Being Motivated

Community Share Your Stories
41

Being able to eat & live as a non-diabetic would constitute a cure. Having self-regulating BG that remained within normal ranges without diet, meds or insulin. Yes, there are T2 people here who have achieved normal BG, but not without heroic effort. Deviation in diet & exercise, or becoming ill or an injury, sends their BG out of balance.

Wishing you success on a journey to a cure.

42

My friend, you are not free from diabetes, if your 7.0+ That is a fact, never mind the subject of cures. You still did not answer my question, What were your A1C’s before? You see, I think it would have been different if you would have said “my A1C was 9.0 now it is 7.0” I think maybe you would have gotten a different reaction. However truth be told, you can write anything you’d like us to believe, but because none of us personally know you, that doesn’t make that proof.

Everyone’s reality is different, and I am very careful not to try to discourage others; just because I have not personally seen it. I give you applause you for your stance!! However, as I’ve said many times in my blogs, diabetes is not just an “American Disease”. Around the globe the consensus among all major diabetic research organizations is pretty much the same; diabetes is a bout maintenance, not a cure.

Please don’t mistaken the reaction of others to mean “we don’t want a cure”, or don’t think there could be a possibility of one. However, at least understand this, if there WERE a cure, it would be mass histeria around the world!! In other words, every single news paper, radio, and tv, open the flood gates to this new wonderful news. If there were a cure, no way do I believe something like that would stay quiet.

Om Namah Shivaya

43

I commend that badrirag wants to have tight control, and not be on medications any more. It is a BIG goal to set for oneself, as a diabetic that many of us have struggled greatly to achieve, at all odds, and against the “better judgment” of our doctors offering us medications and diets much higher in carbohydrates. A life of tight control is a desirable life, eliminating likelihood of complications, and extending our lives.

Now, there are many reasons why it is important that we understand that “tight control” is not a cure, and it is not merely semantics. One of those reasons is that the media seldom talks about how type 2 diabetes, is indeed, a progressive illness. How fast, and how degenerative it is, is a very individual and genetic thing… (not a mental thing). It IS a degenerative illness. What does that mean, exactly? It basically means that the cells within our pancreas that produce insulin (beta cells) are slowly dying. All we do with a lowered carbohydrate diet, meditation, and exercise, is slow down this dying progress. However, there comes a time when that deterioration is enough that we no longer can do “tight control” by ourselves, and we all will need medications or insulin. It is a fact of a diabetic life. It is unavoidable.

Calling “tight control” a cure causes many problems:

  1. It creates a sense of failure for the patient who was told all he had to do was eat right, and exercise, and control their stress levels (or even meditate), when they can no longer control their own bodies and they have to get on medications or on insulin;
  2. It creates an unsupportive, uneducated public who does not understand that this is not the patient’s fault. Often, persons who do not understand that this is a life long, chronic illness, lay a lot of blame on the patient, bullying the patient about their diet, weight, exercise, etc… and suggesting if the patient “did enough things,” they would be cured, but they are not because they don’t wan’t to. This, as before, creates a sense of depression and failure, for the patient;
  3. It damages our ability to raise funds to research better treatments and a true cure, whatever those are. (And believe me, scientists are not just researching pills, and chemicals. They are researching everything there is, from injecting insulin into lettuce leaves, to transplanting new beta cells into mice, to transplanting fecal matter from patients.) When the general public does not understand and know that diabetes has no cure, because they believe people could just diet and exercise and meditate into a cure, then they do not donate money to our campaigns, and sometimes huge fund raising dollars go unearned because of these myths. Laws from Congress do not get enacted because no one truly understands the magnitude of this problem, and leave the responsibility just up to the patient.

Right now, the only cure for diabetes is an informed patient. A patient who knows and understands to do all they can to remain with as non-diabetic blood sugar numbers as possible, but who also understands that when that is not physically possible to manage on their own, that it is NOT a failure to take medications or insulin; a patient who understands that one day, we all want a cure, and not a cure just so that we can eat junk… but a cure so that we can enjoy eating the things that we love again, like any person without Diabetes. A cure so that we don’t have to suffer the consequences of complications, which many times are NOT dependent on one’s tight control or blood sugar levels, and are often times genetically pre-disposed. There are many reasons why the understanding of a true cure is important, and not just “tight control.” We do the world a disservice by allowing them to believe that the two are one and the same. No one in this forum is not wanting to have tight control… We ALL fight hard, and sacrifice a lot, for tight control. You can learn much from many of us. What we do not want is to call those things a cure. Diet, Exercise, and Meditation (with no medications) is no more a cure for Diabetes than injecting insulin. We desire for our community to know and understand the difference, and to be empowered about their condition.