D-blog Day: Top 6

November is Diabetes Awareness month. Since I have diabetes, I am making you aware. :) Today is D-blog day, a day started on November 9th 2005 to help unite diabetes bloggers and create awareness about diabetes. This year the online diabetes community is blogging about the six things they wish people knew about Diabetes. So, here are my top six:



1. Living with Diabetes is really hard. No matter how easy I or other people may make it look with our pumps, continuous glucose monitors, and other technology, living with diabetes is hard. You can do all the “right” things and still have terrible consequences. I just can’t imagine being hungry and going to get something to eat. No, a diabetic’s life is more like this: I’m hungry, check my blood sugar, count carbs for what I plan to eat, take insulin for said carbs, wait for insulin to take effect, then eat, check blood sugar 1-2 hours later to see if all that carb and insulin measuring turned out right. No matter how well you eat and how much exercise you get, EVERYTHING affects your blood sugars….stress, illness, hormones….everything!


2. There isn’t a “look” associated with diabetes. I hate it when people say, “You don’t look like you have diabetes.” What is that supposed to mean? People with diabetes all look very different. How does someone with diabetes typically look? Am I supposed to be fat?


3. There isn’t an age associated with diabetes. Just because all you ever see on TV about diabetes includes old people in Medicare advertisements, doesn’t mean that includes all diabetics. Diabetics can be infants, teenagers, adults, and even the elderly.


4. There isn’t a “bad” kind of diabetes. There are different types of diabetes: Type I, Type II, and gestational. They all suck. Just because you take insulin, doesn’t mean you have it any worse than someone who doesn’t. It’s all about how you take care of yourself and if you don’t take care of yourself, they all have BAD consequences.


5. Just because you have diabetes, doesn’t mean you can’t have sugar. I hate it when people ask me, “Can you have that?” While sugar should probably be limited for better control, it doesn’t mean I can’t have a piece of chocolate. Lots of things have sugar (such as milk and apples) and no one would question me if I ate either one of those, right?!


6. There isn’t a cure for diabetes. I love the show The Biggest Loser but if they tell these people one more time if they lose enough weight they won’t have diabetes anymore, I’m going to throw up. Losing weight doesn’t cure diabetes. Maybe they won’t have to take medication anymore and be able to control it with diet and exercise, but diabetes doesn’t just disappear. There isn’t a cure. And there certainly isn’t a cure for Type I. It doesn’t matter how well I eat or how much I exercise, my diabetes isn’t going away. I didn’t do anything to deserve diabetes, nor did anyone else. We still need a cure. We deserve a cure.