major side effects that often are truly useless
- Since you won’t die immediately, your poor blood sugar control isn’t something your doctor even has as a priority, an A1c of 7% is just great
Thank you Judith!!
We should all remember that we hate it when people say - D isn't so bad, you could have C. And the real answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no.
A community isn't formed when everyone is exactly alike or agrees 100% on everything. It is formed when people treat each other well and act with basic solidarity. The measure of a community is its ability to disagree not its ability to walk in lock step.
Hey Dave -
Just wanted to mention that I think it's great that you were able to reread and reevaluate your post. It's hard to apologize.
No matter the type, a huge majority of folks on this site have empathy for both the T1s and T2s. And we all have issues with people who are judgmental and uninformed, whether they are loved ones, strangers, doctors, or even our fellow diabetics. When particular snarky comments on TuD get to me, I try to remember that a small portion of the online population here does not represent everyone.
So keep venting about feeling misunderstood and how hard it is to get good medical care. The venting itself is important, as are the issues themselves.
Nicely put Brian. I certainly have experienced all the above.
I experience some of the problems associated with insulin use, I say some but not all. I know the joys of a bad low from a bolus that's to large, I also know how quickly my BG can rise if the bolus just isn't adequate. As a totally insulin T2 I can to some extent relate but I don't believe that I can ever fully understand what T1 is like. I do not feel the pressure of daily life and death decisions, at least not to the extent that a T1 does because extreme lows and extreme highs are not nearly as prevalent in T2. An immediate life threatening hi or low is not always front and center on my radar, I cannot imagine the stress it must bring.
I have lived all of the ten reasons listed above but I have also glimpsed at what life is like for a T1. I consider myself sort of setting in the middle and from my point of view neither type is a cake walk. I have full respect for anyone that is doing what they must do to live with all types of this disease.
Exactly. Take a step back and think about those T1's on here who grew up with this nasty disease, the children who went through h@ll, boiling needles, shooting a frickin' harpoon into their delicate flesh, one shot, peeing on strips. Imagine being a parent of a type 1 child - the fear, constant worry, stress. I'm most certain T2's wouldn't be begging for insulin back then or trying to 'compare' their diabetes with type 1. Oh, and the fact that we can die 'immediately' or rapidly if we take too much or too little insulin..yeah, certainly a plus for being a type 1 and many issues listed by Brian are issues type 1's experience all the time, too. Oh, and the so called metabolic issues, all can be changed, fixed and are not permanent. Autoimmune disease, nothing can be done and we're prone to more AI diseases as well. Many T1's on medicare or other insurance or no insurance, who are 100% insulin dependent and even hypo unaware can't get CGMS, have to fight for strips, etc...Frankly, I find this thread rather offensive.
Dave's application of Brian's top 10 list:
- You get personally blamed for giving yourself diabetes
check- You get told you are fat and that is why you have diabetes
check- Your diabetes and treatment actually makes you fat and sicker
check check check- You are told that you can’t have test strips cause testing is useless and a waste for T2s
check- You are denied insulin, access to pumps and CGMs
Glad not to check this one -- I'm lucky- No matter what you do, your blood sugar still goes crazy
check- You are given truly bad dietary advice, almost to the point of being dangerous
check- You are constantly treated as non-compliant by your doctor just because your diabetes doesn’t “get better.”
check- You are mistreated, not given needed tests nor a proper diagnosis and then given expensive, potentially dangerous drugs with major side effects that often are truly useless
check- Since you won’t die immediately, your poor blood sugar control isn’t something your doctor even has as a priority, an A1c of 7% is just great
And this one is my diabetes passion these days -- improper treatment of T2 diabetics -- check
The last one especially. First off, I'll readily acknowlege that my own personal situation biases me heavily. 15 1/2 years on pills and a straightjacketed lifestyle, and it just kept getting worse. I did all the diet, exercise (mountain biking, weight lifting), etc., got very fit, ate right, carefully monitored BG, and it still gradually got worse and worse. It got more and more constraining to my lifestyle and happiness. Something as simple as going out for the evening for dinner and dancing became a chore. Or a trip to the beach -- can't just have that hot dog.
Diabetes sucked massively up until last June. By chance, due to some other enormous life crises, my diabetes care simply fell completely off the radar for about 18 months. Sugars soared chronically. I was puking at least 2x a week for months and months and months.
I was on my way to killing myself. (Even T2's can kill ourselves this way :-))
I had a come-to-Jesus moment when I wound up in the ER. That's when I flipped 180, and demanded insulin therapy (amazingly, my GP was still resistant to this, even with my a1c soaring at 11%). Fortunately, my endo was a strong supporter, so I started MDI.
I had not felt so good in 15 years. Really. OMG, the experience! In one day my head cleared. My thinking was sharper and quicker than I could remember. I was actually HUNGRY, where I'd had no apetite for as long as I could remember. Food was so GOOD and satisfying, rather than making me puke.
I had gobs of energy. Libido went way up. And most of all, my mood and general happiness kick up a dozen notches.
All in 24-48 hours after starting -- and I emphasize starting -- insulin. This all occurred because I had simply lowered my BG from 350-400 to 180-200. I had been chronically hyperglycemic for so long that my body reacted to 180-200 like 80.
My docs wanted me to take it slow, bring it down to normal over 4-6 weeks. They were worried about false hypo. With good reason. However, I was so determined and motivated at that point I did a ton of research that first week, and decided I could safely push myself down to normal without any ill effect other than the false hypo, which carried with it no danger, just feeling bad.
So I slammed my BG down to 100 in 24 hours. I got the hypo symptoms bad. Kept it down (as best I could) in the 100-140 range after that, and suffered 5 days or so of gradually improving hypo symptoms.
And here I am today. Still feeling healthier, slimmer, and doing 1000x better on insulin therapy than the standard pills + D&E that my "team" had been directing.
I've heard similar stories here from other T2s that started insulin therapy. My own experience absolutely convinces me that all diabetics should be on insulin therapy at some level. Very early on T2s should take fast-acting bolus insulin to control postprandial sugars. From the start.
Doing so might even slow the progress of the disease. There's a huge body of literature out there about glucotoxicity and T2, and all of it points in the direction of trouble. Perhaps if T2's were keeping their BG's truly in line from early on, the disease would not progress as fast -- maybe not at all!
We need a longitudinal study on this.
Regardless, the improvement in my health, well-being, and mental state is fact, so no study needed there.
Insulin in my world is a miracle.
you want to talk about sick, try a good dose of DKA, throwing ketones all over the place, can't get blood sugars down, can't stop throwing up, having trouble breathing, knowing you could die and need to get help if you're aware enough to even do it.
What more can be said?? Sheesh.
Here is some true difference, and these two are very comfortable with each other. We should follow their resolve, and let sleeping dogs lie:
Thanks, roodgirl. Really, thanks.
I'm more than willing to take responsibility for my mistakes. I was rude and snarky in the original post, it was wrong, and I'm sorry.
Regretfully, some other members are not so forgiving. I wish this site had an ignore feature, but I'm disciplined enough to implement that feature all on my own!
Dave, your body still produces a little insulin and might have more corrective capabilities than T1s don't. Additionally, us males don't deal with many hormonal issues women have (periods, menopause, pregnancy). What works for you might not work for others.
Sound point, Scott.
I'd just add to it that everyone's detailed response to insulin is unique. Any one of us, T1, T2, or non-diabetic can be dangerous using insulin, or as safe as possible.
Notice that I included non-diabetics there... of course, there is no disease presentation that justifies administration of exogenous insulin to a non-diabetic (in general...), but that doesn't mean a non-diabetic couldn't take a bolus at a meal to cover the carbs and do it safely -- their pancreas gets a break for that meal.
Nor am I suggesting in any way shape or form that a non-diabetic do this. I raise the hypothetical as argumentum-ad-extremum -- i.e. showing the application of a principle by extreme example.
The point comes back to the two adjectives above "reckless or lackadaisical"... A non-diabetic, being careful and responsible, can safely take a shot of insulin.
Diabetics as well. Type doesn't matter, really. What matters is the degree of effort one puts into doing it right.
Of course, "doing it right" isn't easy. But it's not out of reach.
So, back to what I said, insulin is only dangerous if your careless with it. Rather, it's no more dangerous than a plethora of other drugs people take so long as one is careful and responsible.
As a newbie to this club I just wish/hope that the diagnosis of diabetes alone, type not withstanding, brings me good, compassionate healthcare that will give me the best quality of life possible. We all deserve that much from the people who study and treat this complicated illness.
Good post Sensorium139.
Their metabolic issues aren't going to go away magically, and their beta cell function isn't normal.
The insulin resistance isn't simply because they are fat and don't exercise enough. It won't be cured by losing weight and exercising. Yes, those actions will help their condition, and some who are mildly diabetic might appear cured, but the underlying problems still exist. The insulin resistance may decrease but it won't go away. There is clearly a genetic component to T2, and it could very well be that the metabolic dysfunctions are what causes the food cravings and weight gain.
Additionally, there is beta cell damage (perhaps from burnout) or dysfunction in most T2 diabetics. A normal healthy pancreas wouldn't have a problem increasing production to manage some insulin resistance which is why so many obese people don't have diabetes.
Finally, a T2 diabetic whose beta cells are no longer producing any meaningful amounts of insulin (C-peptide of .01 is at T1 levels) are having to deal with all of the problems that a T1 does in addition to having the underlying metabolic problems. Furthermore, a T2 has a much harder time getting the tools they need.
Before my antibody tests came back all positive along with a very low c-peptide, I was fighting to stay on insulin and being told that 3 test strips a day was plenty. The following day, getting 10 test strips a day wasn't a problem and I was able to get both a CGM and a pump. Having spent 3 years living as a T2 when I was slow onset T1, I'm much happier in these shoes.
PS A lot of those people diagnosed as T2 are probably slow onset T1s who never received the proper tests, and eventually end up on a pill coctail plus insulin.