| Having been what they used to call a "Puberty onset" diabetic (dx'ed at the age of almost 13, in 1965), I've heard this battle raging back and forth most of my life. Most of the arguements I hear regarding type 2 being a "lifestyle disease" vs. type 1 striking innocent children hits very close to home for me. I was a normal, carefree kid, with no history of any type of diabetes on either side of my family. I was diagnosed--in a DKA coma, blood glucose of 1000--just a few months after my grandmother was diagnosed type 2. I was 12 and weighed 62 lbs. She was 65 and probably weighed 250 lbs. She ate what she wanted, however much she wanted. I watched, counted, weighed and logged every bite I ate. She took 2 pills a day, I injected insulin twice a day through a huge needle that I had to boil each time I used it. She stayed obese, I grew muscular through constant exercise and dieting. Every morning and evening, I had to pee in a cup, dilute with water in a test tube, then boil it with benedict's solution and compare the color to a chart to see if I was "spilling sugar". Grandma played Mah Jong and read the newspaper... Grandma also died of heart disease...
I believe she would have lived many more years IF she had the discipline to do what I HAD to do. I now have many type 2 friends. None of them have been diabetic for more than 15 years, compared to my 38 years. None of them tests as often as I do, none of them exercise as often as I do, none of their diets are as strict as mine, and none of them have blood glucose levels in as tight a range as mine are. None of them are anywhere near their ideal weight (I am slightly underweight), ALL of them are overweight, a few of them grossly so. Several of them already have significant complications in return for their lack of self-discipline--Neuropathy, retinopathy, foot infections, glaucoma, and one is in kidney dialysis. Every single one of my type 2 friends is having health issues due to their lack of self-control, their denial of the serious nature of diabetes, and their refusal to do the extremely hard work of diabetes self-care.
I am also in a support group of long-term type 1s. All of us have had it for over 25 years, our oldest member was diagnosed in 1943 at the age of 5, and most of us remember sharpening the needles of our glass syringes on a whetstone every few weeks to keep it sharp enough to penetrate the skin. Most of us are in our 50s, were diagnosed in the 1960s, and went for 25 or more years before home glucose monitors were even available. Although some of us do, after many decades of struggle and battle, have some complications, we are, by and large, as a group, doing significantly better that our type 2 counterparts. Why...?
It's a question I ask a lot, but refuse to answer, as my answers always inflame this issue. Is it a lifestyle choice? Is it that we got it as children and never knew anything else, had no lifestyle to change, but, like old dogs, older adults cannot be taught new tricks? Not a single one of us type 1s has issues with denial or refusal to take care of our disease. All of my type 2 friends have continuing issues with denial and refusal. I make no claim as regards "which type is worse." Both are difficult, serious, demanding and challenging. But a person diagnosed type 2 at age 50 (a common "average" age for it...) will have gone only 12 years when they reach retirement at 62. I'll have racked up 50 years by then... THAT is a significant difference. 50 years of self-denial, 50 years of injections (that'll be a total of about 56,000 injections in those 50 years...), 50 years of tests and dietary restrictions and promises of cures. 50 years of counting carbs and battling hypos, not to mention battling doctors, nurses, drug companies, insurance companies, employers and government agencies for equal rights, access to decent care, and access to opportunities and information.
None of us "has it easy." Some of us just make poor choices...
No pity--just understanding...
Michael  |
