As Type 2 diabetes becomes more and more prevalent in our society so are the commercials on television telling you how to avoid getting it. The commercials talk about doctors warning their patients that they have pre-diabetes and with weight control and exercise there may be a way to never get full blown diabetes. What they fail to mention, almost all of the time, is that pre-diabetes is only for people with Type 2 diabetes. There is no such luck for people with Type 1 diabetes. People with Type 1 diabetes don’t get that out. There is no out when it comes to ‘our’ diabetes.
Children and adults that get Type 1 diabetes are usually moving right along in their life when all of a sudden something is not right. Either they get a flu-like illness that won’t go away, or they start losing weight at an alarming rate, or they are never satiated of thirst, or they use the bathroom more times than they can imagine in one hour, but whatever it is and however it happens, it comes on in an instant. And once these symptoms start there is no plan of action other than insulin that can help the situation. There is no slowing down of Type 1. Once the T cells attack and decimate the beta cells in the pancreas there is no exercise or healthy eating that can turn the process around. It is a one-way ticket to having Type 1 diabetes.
The same holds true for severity of Type 1 diabetes. The media is keen on saying that the diabetes was the ‘severe kind of diabetes’. All cases of Type 1 diabetes are severe. All people with Type 1 diabetes take insulin to live. Whether they wear a pump or take shots, or test 4 time a day or 12, it doesn’t matter. Every single person with Type 1 diabetes survives on life support, insulin, and manages a chronic illness on a daily basis, that could kill them in more ways than one.
Honestly, I think anything that can kill you while you sleep is severe.
So the next time you see a child with Type 1 diabetes understand there is nothing he (or his parents) could have done to prevent this dreaded disease. And there is nothing he can do to get rid of it either. There was no doctor’s visit where someone gave the heads up that this disease was coming our way. It comes out of the blue and stays for the duration.
Giving insulin for food doesn’t mean a person has severe diabetes, it means he has Type 1 diabetes. All people from the second they are diagnosed need insulin to cover their carb intake. So whether they are eating a bagel equaling 70 carbs, or a whole wheat turkey sandwich equaling 30 carbs, or a piece of candy equaling 11 carbs they still need to take insulin.
So ‘pre-diabetes’, ‘severe’, ‘brittle’, and whatever other word they use to spice up a story are all words used by the media to fill up airtime about a disease that they really know nothing about. Type 1 diabetes is it’s own disease, different from Type 2 diabetes, and it should be treated that way.