T1s & T2s

No, my doctor didn’t have an attitude, I was questioning why some people seem to be so defensive about hearing someone say, “I don’t have Type 2.” My doctor said to me, “You don’t have Type 2.” I probably repeated that on a post, but I certainly wasn’t boasting. I could easily have had self induced Type 2, but instead I have LADA. They all suck!!

My point is that no one as “self-induced Type 2” – that’s just not how it works and no one should feel that way.

And to be honest, while my original diagnosis was Type 2, last September after another in a line of successively decreasing C-Peptide tests, my doctor told me, “Looks like you have Type 1!” Instead of any sense of vindication or other “relief.” though, my reaction was to go through the grief process all over again, like I’d just been diagnosed for the first time.

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Here is exactly what I am talking about. The article begins by saying pretty much downs T2s in order to lift up T1s. Why is it necessary to belittle T2 in order to raise up the importance of T1?

She does have some facts wrong, she plays the blame card, and much of what she says is based on outdated science. But none of that is unusual, you run into it every day.

As far as the T1-vs.-T2 argument is concerned, that’s nothing new either. Aside from everything else that’s wrong with it, it’s against our values. Our founder Manny has spoken out passionately against it.

Down in the article somewhere she advocates for renaming the types so the public can tell them apart. A few years back, a pair of mothers tried to launch a campaign to make that happen, here on TuD as well as elsewhere. It led to some very nasty flame wars that resulted in a number of people having to be reined in or actually disciplined. That kind of intolerance simply has no place here. It isn’t (and won’t be) permitted to poison the atmosphere.

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When I was first diagnosed, I was upset when family, friends, and coworkers would ask me questions about diabetes and reveal their ignorance of the difference between T1 & T2. I was angry with the widespread ignorance about diabetes and even though I spent time trying to explain, the ignorance persisted and the same people would show that ignorance again in future conversations.

For some time, I thought that the remedy would be large scale public education and more descriptive names, like breast cancer instead of just cancer.

Now I’ve accepted that things may never change on this issue and certainly not in my lifetime. I’ve since learned serious social injustice of statements like this taken from @Reese2’s cited article.

Type 2 is typically the result of diet and lifestyle choices and is largely preventable.

How do you fight against this when news articles, TV shows, movies, and the entire popular culture doesn’t understand T2D? I’m no longer indignant when people think I’m T2D or somehow related to them. Instead, I am outraged at the blame and shame so easily and unfairly cast toward my diabetes sisters and brothers.

So much of the old social permissiveness toward racist, misogynistic, and anit-immigrant attitudes have now been forced out of acceptable polite conversation. It seems this nasty social sentiment has been funneled into the few remaining groups it’s OK to openly disparage: obese people and people with diabetes.

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This is such a hard and complicated topic for many of us in the diabetes world.

I would love to say that there is never a need for a distinction or that I have never felt defensive about MY diabetes, but I can’t honestly say either of those. What I can say is to repeat what multiple of others have said about the need to end the blame game. Blaming anyone for their diabetes, or any other disease, is not only not helpful, it is extremely harmful. The more I think about my defensiveness, the more that I realize that the blame game played by society has been harmful to my emotional wellbeing and led to me joining in more often than I should, which is never. Like it has already been said, it is so easy for T1s to use T1 as our defense against society’s blame game without even consciously realizing that we have just joined the game in blaming T2s.

I am a T1, but come from a family with many T2s on both sides. When I was growing up, my paternal grandfather was an insulin dependent T2, at least as early as I can truly remember. I used to love watching him test his bg and give his shots before meals because it was so intriguing to me. During my preteen and early teen years, I started to realize that many people assumed T2D was caused by obesity or other lifestyle choices, and that didn’t fit with my family experience where both grandfathers were slim, active and T2. Being diagnosed at 17, I wasn’t (as) afraid of the needles and the daily requirements of T1 because I had watched my grandpa for so many years. His T2 experience helped my experience as a T1, including one of his first pieces of advice to me post-dx to be careful with those sugar free sweets because sugar alcohols can act as a laxative. He was 89 at the time and got the whole family laughing at the Thanksgiving table, only 2 weeks after my dx. And my T1 experience has been helpful to multiple family members with T2. Like when that grandfather had a nurse at his nursing home give him an insulin shot to “treat” a hypo and my dad and his siblings needed to understand what that could have caused if another nurse hadn’t caught it, or to help both parents consider carb counting without any suggestion or help from their own healthcare teams, or giving my dad injection tips as he recently started taking long-acting insulin.

Life would probably be a little easier if all diabetics, of every type and variation, overlooked how our diabetes varies from one another for the sake of supporting each other.

Also, I want to thank all of you and this thread for reminding/challenging me to be defensive against society’s blame game for ALL diabetics not just myself or simply T1.

Thank you.

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I have to say I am kinda speechless hearing it described as “self induced Type 2” lol. Please help me understand by having all the people who willfully brought on their diabetes to please stand up. Who self induces a terrible disease like type 2. I had more of an active lifestyle prior to diabetes and gained weight after. There are skinny people with T2 and fat people with T1. Are these theories created to make T1s feel better in that they are the victims and the T2 are slobs that just keep eating all those chips in front of the TV. “Oh im not the kind of diabetes that can go away if I exercise”. All sub categories of diabetes suffer. I am also a LADA and believe me one thing I respect is the walk of all diabetics. There is no one better than the other. It should not make a T1 feel better that at least they are not T2. I dont even answer people when they ask which one I have I just repeat I am diabetic. Choosing any particular category limits their view of what is going on and that can cost me my life. I am a LADA. That puts me on the line to both and I live my diabetes as both and neither one of them were better or more justifiable than the other. I would say the key is educating the public to what diabetes really is but we cant educate people if in the diabetic community we cant stand as one. A group divided is a group not fully heard.

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As usual David, You are right. I am newer to this walk and it is amazing to me to see the divide on this issue. I guess this will be one of those issues that will never have a resolution. what brought it up to me was my youtube surfing and I watched a young mans video and he started it off with T2 slamming and I was like is that really necessary? I am always surfing videos looking to pick up tips and in some they make the clear this is for T1s but as a LADA it is useful to me too. Does it hurt that much to just address all diabetics and not just specifying T1s? However I am very aware we will not change thinking. This topic will exist thru the rest of time lol

You cant fight against it. I think it will not change and it will remain as it is. T2s will continually suffer the injustice of being labelled as self inflicted. My daughter came to visit with her bf. She said that she needs to be cautious since diabetes runs in the family and her bfs response was oh no we dont have to worry about that we eat healthy and dont make poor lifestyle choices. My daughter looked at me and she knew the look. She began to back peddle for him but I gave him some homework to go home and do cause he apparently is ignorant on the topic. That was after I said to him so your saying I did this to myself with my poor lifestyle choices. It will always be labeled as the fat slob people disease.

I really enjoyed reading about your family and your journey. Thank you for sharing it

I will always push back against expression of this extreme ignorance. We all deserve our dignity.

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If you read what I wrote you will see that I was stating that with my lifestyle and my escalating A1c, had I not changed my lifestyle I would have become a Type 2, which would have been self induced. In addition I have a LADA. By changing the way I eat and losing the weight I am no longer in danger of being a Type 2. My PCP told me that himself. Then when I saw my endocrinologist, he told me, “You do not have Type 2 diabetes, you have LADA.” I just don’t see the defensiveness. It is a fact of life that people can cause themselves to become Type 2 diabetics. Lifestyle is the underlying root of the problem of Type 2 in most cases, along with heredity. I just read an article that stated that. I’m not trying to insult anyone. I’m in this, too.

I was diagnosed T1D 33 years ago. About 10 years ago, I started to develop insulin resistance. It was a major impediment to my control and the doctors didn’t raise this possibility with me. I had gained weight, markedly increased my insulin dose, and maintained poor control for about 5 years. My A1c went up to 8.5% when I had spent years at 6.0-6.7%.

I don’t believe in the term “double diabetes.” I was a T1D who developed insulin resistance. And I don’t accept that T2Ds become T1D either, except for those misdiagnosed as T2D by mistake, no small number. I think it’s ill-informed sensational headline writers that like things like “double-diabetes” and “reversing diabetes.” In today’s online environment, these people love to write “click-bait.”

When I limited my daily carbs, lost weight, and walked daily, my insulin resistance returned to normal. I did not reverse my T2D; I never had T2D! I was simply a T1D who developed resistance to insulin because I was over-infusing it. Once my total daily dose went down, my insulin resistance waned. The T1D, of course, remains.

My experience of over-dosing insulin and creating insulin resistance is similar but not the same as disease progression in T2D. I’m thinking that science is moving to the understanding that asymptomatic T2D arrives first, which causes appetite increase, weight gain, and finally a T2D diagnosis.

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Agreed!

The wonderful thing about this group is the education it provides us. I have loved being a member here and have learned things I could never have learned from a book. Many of the things I have learned I have had to share with my diabetic team because they are not as aware as one might think. Many gps dabble in treating diabetes but are truly clueless to the topic. Diabetes in any category is not self induced. You cannot cause yourself to become diabetic. There are people who are 700 lbs and dont have diabetes and you have a person who is 120 and does. There is no amount of junk food to being on diabetes if your not predisposed to it. Being a LADA or T1 does not make you a separate justifiable acceptable classification for diabetes. It is still diabetes. You still fight with the same tools. Neither one brought it on or wished for it. The same advise can be shared across the board. Im not picking or anything but you say you almost made yourself diabetic as though you had the power too. Its ok and I can understand how it can be misleading with a lot of the information out there being incorrect. There is a lot of information here though that can help clarify what is actually correct. When I got here I came with years of misinformation too that I had to correct. So your not alone. What you learn here you can take out and teach to others.

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@Terry4 (& anyone else) I would be interested in your take on my daughter’s experiences.

Dxd at age 11 with T1, with a very strong family history of T2 in both my husband’s family & my own but no known T1. There is also very strong history of autoimmunity in my family (RA, Hashimotos, uveitis, psoriatic arthritis, lupus, MS, Sjogren’s syndrome, scleroderma) & at least 2 cases in my husband’s family. Shortly before dx, she began to develop what we now know are common signs of PCOS. There was no doubt about her T1 dx. She was positive for 3 antibodies.

I think with the multiple autoimmune disorders in my family it’s safe to assume a genetic predisposition. I don’t believe that genetic anomaly cancels out the predisposition to T2. Her former ped endo has been active in researching T2 in children & believes the genetic predisposition to T2 is very much related to her current medical issues & insulin resistance. Despite eating low carb, being physically active & losing the 30+ lbs she gained prior to the PCOS dx, she is still insulin resistant. She takes 2000mg metformin/day & has for 4 years. Her TDD is still above average for her weight & age. He describes her condition as double diabetes, & in his discussions with us, he has stressed that her autoimmunity doesn’t prevent T2 genes from manifesting. Early on, he shared a study of CWDs with a family history of T2 & how their T1 behaves very differently. I’ll try to find it & share, but the difference in opinions even among researchers on whether double diabetes exists interests me.

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Your daughter’s experience is new to me. Not being a clinician or specialist, I may be forming my opinion from too small a base of knowledge. I’m happy to read on this topic. Sometimes my strong opinion gets tempered by further knowledge. I wonder how common your daughter’s case is.

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See, this is where a lot of the confusion and bitterness comes from. Type 2s aren’t self-induced, any more than Type 1s are. There are genetic predispositions and environmental triggers. The way you are defining Type 2 makes it the fault of the patient for not “changing their lifestyle.” While Type 1s like us get off scot free because we just have an autoimmune disorder.

It’s similar logic to saying I caused my Type 1 because I didn’t avoid getting Coxsackie B virus while having the genetic predisposition to autoimmune disorders. I mean, I knew people in my family get Type 1, and I could have literally lived in a bubble and probably not ever had the autoimmune attack start (sans the viral trigger). Does that mean I’m a Type 1 because of my lifestyle (of living free in the world without taking proper precautions against viral infection)?

There is also plenty of evidence now that the insulin resistance associated with Type 2 often predates weight gain and hormone changes, so the “lifestyle” you are describing is as likely to be a symptom of the disease as a cause. But, you definitely nailed on the head why there is a divide between Type 1s and Type 2s :slight_smile:

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That is definitely pretty interesting and I would love to read anything you have. I am learning about diabetes now from a diabetic point of view a lot thoroughly than it is taught. One of the things is that insulin resistance is not limited to T1s or T2s. Any diabetic can manifest insulin resistance. After reading your post you strengthen my belief that each diabetic is unique in their walk. In attempting to put a person into a category limits what you see. The moment that my doctors and I stopped looking to put it into a square we began to make progress in controlling it. Genetic disposition to diabetes and family history is unique to each person. Your mixed bowl proves just that. I would love for you to post along your journey so we can all follow along.

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From discussions with my daughter’s endo, the overlap in characteristics hasn’t been studied in-depth (at least not to his liking), but it’s apparently not a small percentage of CWDs. Considering the statistics concerning the rise in T2, I don’t find that surprising. The data on T1 & PCOS is also limited.

I’ve searched my computer for the study but haven’t located it yet. It’s been several years, & I really can’t remember if I scanned it or filed it in one of my binders. It’s also possible I stored it on my laptop or iPad. Yes, along with D supplies, I hoard information. lol I do remember it had some interesting information on higher risks of complications, & also the differences in difficulty of management. At the time, the explanation of management difficulties helped lessen the guilt I felt over what I thought was my failure to control the variability in her BG. I will keep searching. I’d like to give it another read through myself.