New to all this

You might chat with @Seydlitz. I think he feels similarly.

That being said, from looking at your new Avatar Picture, I see that you are maintaining a sense of humor.

Thumbs up on staying strong and not letting this completely wreck you.

You can do this.

:slight_smile:

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It’s true that you must now deal with this new reality. The part about it being your fault is not true. That is the popular culture’s take on diabetes and it’s flat out ignorant, hyper-judgmental, and wrong!

Science is starting to uncover the genetic component of T2D. There is now a strong possibility that the T2 defect happens first followed by an increased appetite, weight gain, and then the diagnosis. The diagnosis can happen years after the defect first appears. People end up living for years with undiagnosed diabetes and hyperglycemia and the damage it causes.

Dealing with the current reality is your most important job. Don’t let society’s ignorance seep into how you see yourself. You didn’t bring this on yourself!

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Ha Ha! Yes, were it not for my sense of humour I’m sure I wouldn’t have coped as I have…

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Thank you for saying so… being obese and knowing the risks involved in T2DM I feel quite responsible, however, I am starting to wonder what came first - the T2DM or the Obesity…there are some very interesting documents and articles about the genetic aspect.

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Quite so. There is a growing school of thought that obesity and diabetes may be both symptoms of an underlying cause, and not in a cause-effect relationship to one another.

Agree! Having been overweight since birth I often wonder if my glucose tolerance was impeded genetically. Interesting thought…

I am not as familiar with T2 as we are in the T1 camp.

However, I do wonder if the medical advice for T2 to drop some weight and add some exercise (which from other posters on these forums sounds to be quite helpful in managing the T2 condition although as part of a larger overall management approach) is often times implicitly or subconsciously assumed to also mean that a previous excess of weight and/or previous lack of exercise has caused the T2 condition?

From a 1000 foot view, that would certainly make sense. Apply cold to the water and it freezes. Remove the cold and it unfreezes. However in this case of T2, it seems (based on the T2 experts on the forums) that the one simply does not imply the other.

Agree. Exercise and diet are useful tools for improving control, that’s demonstrated beyond any doubt. But just because something helps, that does not automatically imply that its absence is a cause. Does the absence of a cast cause a broken leg?

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There is a common logical fallacy that the sequence of events confers a cause and effect relationship. Just because event 1 happened before event 2 does not necessarily mean that event 1 caused event 2. I think this fallacy is firmly embedded in the blame and shame psychology of T2D.

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Organs just die sometimes. Sometimes people just have crap organs. All of our organs age - some faster than others. The pancreas isn’t a super reliable organ. Place blame there. Its slacking off on the job all the time. Lousy, good for nothin’ pancreas.

image

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exercised all my like and still got this. if non exercise was the cause 90% of amaricans would have db.
when i ex. on bike path even on a beautifull weekend day see almost no one. think we are just the unlucky 10%.

mohe0001 like pic . still I wish I hadn’t made my pancreas deal with around 40,000 cans of regular soft drinks.
often wonder if I would have drank water instead I would be on this site worrying about db. but I honestly thought
that they were not that harmful guess I was wrong. nature gave us a beautiful planet and body but we sometimes abuse both. when mother nature gets angry bad things happen.

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I would say that soda does nobody any favors (other then stockholders of soda companies). It is unhealthy. It has zero benefits. It likely makes managing diabetes more difficult.

All that being said…

Soda still does not give you diabetes.

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Nope. It doesn’t. But it’s bad enough to avoid for other good and sufficient reasons. One of them is that in the U.S., regular sodas are not made with sugar and haven’t been for decades now. They’re made with HFCS because it’s sweeter and cheaper. And HFCS just ain’t any good for you.

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You know, I don’t like normal soda. But, have been drinking diet for so many years. Normal soda tastes strange. Plus, I’ve heard ththafake sweetners are sweeter…maybe?

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I also changed to Diet 2 years back and this was prior to being diagnosed with Type 2 - then I read an article a month ago talking about the link between sweeteners and Type 2 and thought “Uh-Oh!”…

They were my lifeline to drinking liquids as I drink nothing else (and havent done my whole life) so now I struggle quite badly…

Wish I knew just how bad the impact was!

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It is quite common to assume that the main factor with diabetes type 2 is genetic, given how often it runs in families. However, countless examples of one sibling developing type 2 and the others not, appear to counter that theory. I personally believe that there is a strong similarity between lung cancer and type 2 Diabetes. Even if you are a heavy smoker you won’t get lung cancer if you don’t have the susceptibility genes. And if you have the genes but never smoked you have a good chance of living to 90. The loser in that equation are those who have the susceptibility genes and choose to smoke for years, inevitably ending up suffering in a hospital bed for terminally ill patients.
As for diabetes type 2, a couple of parallels to smoking and lung cancer come to mind. I believe that the susceptibility gene for type 2 runs in my family. My paternal grandmother spent the last 20 years of her life blind, due to damage to her eyes from her diabetes type 2. I was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 nearly 20 years ago, However neither of my two parents, two sisters or four nieces have exhibited any sign of diabetes. And guess what, my grandmother and myself are the only people in our extended family who through unhealthy lifestyles allowed ourselves to become obese. All the rest, my parents, siblings, nieces are fit and slim people.
Then look at China. Half a century ago diabetes type 2 was virtually unknown in this vast country. Then with modernization the country has become swamped with burger king, pizza hut, macdonalds etc. fast food joints. Walk down the streets of Beijing or Shanghai and you see lots of people, mainly adolescents, who are obese.
At last count, according to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 26 million registered type 2 diabetics in China. And for the most part, that is compliments of the American fast food industry, but also to the fact that the underlying genes that allow type 2 to develop were unused in a population that worked hard and ate brown rice and vegetables at most of their meals.
Again, I can hear cries that this is all anecdotal evidence. Well if bombs start exploding around you and you look up and see a Russian MIG bomber flying overhead, the evidence that the Russian plane was responsible is only anecdotal. Still the only sensible thing to do would be to head for the nearest bomb shelter…

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I have a question about Lantus insulin and how long it could be stored super cold. I had to go on a trip about 3 to 4hrs. I stored the vial in a bag in the vial box with ice pack to keep cool inside a bag-- with vial and ice pack together. I wasn’t thinking about it becoming too cold because I was worried primarily about heat. However, after taking it out of the bag with the ice pack and vial box it was super cold. I was probably colder than 32degs F… Would The insulin?Lantus lose effectiveness after 3 to 4 hours being that cold. It wasn’t frozen at all. But I am new to this and the cost was huge. Thanks, I appreciate it.

@Blackweed - Although we have not used Lantus for some years now, when we did use it, we kept it at room temperature once it was opened. We only kept the vials in the refrigerator prior to them being opened.

We never were concerned about how cold the insulin might get in the fridge as long as it did not actually freeze.