The things to not say to a Diabetic

There is nothing I hate more than being told that a supplement or a certain diet plan will cure me of Type 1 Diabetes, or that maybe I ate too much sugar as a kid, or I am too skinny to be Diabetic or if I exercised more I wouldn't be Diabetic. These things are all stereotypical statements from people with no knowledge of the differences in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. Would you tell a Cancer patient to go off radiation or chemo and take a supplement to cure them? This sort of statement is unacceptable for them, the same sort of treatment should be given to people with Type 1 Diabetes. A pill, supplement, vitamin, juice concoction, or whatever is NOT going to cure me, help me, reverse my disease or stabilize my blood sugar levels. INSULIN is the ONLY thing that has the ability to keep me alive. I go off INSULIN and I DIE, there are no questions about it. Type 1 Diabetes doesn't care what color you are, what weight you are, what height you are because it is an auto-immune disease. My body went haywire and killed off the cells in my pancreas that make insulin, DEAD, they are DEAD and will not self revive themselves. Granted some day they may find a way to regenerate the cells and keep my body from killing them off, but as of right NOW that treatment just isn't available. I am not accusing any of you of making such ignorant statements, but I do hear them and I am so tired of hearing it, tired of explaining the real truth about Type 1 Diabetes. If you feel you know what Diabetes truly is, go online research and find out that you really only know the tip of the iceberg about the differences. Also there is no such things as brittle or "bad" Diabetes. Some people are much more sensitive to insulin, or some more resistant and that doesn't make us bad, that just makes us all different. Not ONE single Diabetic is the same as the next. We as humans were not meant to do the work of our Pancreas, it is nearly impossible with the current treatment of insulin. Insulin is very unpredictable at times, one day it can work just great other days it doesn't work as well. It can sometimes be absorbed really fast or really slow and that has a major effect on blood sugar numbers, it can also have a major effect or detrimental effect on our life. If it is absorbed faster than we expect or miscalculated the carbs we ate we have a low blood sugar and if not caught in time we will DIE, if is absorbed slower or miscalculated the carbs our blood sugar goes high and if not caught in time we can go into a coma and DIE. Daily stress and illness also has a major effect on blood sugar, so don't the fluctuating hormone levels a woman goes through every month. It is all different for each one of us which in turn makes it a much harder disease for doctors to treat because they can't use a one treatment plan fixes all plan with us. I know not many of you will read this but I know at least the people who really care will or the people who really do want to know the differences. If I educate just one person on this Disease my goal has been met. So please don't tell someone they are a "bad" Diabetic or they have the "bad" kind of Diabetes, nothing hurts us more. We know Diabetes is a BAD disease to have, we know because we live with it every second of every day and it is NEVER going to go away and we KNOW that this disease has the potential of ending our lives. We know, trust me on that one.

Originally written on April 24th 2012