Thank you everyone so much for responding to my posts. You all bring up excellent points. I know that I certainly was a person who had the "not me" syndrome. My question today is: Do you know anyone who you thought was going to get Type 2 if they kept along the path they were and you tried to get them to see what was happening? Has anyone that seen this in a loved one and did they ever heed your warning? Or, were they like me and thought they were invincible?
My dad developed t2 at age 60 and was put on meds but he would not give up his beer. He wasn't an alcoholic but enjoyed his beer at home. This was in the mid 70s. He died in 1979 of a heart attack at 65, out of the blue, and I've always thought it was his reluctance to take proper care of himself that was behind this. He thought if he took his pills he could just keep on doing what he wanted. Nope.
I have a friend who was diagnosed t2 around the time I was, about 12-13 yrs ago. He totally refused to eat properly and he does like to drink. He's now about 66 or 67 yrs old and looks like he's carrying triplets, he's really packed on the weight. He's very bloated and doesn't breathe properly. He's another one who would take his meds, he went on insulin too about 6 yrs ago and just kept on doing what he'd always done, with regards to food and drink. I don't think he'll live to be 70 the way he's going.
Sometimes you just can't tell people anything, they want to do what they want to do.
My advice is usually to cut carbs to the level necessary to achieve safe blood sugar levels. I tell them that my meter tells me that I can't, for instance, eat any grain. I always say up front that this means I must derive most of my energy from fat since excessive protein consumption is not good for anyone.
Because this is the direct opposite of the advice people get for what constitutes a healthy diet I think a lot of people figure I'm just another person following a strange and possibly dangerous diet. So my success rate in getting people to deal with their condition is not very good.
I have had success with my daughter. I gave her a meter and encouraged her to monitor her sugar occasionally especially after carby meals. Her A1C was in the mid 5's but she was spiking to unacceptable levels after carby meals. I explained that she was on the cusp of a down hill slide as the spikes would gradually destroy her pancreas and that dealing with it early was the way to go.
She changed to a low carb diet and has been able to maintain her A1Cl in the mid 5's without medication.
Many folks have posted about a spouse or relative that is ignoring their diabetes so I know I'm very lucky to have had a positive outcome. I think it helped that her doctor low carbs herself and completely endorses her approach. It probably also helped that she has a scientific education and the logic of using your meter to craft a diet made perfect sense.
I watched my brother for quite a while but he finally woke up just like I did a few years. ago. I'm pretty proud of Bro now, his last a1c was better than mine.
Yes I have had friends and employes scarf down donuts and boxes of Pop-Tarts and with crumbs falling out of their mouths would tell me too bad you can't eat this stuff, you've got that bad kind of diabetes...One of them took a Friday off and died while mowing his lawn. He was survived by his wife and a 16 year old daughter. When I turned his death certificate over to our insurance agent it said his death was caused by diabetic complications and heart failure (46 years old).