Educating people, one person at a time

Have you had the opportunity to educate someone about diabetes? What brought it up? How did you educate them?

Share your experiences here!

i’ve educated a ton of people through school projects! when i was in hs whenever there was a paper or speech i would always do it on diabetes or something of that nature. and in college just recently i did 2 speeches. one on omnipod and one on type 1! i love telling people about it, and they don’t mind hearing it. i got alot of questions and helped people out who knew little to nothing about it!

I was telling a new friend that I was diabetic, she told me her husband was as well, but not sure what kind. It goes downhill from there. I have gotten her to switch his TV watching snack from pretzels to nuts, and showed her the carb count info on prepackaged foods. This is an educated bright woman, mind you…so scary. The advice he gets from his doc is shameful and he is pretty much in oblivious denial. He tells her that he works so hard and is exhausted so he is unable to do anything around the house and sleeps on the couch all evening. I am slowly getting her to see that it is the high blood sugars from the chips and pretzels before dinner, the pasta and potatoes with dinner and the dessert with an ice cream chaser after dinner that is making him so tired. Busted!
I have a dear friend who is a Johns Hopkins educated ER nurse. She comes to me with all sorts of questions as her training in our care was pretty lacking…
I have not had a discussion with one person in 5 and a half years of dealing with this that had any clue about the difference between T1 and T2 so I find myself educating pretty much anytime the subject comes up.

i can’t say i’ve really educated people… but i don’t hold back on showing i have diabetes with my necklace, meter to check sugar, and shots. Whenever anybody has a question i’ll answer it as best i can and if people want to hear more i’ll explain more about my lifestyle. I get random questions all the time for people. I guess i have educated my boyfriend. I’ve been upfront about my disease from the beginning, i believe he knew i was diabetic within a hour of knowing me. I recently just quizzed my boyfriend on my medicine and what diabetes is and what causes it. He did pretty darn good! I don’t know how he learned it all but my openness to his questions, and letting him see what i have to do helped. (i let him give me a shot… he did fine… but i feel safer if i do it, plus he goes to fast). I always make sure to involve him, because i know i want to know what’s going on with his health and well being. He’s the best diabetes learning buddy ever, he may not know exactly what’s going on with me but he knows i need to eat, i need to take medicine, and i need to check my sugar. Now if only i could get him to eat like i do!

Sounds like a great BF. Also sounds as though you are educating all the time.

thanks, i always like to share what i learn with everybody. I went to see the nutritionist once and she was surprised by how much i knew and remembered (remember a banana has 30 carbs) and she asked me if would ever be interested in being a diabetes educator. I don’t know if i’m that good, but i love learning and being in the know about diabetes.