I have a question for those who use words that perhaps many of us don't know and even more don't understand, I know that using medical terminology is important to some, but to those of us that speak only English or our mother tongue we find the diabetes language quite bothersome. For example, paradial, post paradial, bolus, for just a few....why can't people use the meaning of the words? It is complicated enough not to know what diabetes means, without having to learn a whole new language,. Can we not confuse people and use 'before you eat', "two hours after you eat", or whatever. I've been a diabetc for 14 year,s and I I still don't know what those words mean. I still have to ask everytime I speak to someone who is trying to impress me with their diabetic speak.Wouldn't it be easier understood to use English terminology than the scientific words, especially those who are newly diabgosed.,...And yes I know there is a section here for terminology,..,.but they don't even have all the words I've read here. If you answer one of my posts, please you regular normal words, so I know that you are saying to me,
THANKS!
The first amendment to the constitution? I use post-parandial out of habit, it seems a bit tidier to me. Sorry!
SDKate,
I understand what you're saying, but when you've been diabetic for a long, long time, it gets very tiring to spell out in many more words what one can say with one or two words. For example, bolus: a large dose given by injection for rapid delivery. It's so much easier to say bolus! And while post-prandial simply means after a meal, for diabetic testing it refers to two hours after a meal.
I guess what I'm saying is that for many of us diabetics, scientific words have become plain English.
Ruth
SDKate,
Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any page and click on the New Member Guide. In there you will find a list of acronyms that might be of help.
although my phone auto-corrected it incorrectly! I'm going to have to fix that! Eeek!!
I have scrolled all the way down and gone through the acronyms and vocabulary....and when I am talking to people who have been diabetic for years and year, including myself (going into my 15th year) those diabetic words mean NOTHING to me.....why risk the possibility of being misunderstood, or not understood at all using words people don't understand or know or relate to? I think it's great that some are good with those words, I am more into being understood, and if it takes more words, then it does. That's better communication than buzz words, to me. Guess it's just me
I hear ya, sdkate.
i usually just say 'shoot up' and i get some weird looks lol.
and i'll usually just say my post meal or after meal.
i was never taught 'diabetic' terminology and i guess i just never took it upon myself to study up on it.
even my doctor seems to use 'plain' english. while i now am able to catch onto the terminology (dx in 2005), i still just use the terms i am comfortable with and that those around me are familiar with.
to each their own.
I teach Biology so I completely understand where you are coming from. Biological concepts aren't all that difficult to comprehend but learning them pretty much requires learning a new language. Like Ruth says, the terminology was developed for a reason.
Like Nicole, I may use "shooting up", for taking a dose of insulin, or "sticking myself" for BG testing but those "plain English" words get their meaning directly from the context. I wouldn't feel comfortable, for example, if my boss overheard me say that I need to go "shoot up" before lunch or that I "stick myself" 10 times a day. He may not understand if overheard that I had to go "bolus" or get a "blood sugar measurement", but there wouldn't be much risk of misunderstanding.
I can understand and, since Tudiabetes already establishes the context, I think a lot of us do use "plain English" much of the time. But, sometimes, it just isn't practical. As a longtime diabetic, I know that, even if I didn't study Biology for a living, I have a vested interest in knowing as much about my condition as possible. I can't always hope that knowledge is going to passed to me in a way that's most easily accessible just to me.
I like that there's a weird argot with the disease. "The In Crowd" as it were...
The best answer I can give you is to educate yourself and learn the meaning of every day Diabetes words. I do not know what better words to use to accommodate you understanding when I reply to anything. English is the language used here. I would much rather type bolus than type the amount of insulin you inject for the meal or basal than the amount of insulin injected or infused for the long acting basal requirement
Diabetes terminology is not rocket science - definition: An endeavor requiring great intelligence or technical ability. I don't try to impress with diabetes speak...the words I use are "regular" words. I can understand some confusion with acronyms and try not to use them. Otherwise, you are stuck with my unscientific but every day diabetic english terms.
I don't use those terms all the time.. it doesn't really matter to me what people say... for instance I will often say I took 4 units or something like that..not I bolused 4 units... although here I might be more likely to use bolus. I never use "post prandial", lol.. to be honest some of them sound ridiculous to me.. but I think I know most of them now . I prefer to be a little less formal. If I said to a non D person I bolused 4 units they would be like, wtf??? If I say I took 4 units they get it and so does everyone else.
I guess not knowing them, but being aware of the "language of Diabetes" is okay for some, but no one I know, diabetic, medical or other would know what I was talking about if I used the "language of Diabetes". But if I do say I 'shot up 4 units" they do know what I am talking about. I don't understand the need to use a terminology, except to say, "look what I know"....but language is for communication, and if no one can understand your communication what is the point. To me, the "Language of Diabetes" for most diabetics is not English it is a language most don't have a clue what it means. But I reserve the right to support you ability to use it...please go right ahead, but accept my right and others to not understand what the heck you are talking about, and your mostly likely having to explain it to us, over and over again, Sorry
Maybe it's just me, but I don't go around telling people how much insulin I infused for any reason than a doctor appointment. I appreciate you allowing me the right to use the "Language of Diabetes" in my replies. LOL. And I support your right to not understand, even if I/we explain it over and over again. By the way, that is not so much an issue with the language or terminology, that is choice and it's kind of a stubborn one. 14 years is a long time to not have learned Diabetes language. What are your doctor appointments like??
What an eye-opening conversation! I try really hard to not only communicate in plain English to people with diabetes who are newly diagnosed, or even the first time I meet with someone new. It's sort of like when someone from a different country, who speaks a different language, comes into my office. Until we start to talk, I'm not sure how much English they understand or can use, and we have to slowly figure out the best way to communicate. Those of you who said that using the language of diabetes is quicker and easier are doing the same thing as medical personnel. But even medical folks from one specialty might not understand the short-hand abbreviations from another specialty. Communicating face-to-face is easier than on an Internet forum, because I can see someone's quizzical facial expressions and then backtrack and use other words to explain what I just said. Here, it's easy to misunderstand and be misunderstood. I'm glad we're having this conversation to remind us that communication is a 2-way street.
Lucky for many like me, we were on sites/forums before the Diabetic upper language came to light. So we were able to learn one acronym or 2 at a time. Instead of having a pop quiz without the teacher being there to teach it to us first. I recall years later when PWD came about and as usual an argument ensued. I use it when I'm in the mood but I'll always be a Diabetic first.
Lynn, how do I say thank you for putting all of this into PLAIN ENGLISH that all of us can understand. Thanks so much!
Normal appointments, but my PA doesn't use language that I don't understand. At our Diabetic Support Groups, we don't use language that people don't understand. We have many Hutterite German speaking people in our group, and we use language/they use language that we all understand so that there are no items that are confusing.....just because you speak Latin, doesn't mean that I can't learn it or you can't learn my language either, as the following writer suggests, it's all a matter of effective communication.
You just did say thank you, sdkate :)
I know how annoying "in-group jargon" can be. I use software to teach online, but technology is just a means to an end for me. When I asked our IT person how to do something I found she used so much jargon I couldn't understand the answer. Over time I did learn some relevant terms as I needed to communicate and it didn't help to say, "you know the thingamajig that controls the what's it's name option". But I think other faculty might have complained as well because she soon started giving clear step-by-step instructions that non-techies could follow.
Technology isn't my thing, but Diabetes IS. When I was misdiagnosed and trying to figure out what was going on I set about learning about type 1. I read some of the classic books like Using Insulin and came on here, and my education included concepts and terms. So when I got my pump 2 years later, I had no problem programming it for I:C ratios, ISF, and basal rates. Do I use D terms a lot? Yes, with fellow PWD's, not so much with outsiders. Unless they ask. If someone says "what are you doing?" when I press buttons on my pump I generally just say "taking some insulin before I eat lunch." But if they are more interested and ask, "how do you know how much to take?" I will go into more detail which inevitably includes terms like I:C ratio. When I was on shots and someone asked why I had two different types of insulin I briefly explained about MDI. I can give a clear and brief explanation but do have to say things like "your non-diabetic pancreas produces a little bit of background insulin all the time and a big spurt for meals, for us we do that by taking basal and bolus insulins."
To talk with other PWD's I find the "language of D" is not only convenient it's essential for understanding. I guess you could take 1 unit of insulin and know it lowers your blood sugar by 30 points (perhaps instructed by a doctor to do this), but if you didn't know this was called ISF you would miss learning from others when a thread was titled "different ISF's for different times of day" for example. I'm a teacher so I know how to introduce new terms with clear and simple explanations. I generally think of that as something we do with non-diabetics. But this thread reminded me that newly diagnosed diabetics come on here all the time and we all need to be sensitive to the fact that they may not yet know the "language of D" and may be overwhelmed if we provide a bunch of terms we haven't defined!
I love language and learning new words for things I'm interested in is something I enjoy. I HATE that commercial where a person with Type 2 diabetes says, "I have diabetic nerve pain". Do they think the tv audience isn't bright enough to learn the word neuropathy? But that's just my take on things.