Diabetics considered as handicapped?

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/9.00-Endocrine-Adult.htm

We ARE impaired. We can be considered disabled and/or handicapped if we meet the standard definition. Please don’t force your definition on others. If you don’t feel disabled, that’s awesome! Insisting we are all the same is undermining and belittling many others whom may in fact be disabled due to their individual medical situation. You could also simply say “I don’t feel disabled.” That makes it clear it’s your opinion but doesn’t incite reaction from people.

Just my thoughts.

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I live normally, too. I work and play and run and jump and ride and swim, and could surf and sing and dance if I wanted to (though you probably don't want to hear my attempt to sing), and read and volunteer and clean my own house and would LOVE to fly if I ever got the opportunity.

Yet, if you handed me a print book I would be unable to read it. If you asked me to tell you the colour of a traffic light across the street, I wouldn't be able to. If you held up an eye chart, I wouldn't even be able to guess at what the top letter might be (although we all know it's an E). In fact, I probably wouldn't even be able to tell you whether there was a letter or no letter, even at that giant size. By any traditional definition of disability or handicap or whatever, I would meet the definition.

If peoples' objection to the term disability is because they feel a disability must equate to someone being held back and not being able to do something, I would urge everyone to really reconsider what a disability is. A disability means that you need an accommodation to perform an activity that "normal" (for lack of a better term) people can perform without any accommodations. Maybe those accommodations are computer equipment or extra time on an exam or parking close to a building's entrance or getting a break at work so that you can treat low blood sugar. A disability does NOT mean that you cannot do X, Y, and Z - it means you CAN do X, Y, and Z with the right accessibility provisions in place.

A huge, HUGE barrier to people with disabilities achieving equality in this world is that so many people assume that disability equals inability. Why would a teacher want to have a student with a disability in his class if he thinks that student can't be taught? Why would an employer want to hire an applicant with a disability if she thinks the person won't be able to perform the job? Why would a city council want to approve expensive accessibility renovations if they think that people with disabilities can't get out and participate in their communities? Why would a government bother listening to people with disabilities asking for change if they assume that making those changes wouldn't really make a difference because people with disabiliteis aren't capable? Why would anyone ever want to be associated with the term disability if they thought it might make others think that they are limited in life?

If we could break free of this entrenched way of thinking - if people truly believed that with the right accessibility accommodations people with disabilities CAN do everything and CAN be independent and CAN achieve their goals and dreams, and if people truly believed that it is OKAY to have a disability - the world could be a much more accessible and equitable place.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, especially when it comes to somewhat grey areas like whether a chronic illness is a disability. But whether or not diabetes or any other diseases is considered a disability, the reason should not be that, "It's because I'm independent, I can do everything I want to, I live a full life and can contribute to society ..." because people with disabilities can and do all of these things, too.

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Oh, SO well put, Jen. Everyone should read this response twice.

Agreed. A stunning post.

I apologize for side tracking your topic Atish.

"Well, I don't think ADHD, RA, as painful and problematic as they can be...are not life threatening in most cases."

Seriously Diabetic Dad? I figure any premature deaths are too many. My Aunt and my Dad both died due to complications of RA.

Rheumatoid arthritis is not solely a disease of joint destruction. It can involve almost all organs. A life threatening joint complication can occur when the cervical spine becomes unstable as a result of rheumatoid arthritis. It can cause eye complications so patients should have regular eye exams.

Rheumatoid vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels) is a serious, potentially life threatening complication of rheumatoid arthritis. It can lead to skin ulcerations an infections, bleeding stomach ulcers, and nerve problems that cause pain, numbness, or tingling. Vasculitis may also affect the brain, nerves, the heart. It can cause a stroke, heart attack or heart failure.

Rheumatoid arthritis can cause the outer linning of the heart to swell (pericarditis) and cause heart complications. Inflammation of the heart muscle, called myocarditis can also develop. Pericarditis and myocarditis can lead to congestive heart failure.

http://www.drugs.com/rheumatoid-arthritis.html

“Excess mortality” is consistently associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Some research shows that the mortality risk for RA-ers is about 38% greater than for the general population. It was even worse for women who have a 55% increased risk compared to women without Rheumatoid Arthritis. And no miracles of modern medicine have changed that.

http://rawarrior.com/mortality-and-rheumatoid-arthritis/

I have enjoyed this Lady for many years, reading her informative blogs, her ongoing research and her wonderful attitude. I appreciate her sharing her life with us.

Results: Females were significantly over‐represented among RA patients who committed suicide (52.6% RA women vs 17.3% women with neither RA nor OA). Comorbid depressive disorders preceded suicides in 90% of the female RA patients. Before their suicide, 50% of the female RA patients (vs11% of the male RA patients) had experienced at least one suicide attempt. The method of suicide was violent in 90% of the RA females. RA males were less often depressive, but committed suicide after experiencing shorter periods of RA and fewer admissions than females.

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/2/287.full

Another area highlighted in the study published in this month's issue relates to the inadequate recording of RA as a contributory or causative factor on death certificates. In spite of a very high retrieval rate of certification, the presence of RA was recorded only in 18% of all deaths occurring in patients with the disease. This observation has been reported for 20 yrs [16], and the lack of progress over this time highlights the need for all primary and secondary care physicians to recognize the systemic and potentially severe nature of the disorder. Similar issues have been reported with the under-recording of diabetes as a contributory factor in deaths in patients with this condition. Indeed, RA has been compared with diabetes through its association with premature demise as a result of accelerated atherosclerosis, high incidence of renal failure and increased risk of infection, several of the factors confirmed as contributing to death in the ERAS report.

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/2/183.full

I think we often use the terms "Handicapped" and "Disabled" as meaning the same thing. But in fact they mean different things in a very subtle but important way. I have a disability because of my diabetes and my diabetes "may" cause me to have an impairment that restricts my ability to do "normal" things. But that doesn't mean that just because I diabetes that I am handicapped. I feel empowered to do absolutely anything that is normal.

That being said, diabetes is absolutely a disability. And as a disability it is protected in the US by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which provides my rights to reasonable accommodations for my diabetes. Not because I am handicapped but because I have a recognized disability.

Is diabetes a disability?

To me, it's akin to asking,

  • Is milk allergy a disability?
  • Is gluten allergy a disability?
  • Severe allergy to bee stings -- a disability?
I pick on serious allergy here because in terms of it's "disablement", there are a lot of similarities.

Of course, none of these is disabling, nor does the general public see it that way. While diabetes is more involved than, say, gluten allergy, less so than many might casually think. A person with a severe gluten allergy follows many of the same routines we do in terms of managing their diet (just different stuff they're looking and controlling for), their condition can be life-threatening if a mistake is made, and the burden it adds to their life is not trivial.

Point is, there's nothing inherently limiting, disabling, about diabetes in and of itself. A diabetic may acquire complications due to diabetes that are disabling, but it's the problem that's disabling, not the diabetes. Diabetes, in and of itself, really doesn't stand in the way of a person doing just about anything they want to.

Blindness, by way of contrast, truly is disabling -- it utterly forecloses on activities that require sight. Like flying an airplane solo, for example. Or driving a car. Or being an art critic.

None of that is to put the blind down, denigrate them, etc. Rather, it's simply a factual recognition that there are activities that absolutely require sight, no exceptions.

There's nothing that requires normal, function glucose metabolism as far as I can discern, save being a "normal" control in a test of some new diabetes treatment.

“There’s nothing that requires normal, function glucose metabolism as far as I can discern, save being a “normal” control in a test of some new diabetes treatment.”

Seriously!? Nothing? How about life. I think that’s pretty important. If you want to back up your statement, go without insulin for a month, then tell me diabetes is not disabling.

Very well said.

The diagnosis of people with T1D before the invention of insulin was a death sentence.

I use insulin and depend on it, just like people depend on wheelchairs. Insulin is an artificial, medical device that allows us to live.

Thankfully, technology and attitude and guts and will power allow us to live more freely than diabetics have
ever lived.

But insulin is still something we must have in order to live.

yes, we must have insulin in order to live. But to be considered disabled, we must apply for the "status". I choose not to. Here is how to do it, good luck:

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10029.pdf

That is not the definition of disability - it's just eligibility criteria for one specific program that happens to have "disability" in its name. I am not a recipient of disability benefits in Canada, yet that doesn't mean I don't have a disability.

Even if you did have to "register" in order to be considered someone with a disability, whose criteria trumps whose? School and university and workplace policies? Social Security? The Americans with Disabilities Act? According to the UN there are about 1 billion people with disabilities in the world - most of whom are not American and therefore not eligible for those programs. Does that mean they are not disabled? What about developing countries that don't even have programs in place?

Yes, the OP was asking about eligibilty for certain programs, and as people asnwered, whether you are eligible for such programs depends completely on the country and state/province in which you live. But it IS importnat for people to know that YES, diabetes is sometimes eligible for these disability programs, even within the same country. And when most people talk about "disability" they are talking about a wider context than eligibility for one specific program within one specific country.

Well, as someone who has lived with Type 1 diabetes, severe food allergies, and a severe visual impairment for most of my life, I find your analogies interesting.

I think you are being unfair in your assessment.

You are comparing people with diabetes using accommodations to people who are blind not using accommodations. The accommondation in one instance might be technology and in another instnace might be an individual interpreting visual information, but they are both accommodations.

To be fair, you would have to compare someone managing diabetes without accommodations to someone who is blind functioning without accommodations. For the person with diabetes: no glucose meter, no CGM, no insulin, no nutritional information panels on food, no access to healthcare. For the person who is blind: no braille, no technology, no white cane, no sighted person to read/interpret information, no access to independence training. It's hard to tell which might be worse, but I'd wager that illiteracy and limited job opportunities is better than being dead.

Okay Okay!! But when this all started I was answering the original question (not what most people talk about as you defined) -

"I mean if I am a type 1 diabetes (not other problem in my body except this) then may I considered to be a handicap?"


I said no, and I still say NO!

By the way, I spend a good deal of time with some beautiful folks who are disabled and needing assistance in all functions of living. Thank goodness for "programs" - these persons are truly eligible.

Sheesh, I try real hard not to be special, labeled, or talked about at all. I must be mentally impaired / which is a disability I can apply for.

Maybe it's just how we see ourselves - and of course how others see us. And we can't really control how others view us (is my blondness a handicap because some people assume I am more stupid than I am?)

Is it language., crippled, handicapped morphed into disabled and then differently abled then...

You have Mexican, then brown, then Hispanic, then latino then...
You had colored, negro, the "n" word, then African American then black then ...

Sometimes people need to have access to different ways of doing things, living their lives.

I don't see my diabetes at times as anything more than an inconvenience - sometimes a minor one sometimes a maor one. Depends on the circumstances - but that's my take. I am lucky that it hasn't really slowed me down - except that it forces me into the medical system - and that's because what I need to live my life is available only by Rx. Dang!

Some terms have more negative connotations or interpretations at different times.

Relax.

You would be disabled due to stupidity, not diabetes.

I agree that severe stupidity can arguably be called a disability.

Jen, I'm aware of your challenges, and meant no disparagement of course.

However, I don't think you're being honest with yourself to imply that vision impairment is not disabling. There are plenty of activities that you will never be able to do because of your vision problems. This is not a put-down of you, just a recognition of fact.

You make a great point about accomodation, particularly the march of technology advances. Perhaps some day technology will allow a blind person to pilot an aircraft, but until then I certainly would get in a plane flown by a blind person, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't either.

A blind person can not operate a car safely enough even with the most experience expert "coach" providing visual cues from the passenger seat to drive any distance down an urban public street. A blind person, with current technology, is simply not able ("disabled") for performing this activity. Good new is, Google is working hard to get you folks into cars! (something wonderful, IMO)

That's the only point I was making -- in terms of "disability", diabetes is more like an allergy -- manageable.

It's not like being a quadraplegic, which is obviously disabling (severely), ruling out an enormous spectrum of activities. It seems silly to even have to list any examples.

I scratch my head as to why this is even a point of contention...

is my blondness a handicap because some people assume I am more stupid than I am?
I assure you, fellow towhead, that we are just as stupid as we are, no more ;-)

I don't see my diabetes at times as anything more than an inconvenience - sometimes a minor one sometimes a maor one. Depends on the circumstances - but that's my take. I am lucky that it hasn't really slowed me down - except that it forces me into the medical system - and that's because what I need to live my life is available only by Rx

I understand that "inconvenience" attitude, but your claim that what you need to live your life is only available by RX would seemingly belie the claim about its just being an "inconvenience."

Meaning that I need an Rx to get my insulin, pump, CGM etc. That is the biggest difference that diabetes has made in my life between pre-Dx and post-Dx. I get the tools that I need - and go. I am lucky that I have insurance and that I can afford my various co-pays. I wouldn't have anything to do with the "medical system" if it weren't for my need to have Rx's.