I don’t find there are too many jokes about it- in fact, back when I was diagnosed in 1980 kids were told by their parents to stay away from me because they could ‘catch’ what I had. sigh As if I had cooties… (I was 6, btw. Prime cootie time.)
At 30+ years with this disease everything is funny to me. I regularly apologize to my endocrinologist for being his ‘slappy’ patient. I am pretty much just sitting on the wave of this thing until a ‘cure’ comes along- preferably in the artifical pancreas type as I don’t want to deal with drugs any more than I already do…
Well… my big problem is that people think they know what causes Type 2 because they get bombarded with a bunch of misinformation on tv, and they don’t know that either, much less Type 1… and they extrapolate it to anyone who says they are Diabetic, regardless of the type… While Type 2 has more metabolic components, it’s not like that’s caused by “eating too much candy,” either, or from purely being overweight. Otherwise, Halloween would be cancelled, and ALL overweight people would have Diabetes, regardless. So… As a Type 2, that’s pretty annoying to me, too.
I don’t think she gets a lot of heartache that people confuse her with Type 2… she problly just gets annoyed with people telling her she ate too much candy, or to just get on a diet and exercise… or some of the same stuff we get from people, ourselves. lol You know… stuff implying she caused her Diabetes… from “poor diet and lack of exercise, and too much candy…” Like people don’t know the two causes are different (autoimmune vs. metabolic dysfunction induced by the immune system), and that while lifestyle may snowball the disease more quickly in Type 2, it just doesn’t seem to play a big role at all in Type 1. (I say “doesn’t seem” because other than an auto-immune attack on the Pancreas, we really don’t know what provokes that… Though lots of culprits have been suggested everywhere…) I guess, in the grand scheme of things, no one wants to be persecuted and treated like they caused their own disease… or be lectured by the Diabetic police on ‘what to do’ to make it better…
I don’t think… that Type 1 and Type 2 are that different, personally. My dad went through everything/every complication there is, and he dealt with terrible lows, and he dealt with blindness, and amputations… and dialysis… and though the way to a faulty pancreas may be different, the end result is the same. I don’t quite know what was so different about that from a Type 1… He also died before his time… at 63. “Diet and exercise” never made it alright… and yeah, he had poor access to things. Life is just challenging for everyone, and I think we tend to think “that person has it easier,” but then we don’t really know their story… unless we ask.
I have fallen into the trap of assuming Type 2s have it easier than Type 1s, which may or may not be true, depending. This website is a good reminder that everyone has their own story, regardless of the type. I personally have had that bias since I was part of a study group years ago at a large hospital in California. The group was meant to focus on how to improve diabetes care for the hospital’s patients. There were 12 Type 2s and 2 Type 1s. The Type 2s drove me crazy b/c they would go on and on about how it was so hard for them to do their blood sugar ONCE a week or hard for them to exercise, etc. The other Type 1 and I didn’t know how to react, how to explain without being insensitive that we had never in our memorable lives (she and I both were diagnosed before age 5) known what it might be like to eat without thinking or go a day without doing at least one blood sugar. It wasn’t until I joined this website that I learned that many Type 2s are MUCH more responsible and have to deal with more than just “do some exercise and test your blood sugar once in awhile.” It has been really eye-opening. I think the real difference (IMHO) comes down to when you were diagnosed, which really seems to affect how people deal with their illness and how they think about it. I’ve noticed a lot of people think of their lives are “pre-diabetes” and “post-diabetes,” which never occurred to me before. Lots of interesting stuff.
Thanks for sharing… that’s a very excellent point you make. I think being on here has also taught me that there are also Type 1’s who don’t watch their diets at all, and who never even test. There are people who frequently brag about how they shoot insulin “blind” without even testing. I cringe, but what can I say? Those people are adults. lol There’s going to be people who gamble with their health, or people who whine a lot, no matter where you go… and people who are very watchful and responsible and have good advice to share… and I do think time of diagnosis plays a role, too… We’re all just people, after all… dealing or not dealing with things… heh My dad had a period time when he didn’t need pills or insulin, but then that quickly deteriorated… I think I liken that a lot to “honeymoon periods” in Type 1’s… Depending on how young we were diagnosed, we may keep that up for a little longer… but not really necessarily, as it is a degenerative disease. However long it lasts seems to be a combination of tight control and “luck of the draw” or genetics. I guess… similarly, Type 1’s may keep a honeymoon period lasting a long, long time… sometimes up to 7 years… again, dependent on tight control, and luck or genes.
I don’t understand why you don’t see how offensive it is for you to spread your hate all over the message boards. We get it: you hate people who weigh more than you do, you hate people who are older than you are. Instead of affixing the blame for the eating disorder on the mentally ill person where it belongs, you want to lash out at other people who have a completely different chronic illness.
No that’s not what I’m saying at all Frances. I am saying that it is very frustrating as a type one to be continually confused with a type 2 grandmother who managed to go through her whole life with out a diabetic coma, without a Ketoacidosis and never had to worry about dead in bed syndrome. And for the record I’m not exactly thin myself I have nothing against people who are heavier than me whatsoever. But you have hit the nail on the head it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT chronic illness. And if it were seperated more then I wouldn’t have so many mentally ill teenagers to look after. You have no idea about me who I am or what I do. I would suggest from this post that it is you who are lashing out Frances. Not I
And I think you are placing completely inappropriate blame on a large population of people who are absolutely blameless here. Teenagers with and without diabetes have eating disorders. Teenagers with type 1 have the opportunity to abuse insulin, making it easier in a sense to have an eating disorder. Are you going to lash out at models for appearing in magazines and being thin? Are you going to lash out at boys who make rude comments to girls about their weight? If not, lay off the criticism of type 2 diabetics, who have done NOTHING to the girls that you describe. Get them to focus on their own lack of self-esteem, which is a feature that is common to adolescents like yourself.
I think Frances goes too far here. There is nothing wrong with your statement “Because type 2 CAN be caused by diet and lifestyle factors and type 1 CAN’T”. The CAN is important here because it is the root of many misconceptions about T2. In the general public the “CAN” was wrongly adopted as “IS CAUSED BY”. T2 and T1 face these prejudices and we should fight them strongly and in unity. Like a mantra we should point out the genetic predisposition of T2 as the root cause.
Still it is important to note that the prejudices might be a another driver for eating disorders of young T1 diabetics. We are talking about teenagers here and they can not easily oppose these misconceptions people have.
