Diabetes is more common than I thought

[Tweetypie]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's response. On reflection, perhaps I should have phrased the title differently, but I didn't quite know how to put it.

I find it a very positive thing seeing others injecting in public places or expressing their condition to others. When I first needed to go on insulin, I was terrified how I would be able to do it in public. Fortunately, this doesn't apply anymore but I know that if it ever did, I'd feel assured because I've seen others do it now (whether by fate or not!). I find it so educational because it is something I knew nothing about before. My grandma was diabetic, so I had that knowledge. But the only type 1 I knew before was a boy at secondary school. I'm sorry to say, he always looked ill - which didn't give me the best impression of what being diabetic is about. And stupidly I admit I could never understand why if he shouldn't eat sugary things, why we were all told to give him something sweet if he was poorly!

Despite all of this, I have met just one other type 1 diabetic.. But I am learning we are not a minority!

 

[ConradJ]

I retract my remark...

It's not the plague, it's a veritable rabbit warren! We must be breeding in secret.

 

[ConradJ]

If I was a gambling man I'd bet at some point in your life you wore bell bottom trousers and listened to Country Joe and the Fish .....

If you know of Country Joe... Sounds like we both sat down to a night of consumables and Woodstock in the '80s

 

[this is too difficult two]

If you know of Country Joe... Sounds like we both sat down to a night of consumables and Woodstock in the '80s

Wrong person You mean me.

 

[ConradJ]

I have recently met loads of lovely diabetics, on this forum.

Ahh, but are we really here?

And if we are real, some of us may not be who / what we say we are!

At least, with 1-2-1's you can witness another testing/jabbing/pumping... there's little else to identify us (unless someone really has tattooed my forehead with a vampirical barcode)

 

[JTL]

If you know of Country Joe... Sounds like we both sat down to a night of consumables and Woodstock in the '80s

80'S!!!!
And I thought it made me lose track of time

 

[ConradJ]

Wrong person You mean me.

But I thought you were "Barnes"? Oh, man, this machine is really beginning to breakdown... (and if the machine breaks down..???)

 

[this is too difficult two]

who said fish?

 

[ConradJ]

80'S!!!!
And I thought it made me lose track of time

Too many hypos...

 

[JTL]

who said fish?

Joe did.

 

[Robbity]

you may also be surprised to know nearly everyone here is diabetic too

Odd - I was just about to comment on this strange diabetic cluster too...

Previously the most diabetics I came across was a few years back when I was attending the eye hospital on a regular basis, and I used to see the groups of elderly diabetics coming in for their check-ups.

Robbity

PS Otherwise I've only ever knowingly met four: there was a diabetic girl in my class at one school I went to as a young teenager, one of my close workmates was diagnosed (I assume now as a type 2) just before I retired, my husband has a diabetic friend, and most recently I discovered in another forum in a discussion on diabetic dogs, that the lady who sold me one of my dogs is also diabetic. So apart from people here and that clinic group, I've actually met just four in 72 years. I've actually read about more diabetics in novels since I was diagnosed than I've met in person!!

 

[AlexMBrennan]

Prevalence is about 5%, so if you know 20 people then one of them will, on average, have diabetes.

 

[Sancho panza]

My partner is a T1 so is her dad, my mother is just beginning her T2 journey.
In my immediate set of friends I there are four of us T2s and I'm acquainted with two otherT1s. And knew two other T1s who are sadly no longer with us.
It seems to me there's a lot of us out there many of whom don't wish it to be widely known ( for whatever reason) .
I'm personally quite willing to be open about my condition, a lot of people have commented on my weight loss and I tell them straight out I have diabetes, if it may help someone get an early diagnosis before complications set in then to me that's for the good.
I know some don't feel as I do but I'm not ashamed of my diabetes no more than I am of having blue eyes.
Your mileage may vary as they say

 

[Jayatkinson94]

Over the course of secondary school, 4 people in my year (including me) were diagnosed with type 1! Me and another lad became DBFF's (Diabetic best friends forever).