Aside from the people here diagnosed as children, what did YOU know about diabetes before you were diagnosed? I sure didn't know enough to even explain it or take care of myself.
The only people that shock me with ignorance is a healthcare worker, but I don't put much faith in the healthcare industry anyway. But I give everyone else a break. Look at it as an opportunity to share.
It's like someone with MS, epilepsy or lupus expecting you to understand their disease. Why would you if you weren't touched by it somehow or had a curiosity to learn?
I guess I knew more than I needed to b/c I came up with a diabetic 1st cousion. But I see your point here. The on;y thing that gets me with the igornet is like my husband and g-mother. It seems ppl that have been around me since childhood and my young adulthood don’t seem to wantto remember what they have been told for YEARS!
Maybe I was lucky I grew up taking care of my type 1 mother. Ignorance is not an excuse, all a person needs to ask politely and I have had no problem explaining things. Its the same with any illness or handicap. I have friends with many illnesses and handicaps I make a point of learning what I can about them.
What did I know? certainly not much only that it was an issue with metabolizing sugar, didn’t know that carbs became sugar and that it was controllable, but certainly not how to control it.
Then I went through ADA indoctrination, but dug enough to learn that most of what they taught was misinformation and found some groups where people were serious about controlling their disease, and learned from them and by testing my reaction to different foods. I have made it clear that I am approachable with questions and will answer to the best of my ability.
Sure you learn about illnesses as they’re introduced to you by someone you’ve met. But I don’t remember meeting a single person with Type 1 my entire life! I moved in Feb. to Cleveland and just met a co-worker with Type 1 and it’s been amazing to talk to someone who understands and shares similar experiences.
So, no one’s going to ask until they meet someone and in a way they’re asking when they say something ridiculous. It’s opening the conversation…
There’s a difference between genuine ignorance and someone who’s insensitive and doesn’t care.
Little enough that, at age 58 when I was misdiagnosed with type 2 I don’t even remember if they said “type 2” or they (and I) just assumed it. If asked I would have probably known there was another type that “people get as children”. I figured “no biggie”, I’ll just take these pills, test twice a day and continue eating the same high carb vegie diet I always did. I didn’t eat sugar due to an eating disorder, so figured I was cool. I had heard that “people with diabetes can go for 10-15 years before needing insulin” so I wasn’t worried. And this worked for over a year so why not? I’m ashamed to admit I knew two diabetics (type 2) but didn’t really know much about their management until after my own diagnosis.
I agree that it is human nature to not explore a topic until you have a personal reason (especially if it is uncomfortable like illness). I also agree that what I deplore is not this normal lack of knowledge but people who are close to people with diabetes or have it themself and are ignorant. (Though I was myself guilty of this for over a year!). And the medical profession-it’s apalling!
I thought you could only get diabetes 2 if you ate lots of fast junk food. That was the first shock, the food thing quickly followed, it is so very hard to eat so differently from everyone else.
I knew the differences between type 1 and 2. I knew the basics of it, what insulin/pancreas does, what unmanaged diabetes can do to your body, the potential for complications and such. I knew about carb counting and such also, but I had a friend in college with diabetes, so I watched what he was doing. I was also a med mal paralegal and read about it. My maternal grandmother and her mother both had type 2, so I was semi educated about it, believing I’d be fat and 50 and develop type 2. I had no clue I’d be 28 and get type 1 out of the blue.
Hi Zoe, Yes it is appalling the medical community is so misinformed. I think the reason is two fold; one their teaching as most of the information is outdated and just wrong, and two is because each of us has our own disease that has it’s own personality, there is no straight answer to how to treat each person, as we each react differently. Now not all Dr have the “I know it all” attitude. My cardiologist after i let him know that his office was not diabetic friendly, (you need to eat in the middle of the nuclear stress test) as they provided very high carb crackers and orange juice I said that I will take water and I have appropriate snacks for me in the car, these crackers have twice as many carbs as I eat in a day and if he had a patient that was gluten intolerant they could not eat these either. He talked to me and asked how he could improve his instructions and and changed his instructions to let people know that they will need to eat and that they can bring snacks. My GP listens to me and will work with me, I was able to drop actos, tried dropping Januvia, but am back as it makes things so much easier. He lets me try things and will support me in my experiments, I just hope he doesn’t choose to retire.
Dave
You are correct, you don’t really get “into it” unless you have are really touched by it. I knew some through my Dad’s having it, and my Uncle and their Father. But I really did not get into it until my own diagnosis.
But I would disagree with you about the learning opportunity. One of the eye openers I have had is that those who have no direct urgent need to know about diabetes, by and large, don’t want to know. That sounds harsh I realize, and I love every single exception to what I said. But I can see it in my friends faces, the fixed stare, when I start to explain about sugar and carbs, or injections versus oral meds, or T1 and T2. The reality is that most of my friends just want to know how I am doing, will I be allright, and wish me the best and pray for me.
And, to be honest, I am not sure how interested I would have been before I was diagnosed. I don’t remember anyone telling me much, but perhaps I wasn’t listening either.
That doesn’t stop me, however, from talking when people ask. I just have lost any expectation that they really want to know.
I didn’t know much more than I had read in books - like the babysitter’s club. I will freely admit I didn’t know enough… but I also hadn’t really come across many other PWD at that point. I had known two adult T1’s (both my mom’s friends) and all I knew is that they took insulin injections, but I knew very little about the hows and whys of that… I never asked, either.
Honeslty it doesn’t bother me when people legitimately don’t know much. I don’t expect them to. What bothers me (and I presume most other PWD’s) is when people THINK that they know it all… and they’re flat out wrong.
I deal with that type of “ignorance” during the holidays every year from extended family… I am confronted with people trying to convince me that a certain type of fad juice will “cure” me, or that I could go on a paleo diet and “eliminate” my need for insulin… and all of it just doesn’t apply. It gets old, and I grow more tired of hearing it.
Seriously Duck? You know and can quote journals more than most active on the forums right now. I see that as a source of knowledge. Im curious to know why you dont read labels. Is it do to the fact that foods effect us all differently?
EXACTLY SARAH!!! It gets so old and tiring when ppl think that this pill or juice will “cure” you or you could “eliminate” your need for insulin! It get’s me every time when these folks think they have the magicall “cure” that I have looked for through many things in my 37 years with it.
I think you might be right about people zoning out when you start going on and on about highs, lows, carbs, pumps, cgm whatever. I catch myself even filtering with my best friend because I think she’ll get sick of hearing about it. that’s why this site is so great.
I was really ignorant about diabetes before I was diagnosed! Prior to my T1 diagnosis in 1995, I did know three people with Type 1: my godmother, a college classmate, and a friend of my now-ex. My godmother (my mother’s dear friend) was diagnosed in 1929, and lived a full (but shortened) life–she had kids, she sailed around the world, she was wonderful to me. But I knew little about her life with diabetes. The college classmate, what a nightmare. She took terrible care of herself, and basically created one crisis after another and expected those around her to take care of her. The friend of my now-ex was diagnosed with Type 1 at age 40, so I did know of adult-onset Type 1 before I was diagnosed. She also took terrible care of herself. I was horrified then, I am even more horrified now when I know you can really do much better for yourself. But one of my traumas when diagnosed was that my experience was that Type 1 diabetes was a living hell, based on the two people I knew (not my godmother), and I thought I was destined for living hell (I certainly don’t think that anymore). Actually, ultimately those two people who took such bad care of themselves made me very determined that I would not be like them.
But I was ignorant of diabetes prior to diagnosis, so I really don’t feel those not affected should be anything but ignorant (but hopefully kind and considerate). Now, the medical community, that’s another story. There is a lot of ignorance, and that is flat-out wrong.
Nah, Duck, it was the review of that recent Atkins study that lead me to the journals comment. Also, sources sited in other discussions. I meant it complimentary.
I was the same about labels, then I started to notice sodium. There is so much in stuff, Im usually just curious whats in there.
Before I was diagnosed with diabetes, my wife developed it. Hers was a result of excessive drinking which damaged her pancreas ability to produce insulin. I was aware of the results of hi’s and lows. I was also aware of what can happen when a diabetic doesn’t gain control of his bg. I watched her slowly kill herself with the alcohol destroying what insulin she was injecting. At that time, I was pre-diabetic due to my service in Viet Nam and exposure to Agent Orange. When I was diagnosed with diabetes, all my pcp did was prescribe pills and a test meter. After a few months, she then prescribed NPH insulin which really didn’t do much to control my bg. All she did was keep upping my insulin. Now I have a good health team that keeps track of my diabetes and tries to help with control through diet, exercise and medication.
Two thumbs up! People usually learn about stuff on a need to know basis. I don’t get upset at people who don’t know about diabetes, because not so long ago I was one of them.
What gets me is not what people don’t know, but what they do know that is just plain wrong.
