diabetes education

A lot of 'diabetes education' is based on fear. I guess the doctors, health care gurus, whomever, think that unless they first scare people to death with talk of awful complications, no one will take anything they say about diet, exercise, medication, insulin seriously. Which is odd because there is evidence that the first thing people do when frightened is either fight (who?) or flight (how do you run away from a disease?) or go into denial. Now that's helpful, isn't it?

I wish they would keep the talk about complications more realistic. An untreated Type 1 diabetic is at great risk of immediate complications - death. The other complications they talk about - all of them - take years to develop (in both Type 1 and Type 2 patients). Most of the studies involve people who went years with type 2 before they were every diagnosed or treated or people with type 1 who were born more than 30 years ago. Keep in mind that the blood glucose meter was not available until 1973! Type 1 diabetics had their urine tested once a week at the doctors office and 'guessed' at the amount of insulin to take. It's a wonder any of them survived.

If you have type 2 diabetes it makes sense to watch your diet, exercise, lose weight and take medication to keep your numbers at a reasonable level. If oral medications aren't doing the job, insulin is just another medication. And if you are 'too scared to take insulin' think of all the little kids - some only months old - who get 4 or 5 insulin injections every day for their type 1 diabetes and just consider yourself lucky.