We all know life with diabetes stinks, but let’s not focus on the negative side of diabetes! Let’s focus on the positive. What is your favorite thing about diabetes? There is one rule to this forum, no negative thoughts!
My favorite thing about diabetes is the strength it has given me.
No Question…My DiaPeeps!!! Awesome Question @Cayla The Friday Positive!
I suspect a number of people will share this one: it has caused me to manage my health to a degree that I never did before. The attention to detail and discipline required to manage the diabetes have definitely had “spillover” effects elsewhere.
My whole life, some people have felt the need to comment on how I eat. Before T1, I often felt the need to explain or defend myself, but now I don’t give a flying fig what anyone thinks about how I eat. My body, my choices!
Definitely, one of my favorite things is the DOC. But I think my most favorite thing about diabetes is that it keeps a constant fire lit under my butt. It forces me to be more present in the moment all of the time.
Nothing
It has caused me to question everything I thought I knew about “healthy eating.”
It has caused me to learn far more about the human endocrine and metabolic systems than I ever had any desire to.
It has caused me to get very quickly into almost the best shape of my life. I was a competitive athlete into my early twenties, so I still have a bit of work to do on that front, but I’m doing pretty awesome for a 41 year old. I’ve always been reasonably fit (and far more so than the average American), but I’m verging on Super-Fit Hot Dad at this point. My wife quite likes it 
How very discipline I am. I would probably be pretty scattered brain if not for my diabetes. And I always plan because you just never know what might happen. And I am always early for all appointments, meetings, get togethers. That planning thing again. And I am probably in much better overall health than many people due to my diabetes and the care that goes into it and me.
And yes it is very hard to think of positive things about it but there are many for myself even after 46 very long years! Still hoping and praying for that wonderful cure! Haven’t given up hope!
Mostly, I once more eat mindfully.
ETA: And I can wear my “skinny clothes” again. But really I agree with @pancreaswanted
ok i do eat a lot more healthily but i dont have a favourite thing about diabetes. diabetes sucks.
Ditto: Nothing.
Having D is not worth any gains such as taking better care of ones overall health, eating a more reasonable diet, becoming a more responsible and goal-driven person, etc. I’m not dismissing those excellent positives. I just believe that, between my teaching and example-setting, and my daughter’s inherent qualities, she would have become a health-conscious and responsibly successful adult without the damned T1D…
Understand perfectly, but some of us started from much further back. I’ve never been exactly cavalier about my health, but I doubt I would be this OCD about it without the diabetes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d give the diabetes back in a heartbeat if I could. But given that it is what it is and isn’t going anywhere, there have been some behavioral changes for the better that might not have happened otherwise.
But I’m going to withdraw that as my “favorite” thing. My favorite thing is the friends I’ve made.
Ditto the TuD friends. If anything comes close to the “price of admission”, it’s the friends I’ve made here! 
I agree. I was diagnosed at young enough that I can’t say that diabetes has made my lifestyle or my body healthier than it would have otherwise been. My family in general is very health-conscious and eats healthily and exercises. Compared to my brothers and compared to others my age, I am less healthy despite putting a lot more effort into maintaining my health (granted, this is also due to health issues beyond diabetes, but they are all caused by my wayward immune system!). I think that this will probably change as I get older, and in 20 years when I’m a 55-year-old comparing myself to other 55-year-olds, maybe things will be reversed.
After 35 years of 24x7 of diabetes, I’d say not a darn thing.
But on a more positive note the improvement that technology has made in the treatment of the disease is awesome.
Amen.
“Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Well here’s another “benefit”: a friend’s mom was recntly DX’d as T2 and I was able to answer a lot of questions for her on carb counting, glycemic index and load, and how to plan in for an occasional treat.
If it weren’t for having diabetes, I wouldn’t be able to ask the people who give me flu shots, “Can I have a discount for doing it myself?” and then giggle at the expressions on their faces.
The Favorite for me is that we live in 2016 and not 1916… sort of like I am living as a miracle of modern medicine. Wierdly that thought keeps me forward looking about diabetes. That same thought can also be a real bummer at times.