I Did Not Cause My Condition

[Deleted member 371625]

@midnightrider
You may have lived a certain lifestyle (I don’t know, because I don’t know the details).
But there are many many other people out there who live similar lifestyles.
Not all of them get fat, or ill, or develop diabetes.

You can blame yourself for a lot of things, but I wouldn’t waste your time shouldering the blame for whatever it is that makes you a T2 when the person sitting beside you on the sofa, living the exact same lifestyle, doesn’t get T2.
We say ‘gosh, how lucky they are’ and ‘what good genes they must have’.
While simultaneously saying ‘gosh, I brought it all on myself! I was a fool. It is all my fault!’
Talk about double standards!

Of course, I’m not saying that living an ‘unhealthy lifestyle’ is a good idea.
(Though I would be curious to know what a ‘healthy lifestyle’ actually is, this week, since it seems to change with the wind and the latest Fad.)

I am saying that self blame is illogical, a waste of time, and unfair to other T2s who get tarred by the same brush.

I'm not sure that you understood what I wrote.
Being overweight and not exercising will increase your chances of developing T2D. If you are avoidably over weight and do not exercise (if able to do so) then you bear some of the blame for your condition. I lost weight (87 lbs) and increased my exercise only after diagnosis (reducing my HbA1c from74 to 32 over 6 months or so). There was nothing whatsoever apart from my own decisions preventing me from doing this before diagnosis, which would have reduced considerably my chances of developing the condition.
Therefore, my T2 was a result of decisions taken by myself, not forced upon me by anyone else, hence my own fault.
I don't however beat myself up about it. That is as you say a waste of time, I just say 'well that was stupid, I won't do it again'.

Not everyone is able to exercise, though most can at least walk a bit. Not everyone is able to lose weight, though most can if it is important enough to them.
However, for those like myself who are in this position through choices freely made there must be some personal responsibility. If you are overweight and don't exercise when both are avoidable then you must be responsible to some extent.
Nobody made me fat except myself. This increased my risk factors, hence some blame is my own.

It helps nobody at all to say that it is all just random or a result of bad luck. In most cases, this is simply not true.

In terms of a healthy lifestyle, it is true that some things change but there are some constant factors.
We all need a little exercise. We should all avoid heavily processed, energy dense foods. We should not eat in a way that causes us to gain a lot of weight, sticking to meat, fish, fruit, veg and maybe grains. There is nothing controversial in any of this.

 

[Brunneria]

I'm not sure that you understood what I wrote.
Being overweight and not exercising will increase your chances of developing T2D. If you are avoidably over weight and do not exercise (if able to do so) then you bear some of the blame for your condition. I lost weight (87 lbs) and increased my exercise only after diagnosis (reducing my HbA1c from74 to 32 over 6 months or so). There was nothing whatsoever apart from my own decisions preventing me from doing this before diagnosis, which would have reduced considerably my chances of developing the condition.
Therefore, my T2 was a result of decisions taken by myself, not forced upon me by anyone else, hence my own fault.
I don't however beat myself up about it. That is as you say a waste of time, I just say 'well that was stupid, I won't do it again'.

Not everyone is able to exercise, though most can at least walk a bit. Not everyone is able to lose weight, though most can if it is important enough to them.
However, for those like myself who are in this position through choices freely made there must be some personal responsibility. If you are overweight and don't exercise when both are avoidable then you must be responsible to some extent.
Nobody made me fat except myself. This increased my risk factors, hence some blame is my own.

It helps nobody at all to say that it is all just random or a result of bad luck. In most cases, this is simply not true.

In terms of a healthy lifestyle, it is true that some things change but there are some constant factors.
We all need a little exercise. We should all avoid heavily processed, energy dense foods. We should not eat in a way that causes us to gain a lot of weight, sticking to meat, fish, fruit, veg and maybe grains. There is nothing controversial in any of this.

Yes, I understood what you wrote. You blame yourself for a condition that other people do not develop, despite being in the same, or worse situation. Luck has nothing to do with it. Nor should blame.

 

[Deleted member 371625]

Yes, I understood what you wrote. You blame yourself for a condition that other people do not develop, despite being in the same, or worse situation. Luck has nothing to do with it. Nor should blame.

I believe that is part of the problem. If you freely take decisions which increase your risk of T2 and then develop T2, then it is at least partly your own fault.

If you freely choose to cross the road with your eyes shut you increase your chances of being knocked down (just as choosing to live with excess weight and doing no exercise increases chances of T2). If you get knocked down, it was your own fault. The fact that someone else escapes unharmed has no relevance at all to your own outcome.
T2 is not just random.

 

[Brunneria]

I believe that is part of the problem. If you freely take decisions which increase your risk of T2 and then develop T2, then it is at least partly your own fault.

If you freely choose to cross the road with your eyes shut you increase your chances of being knocked down (just as choosing to live with excess weight and doing no exercise increases chances of T2). If you get knocked down, it was your own fault. The fact that someone else escapes unharmed has no relevance at all to your own outcome.
T2 is not just random.

Of course it isn’t random.
The reason that some develop T2 in certain circumstances while others do not, is complex and not fully understood.
That is why assigning blame is inappropriate.

 

[lucylocket61]

T2 is not just random.

yes, yes it is.

you can only become type 2 if you have that imperfectly acting insulin response. I hope someone else will come along to explain it better.

excess weight is often a symptom of insulin resistance, long before it shows up on a blood test. But this medical knowledge is only a few years old, and many of us had insulin resistance for over a decade before it was flagged up as a concern. Just like those who smoked for years before the connection was made that smoking was harmful.

 

[lucylocket61]

Of course it isn’t random.
The reason that some develop T2 in certain circumstances while others do not, is complex and not fully understood.
That is why assigning blame is inappropriate.

I think it is random, in the sense that it isnt cause and effect, and we dont know who is at risk, or why it happens. Maybe I have misunderstood the word 'random'

 

[LeftPeg]

Agree with @midnightrider. Speaking for myself (which is all I can do), I definitely increased my chances of developing T2D through poor lifestyle choices. I ate and drank things which we all know are unhealthy in large quantities. To pretend to be blameless would be kidding myself.

 

[Fenn]

We are not to blame, if we are to be blamed, we therefore must deserve diabetes, that means we were wrong in our choices, that means everyone on the planet is to blame and therefore deserves diabetes, name a person on earth that hasnt made bad food choices? Mo Farah maybe? Lives an amazingly healthy lifestyle and we dont need to talk about how much he exercises, but has he ever eaten a biscuit? Therefore he knew that was not healthy and deserves diabetes? Or is there a line, if we eat two biscuits a year, a month a day? If we eat those biscuits and dont get fat or diabetes due to genetics were we lucky? If so then people that do get it are unlucky? Therefore we cant be blamed for bad luck surely?

No one wants to be fat, no one wants to eat more than they know they should, everyone wishes they could be in the gym 5 times a week and living a perfect lifestyle, therefore those that dont have something else at play, genetics, mental health whatever but they are not to blame, we dont choose to have willpower, often we only get it due to a shock diagnosis, we then do certain things that are a result of that experience which in itself is psychological, if the change in lifestyle is an effect of something psychological, then how can the opposite not be the case?

We are not to blame, if we blame ourselves or blame others then we have been conditioned to do so by society

Makes sense to me lol

 

[Brunneria]

I think it is random, in the sense that it isnt cause and effect, and we dont know who is at risk, or why it happens. Maybe I have misunderstood the word 'random'

I see ‘random’ as a die falling and no one knowing which of its 6 sides will be up til it lands.

T2 is not random (in my opinion) because there are multiple circumstances which affect its development, such as individual genetics, personal health history, environment, shift work, quality of sleep over time, medications, carb overload over time, tendency to lay down fat in pancreas and liver, ferritin levels... it is a very long list. Plus of course the old chestnuts diet and exercise.

It may look random, but I just think it is just too complicated for us to grasp (currently), and that simplify it down to ‘lifestyle’ or ‘fat lazy slob’ is both ignorant and offensive.

My father is currently undergoing investigations for high ferritin levels, which can be caused by gut issues, autoimmune issues or genetic factors. High ferritin can cause T2. He is recently diagnosed T2. He is the 3rd generation in our family to develop T2 After 60 yrs old. There are 7 T2 family members within those 3 generations. I am the 8th person. Only one of those (me) could possibly be described as a classic T2 (you know, couch potato). I have other health issues that affect insulin resistance and blood glucose, and have had both since childhood. My issues are hormonal and autoimmune. I didn’t get T2bg levels until my 40s. That is over 30 years of insulin restance before the T2 arrived.

If anyone bothered to investigate every T2 on this site, I bet they would find thousands of different personal stories, each unique, each a scattering of factors which led to the start of insulin resistance, which in turn led to acting like a T2.

I think insulin resistance is central to the development of most T2. Not weight. Or lack of exercise. Those happen after the insulin resistance makes us hungry, tired and lacklustre. But what causes the insulin resistance? Probably a collection of factors, like those I mentioned above.

I find it very frustrating when people simplify complex conditions into soundbites - especially when those same soundbites are seized by the media and used to flog and blame.

 

[zand]

I made a poor lifestyle choice for me. The thing is though, I am not the most important person in my world. I am copying this post from another thread as I can't bear to write it again. It hurts too much.

This is the thread,
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...u-sleep-last-night.155959/page-3#post-1873303
but I will copy and paste it here. Afterwards I will be having a rest from the forum for a couple of days because the judgement of others here is just too much to bear.

Here's the post

"My sleep problems started when my 2nd child woke me one night with what I can only describe as his 'death cry' He was 5 months old. He sounded like a wounded animal giving up on life. I ran to his cot and picked him up, he was cold and still, yet the bed covers were on him (not covering his face). I screamed to wake my husband and said 'I don't know what to do, he's dead'. In my panic I dropped him about 8 inches onto our bed. That was the best thing I could have done, the force of the drop kick started his heart again and my husband noticed his left hand move a little. I sat up with him in our bed for the 4 hours till morning. We put 2 hot water bottles next to him and I had him tucked inside my pj top so he could warm naturally. Finally at 6 am he woke and had a short feed. His temp which had been below 90 deg F crept slowly back up.

I took him to the GP next day. She refused to believe me that he had stopped breathing, she said it was just a deep sleep and I should have left him alone. It was my 2nd child, I really did know the difference between a sleeping baby and one that wasn't breathing anymore! She refused to give me an alarm in case it happened again.

So for a couple of weeks I set my alarm clock every hour so I could check on my babe. After that I woke naturally every hour, on the hour without an alarm. Often I would just sit by him and think how wonderful it was that he was breathing.

Every time I heard of cot death cases where the parents were blamed and accused because they found the baby cold I screamed at the TV.....'but they get cold first, then they die!'

A few years later my dentist had the exact same thing happen with her son, but she was a professional and her doc listened to her and gave her an alarm. She was disgusted when I told her that I wasn't helped at all.

After months of waking up constantly my body began to suffer. My hormones were upset. I put on weight. I caught infections often. When the danger of cot death was over other worries crept in to stop me sleeping.

I had to really work on not getting up and often lay in bed awake for hours. Then I found I woke frequently for the loo when I didn't really need to, so I just lay in bed trying to train myself not to wake. Now I don't often wake, not even for the loo, and usually sleep 8 hours, but it really has been a long haul to get back to a decent sleep pattern.

I don't regret messing up my health to check on my son. I would do it all over again, but I do get upset when people look at me and think I am fat because I am lazy."

Add to this the diet drinks that I was told to drink as a healthy alternative to sugary ones and I guess you can say that I caused T2 myself.

@Brunneria I didn't know that about high ferritin levels. I had those too once upon a time.

Logging out now.

 

[kokhongw]

excess weight is often a symptom of insulin resistance, long before it shows up on a blood test. But this medical knowledge is only a few years old,

Unfortunately this knowledge has long been known...see researches/papers by GM Reaven, RA Defronzo (developed SGLT2-inhibitors) etc
GM Reaven's 1988 Banting Lecture
Banting lecture 1988. Role of insulin resistance in human disease.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3056758

for decades and deliberately suppressed in favour of medication for life...because there is no good medication to lower insulin levels and the constant refrain that lifestyle changes are not sustainable.

Every generation that attempted to reintroduced low carb/fasting etc would be told by the great food/pharma merciless marketing machinery that it is a dangerous fad diet. So they cut off the very route that could actually save innumerous limbs and more...it takes tremendous courage and grit for the few low carb medical professionals to stand up against this repression of choices over the decades. You can find many of their names on this relatively recent paper...that was once again dismissed...

Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: Critical review and evidence base
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900714003323

 

[Brunneria]

@zand
Have a gander at this
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/related-conditions/hemochromatosis.html

 

[SimonCrox]

yes, yes it is.

you can only become type 2 if you have that imperfectly acting insulin response. I hope someone else will come along to explain it better.

excess weight is often a symptom of insulin resistance, long before it shows up on a blood test. But this medical knowledge is only a few years old, and many of us had insulin resistance for over a decade before it was flagged up as a concern. Just like those who smoked for years before the connection was made that smoking was harmful.

The present thinking about the aetiology of T2DM is that the person is less sensitive (or more resistant) to the effect of insulin; this is particularly so in the liver – the insulin sticks to the receptors OK, but the message is not transmitted so well within the cell (the Insulin Receptor Substrate protein does not work so well).

So the person initially makes more insulin than normal to overcome this defect and keep the glucose levels down. But after a while, the beta cells making insulin wear out a bit and although they may still be making large amounts of insulin, it is not enough to keep the glucose levels down.

These changes develop years before the diagnosis of diabetes eg diabetes has often been present 7-10 years before diagnosis, and the metabolic changes of insulin resistance are apparent long before the appearance of diabetes.

In epidemiological studies, the risk factors for developing T2DM include obesity, lack of exercise, family history, ethnic origin and ageing.

So the genetic influence might be one of the reasons why some folk do and some folk do not develop diabetes for the same exercise and Body Mass Index. Or that Indo-Asian folk unfortunately get a high risk of diabetes with a BMI 23-25.

So, this info is useful – if one has a strong family history, one would be well advised to exercise and watch weight; but we would all be well advised to do this if possible.

So it is more likely that the obesity worsens insulin resistance (fat cells make something called resistin which causes the insulin resistance in the liver. So the obesity comes first (or second after the genetic predisposition); this leads to increased insulin levels which may stimulate the appetite.

I always feel that suggesting that it is the patient’s fault that they have the condition is an excuse to ration treatment, but I might just be very cynical.

Best wishes

 

[Resurgam]

Gave up eggs for breakfast as it was unhealthy I was told to have porridge, cereal or wholemeal toast.
Gave up eating cold meat or more eggs, and cheese, with salads at lunch time, and had salad sandwiches with wholemeal bread and low fat spread, the healthy option.
Gave up eating beef for a decade or more, I cut down on fats, used sunflower oil, ate baked potatoes and beans to lower cholesterol. That didn't work either.
I also starved myself from time to time trying to lose weight. Sometimes I collapsed if I tried to exert myself.
I ate according to the diet sheets as I was told that low carb was bad wrong and dangerous even if it was the only way I could lose weight. My weight reached 264lb before I gave up weighing myself.
For years I was told it was me that was wrong, and that I could not be helped because I was doing it all wrong, and I told lies about what I ate, obviously.
I have begged doctors to please, consider, what if you are wrong - and they said no.
I last saw my doctor when diagnosed two years ago - I think he's sulking.

 

[ickihun]

Totally agree with you @lucylocket61

The thing I don't understand is why doctors don't test insulin levels when they are faced with an obese patient. If I had known I had IR I would have read up about it and done something about it years ago. I am so upset about all the wasted years where I couldn't do anything through fatigue and getting ever fatter.



Yes!! thanks for posting this, I recently wrote on another thread that these drinks were the biggest cause of my own obesity and I got replies saying surely it was the fatty sugary foods that made me fat. Fact was I drank a lot of diet drinks because I was trying to lose weight on a calorie controlled diet so I didn't have huge amounts of fatty and sugary stuff.

If I could go back in time and tell my young self one thing it would be to never touch a diet drink ever. If you drink a sugary drink you may put on weight. You can lose that again. If you regularly drink diet drinks the effects take years to show up but your metabolism changes, you get fatty liver, you mess up your gut and it takes many years to put things right. I have been trying to put things right for 11 years and am still not there yet (I have been T2 for 7 years)

I have said that diet drinks are bad many times on this forum and have been ridiculed for it at times. I don't say it as an excuse for my own obesity and T2. I say it to warn others not to do what I have done. It usually falls on deaf ears, people just don't want to hear it, they prefer to see me as a glutton who deserved what I got. I never was that person. Thank you for highlighting the issue too. I really fear for the next generation as I see them reach for diet drinks as a healthier alternative to sugary ones. The partnership between DUK and Britvic won't help at all. Fruit juices are bad too even for non D's, it's far better to eat fruit than to drink it and this has been known for years. The healthiest drink is water and it's the only one we really need, though tea and coffee are on my own list now too.

Because insulin levels can change very quickly. Blood test is quickly invalid.

We need a insulin level monitor but cost would be outrageous. Much more than ketone meters, to run.

Unless 'no insulin' is test a guaranteed type1 surviver. Or a hugely high level to body weight fat ratio.
So maths must be the consultants strong point.
Whose prepared to weigh a patient in a coma?
The consultant uses his/her eyes to determine patients physic and condition with a hba1c.
After all too much insulin doesnt cause an instant death problem.

 

[zand]

Because insulin levels can change very quickly. Blood test is quickly invalid.

We need a insulin level monitor but cost would be outrageous.

I don't believe you are right in this. High insulin levels are more dangerous than high BG levels. You can get an IR test £39 privately from Medichecks, they are a decent company and wouldn't be selling them if the results were invalid. The problem is the patient won't know they can do this for themselves if they have never heard of insulin resistance. If the GP ordered the test on the NHS it would be a heck of a lot cheaper than leaving the patient wondering why they can't lose weight and then letting them get to the point of needing expensive heart operations etc.

 

[kokhongw]

Because insulin levels can change very quickly. Blood test is quickly invalid.

We need a insulin level monitor but cost would be outrageous. Much more than ketone meters, to run.

Unless 'no insulin' is test a guaranteed type1 surviver. Or a hugely high level to body weight fat ratio.
So maths must be the consultants strong point.
Whose prepared to weigh a patient in a coma?
The consultant uses his/her eyes to determine patients physic and condition with a hba1c.
After all too much insulin doesnt cause an instant death problem.

I disagree. The only reason is that there are no medication that can be more effective than low carb/fasting to lower insulin. So the very idea of lowering insulin will render most T2D medication pointless.

 

[bulkbiker]

After all too much insulin doesnt cause an instant death problem.

Err.... I think it might do when injected?

 

[ickihun]

Err.... I think it might do when injected?

Sorry I ment shown in your blood, in the blood test result. Yes death would have occurred before results are back, so only valuable at certain times.

 

[neithskye]

I did one of those direct-to-consumer DNA tests several years ago that show you your ancestry and health results. It said that according to my genes I had a higher-than-average risk of developing type 2 diabetes. (My father also has type 2 diabetes.) Some argue the accuracy of these home-testing DNA kits but I've found that the one I did has been bang on.