Whats the most annoying thing people say about diabetes?

michelereid2002

Active Member
Messages
40
Its a cake walk it a disorder that's easy to manage yeh right I've never had a day never mind a week with my blood sugars at a normal levels why is it so hard to sit between 5~ 7 and when you have a hypo and you do your normal thing and drink lucozade it spikes so high yeh bomarang effect I can't seem to win with my levels
 

anna29

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noblehead said:
neels said:
Some years ago I had a pharmacist say to me - You don't look like a diabetic!


Wish I had a pound for every-time someone has said that :roll:
True - I hear the same - you're tiny !
Are you really a diabetic ?

Could have a jar full of pennies now :p

Anna.
 

diabetes51

Active Member
Messages
33
Dislikes
I am old fashioned so rude people, swearing , lack of good manners.
People trying to make me live in fear of complications instead of encouraging me to enjoy life. especially those who have never bothered to educate themselves about T1 diabetes.
People who eat/sleep/drink their diabetes,and let it rule their life!
On 23rd Jan I asked a perferctly reasonable question i.e. how come after 35 years of diabetes treatment which did not ensure a stable HbA1c - how come I did not have any major complications. I was answered by a person called Brennan in the following manner

"To answer your question: Because you do not understand what risk means."

Unfortunately Brennan you do not know me and therefore have no right to make that comment - but it indicates what I mean about people with diabetes being put down by others with the same condition. I have lived with this condition for 53 years - I have lived through numerous theories and tratments based on so called research. Today the miracle test is HbA1c - keep it at a certain level and all your risks will disappear. I know people who have done this over several years and have complications - I also know people who have not met this criteria and have none.

How do I know this - I was a Senior lecturer teaching diabetes courses as well as attending numerous conferences and courses. There is far more to prevention of complications than tests performed on blood sugar levels - such as ensuring people are happy, live a full and contented life, are given control of the own care and treatment and thus able to to self actualise. Many professionals take that away from people who integrate diabetes into their lives, through criticism, instilling fear and coming out with comments such as "Because you do not understand what risk means".

With your experiment - did everybody who lived with higher HbA1c get complications, if they didn't - why not. Diabetes research cannot stop at this simplified solution - there must be a reason why some people with higher HbA1c get complications and others do not. My mind is not closed, I know from my years of experience that theories re diabetes complications come and go, backed up by the research available at the time - did you know 50 years ago we were told high fat diet was the way to get energy with low risk and less complications? That 30 years ago we were told not to bother including fruit and vegetables in our carbohydrate rations as they did not release sugar into the blood and they were healthy foods. The big thing then was that low fat diet was the way to prevent complications, don't worry so much about the sugars.

So please give me a better answer re why I and others have managed to live without complications, when the treatment we were prescribed for years did not ensure stable HbA1c. I know this because we did urine tests, that were to stay within the "green" level. They now know this indicated sugar was tipping into the urine, which meant the BS was above 10. So I lived that way for over 35 years - so why do I not have these complications I am told are caused by blood sugars at that level. It is a perfectly legitimate question that requires a legitimate answer please instead of a put down.
 

Loomavore

Newbie
Messages
1
'Oh you have diabetes? Well that's about not eating sweet things, right? My friend has diabetes and he cured it by eating bitter things...''
 
Messages
20
I hate it when people say " you're Diabetic, I'm so sorry!" a) it's not your fault, b) apologising isn't going to cure me and c) I don't need your sympathy just for you to have a better understanding!
 

mo1905

BANNED
Messages
4,334
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
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Rude people !
I understand everyone's frustrations with the annoying things people say but to be honest, before diagnosis, I was very ignorant of the disease. How many of you, hand on heart, could care a less about diabetes until you were diagnosed ? I know it's a little annoying but I would be exactly the same with many other medical matters ! Let's cut Joe Public a little slack eh ?


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 

lizzycymru

Newbie
Messages
1
The implication that you have diabetes because you are fat. Also the comment "you won't be having a pudding then", but thinking fruit salad, fruit juice, potatoes, pasta and rice are all fine to eat irrespective of their carb content and therefore effect on blood glucose/diabetic control.
 

Superchip

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Messages
512
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GP's, Diabetes Nurses.Crazy NHS guidelines on diet for Diabetics, they are seeing off millions.
Cheap Whisky !
I've read most of the comments on here and have to say that they are all so familiar !

It's just a lack of education and myth that propogates these total misunderstandings of our ' condition '.



Nough said !

Superchip ( 7.1 this morning ! )
 

GraceK

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Superchip said:
I've read most of the comments on here and have to say that they are all so familiar !

It's just a lack of education and myth that propogates these total misunderstandings of our ' condition '.



Nough said !

Superchip ( 7.1 this morning ! )

Chips! You're back! :D
 

Superchip

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512
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GP's, Diabetes Nurses.Crazy NHS guidelines on diet for Diabetics, they are seeing off millions.
Cheap Whisky !
Hi Grace !

I've been modulerated again ! sometimes it is inappropriate to have a view of alternative humour !

Hope you are well and fine Grace, the Poland trip is now mostly booked, Stansted,Gdansk,Warsaw,Aushwitz,Warsaw,Gdansk,Stansted.

It's just the taxi's I'm concerned about, do you know if the drivers haggle ? I've been quoted 110 euro's from Gdansk to Polmewo return. I don't know if that is good ? When I've turned up in a new country in the past I've tended to quest the taxi's for price and their ability to communicate with me.

Have a cracking weekend, what are you cooking ?

Chips
 

munchykins78

Member
Messages
8
I get quite annoyed when people say "you have diabetes because you are fat!"

This is true. I am fat. But i do not believe this to be the main reason i have diabetes. I believe i was destined to get it regardless as it runs through my mother's side of the family like an Australian bush fire. My grandmother had it, my mother has it and most of my 9 aunts and uncles have it. All Type 2. Put this together with the nasty bout of pancreatitis i had 14 months ago (i was diagnosed 5 months later) and there you have it. :)
 

kimiwolf

Newbie
Messages
3
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KNOW-IT-ALL-KNOW-NOTHING GP's!!!!!
For my Husband, number one on the hit parade has to be "YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT" when he sees some of his old favourites in the shop.... It breaks my heart to see him.

For all those who got diagnosed young, I would definitly NOT call you lucky, not at all, especially not if you were too young to remember anything different.... All your friends going to the ice cream van or the sweet shop, stuffing their faces with milk chocolate or biscuits or kiplings cakes ect, and you have to watch on, trying to hold back tears of disappointment and self loathing.... to a degree, I can understand. I watched my sister get told she had a caffine and lactose intolerance at the age of twelve, and that was so hard for her to come to terms with.... I keep telling my husband at least he had fifty years of eating whatever he wanted before his pancreas stuck two fingers up at him.... not that that helps him much, but, looking at how old some of you nice folk were at diagnosis, I think he was VERY lucky! As far as the weight issue goes, my best friend, diagnosed T1 at two months old, has always been a scrawny runt like me, so have countless others.... weight is often paired with all kinds of things without doctors thinking twice, JUST like aspartame based sweetener and smoking (although, the latter has considerabley more clout than the first two, I suppose).
I can only imagine how frustrating being a diabetic is, but, properly managed, people can actually live pretty normal lives.
 

Baggsy

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 1
As I work abroad on a regular basis I like to make certain I have an adequate stock of supplies in case I'm delayed in any way getting back to the UK, to that end I double up on my repeat prescriptions etc. However every 6 months or so I get standard reply from the Pharmacist at my surgery "You need to have a medication review before I can give you your prescription" Hmm ok well I have regular reviews with my (Totally fantastic) diabeted nurse, I havent changed or altered my medication since I was diagnosed as a type 1, I am totally stable and apart from the fact I have diabetes it hasn't made much difference to my lifestyle.....however; in order for me to get said medication review, really depends on when I can next get an apt, so anywhere between 3-14 days. In the mean time I will run out of Insulin and everything else, miss being able to work and probably (Although not really likely) die from DKA.
So the question remains could I please have that prescription?
I have to say that is the most annoying thing, I feel as if Im being held to ransom for something thats required for me to live....
 

GraceK

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Baggsy said:
As I work abroad on a regular basis I like to make certain I have an adequate stock of supplies in case I'm delayed in any way getting back to the UK, to that end I double up on my repeat prescriptions etc. However every 6 months or so I get standard reply from the Pharmacist at my surgery "You need to have a medication review before I can give you your prescription" Hmm ok well I have regular reviews with my (Totally fantastic) diabeted nurse, I havent changed or altered my medication since I was diagnosed as a type 1, I am totally stable and apart from the fact I have diabetes it hasn't made much difference to my lifestyle.....however; in order for me to get said medication review, really depends on when I can next get an apt, so anywhere between 3-14 days. In the mean time I will run out of Insulin and everything else, miss being able to work and probably (Although not really likely) die from DKA.
So the question remains could I please have that prescription?
I have to say that is the most annoying thing, I feel as if Im being held to ransom for something thats required for me to live....

Now, THAT'S really what I'd call an annoying thing that people say ... because it's affecting your working life, your ability to earn, not to mention endangering your health. All the other silly comments pale into insignificance compared to this. Can you not get a letter from your doctor telling your pharmacist to just give you your damned meds and stop faffing around? Although that would probably cost you £70 for the pleasure. :roll:
 

GraceK

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To Kimiwolf ... I have to disagree with you. Personally, I'm glad I can no longer eat what I WANT, in fact I wish I'd been diagnosed earlier and stopped eating what I WANTED many years ago. I might have been a lot fitter than I am now if I'd eaten a better diet.
There's no real nutritional value in ice cream, cakes, biscuits, sweets, Mr Kiplings etc. They're just sugar laden **** that rots your teeth and if you're an undiagnosed diabetic, cause you all sorts of ailments as a result of untreated high blood glucose.

I'm one of those nasty people who has no problem refusing to buy sweets for children, in fact I'd no more buy sweets for a child than I would buy a packet of cigarettes for an adult. I'm also one of those nasty people who makes loud comments in the supermarket about all the sweets on display at the checkout and how I think they should be removed and locked away in a cabinet just like the cigarettes are now.

I've had 50 years of being able to eat what I WANTED ... as a result I have dentures, and I had so many diabetic complications BEFORE I was diagnosed with diabetes that I was almost writing my will. I was never a huge sweet/cake eater but I did eat them. But sugar is just a poison as far as I'm concerned, but it's sweet, we generally like the taste of it, it's addictive and it SELLS - just like cigarettes and alcohol sell.

So no, I count my diabetes diagnosis as a PLUS in my life. It turned my life around from being a person who was dragging myself out of bed at 1pm every day to someone who's up at the crack of dawn and out to work at 7.45am every morning and loving every minute of it.

I LOVE my Metformin, I'm thankful I had no problems with it. I love that it's curbed my appetite by about 60%. I love my LCHF diet, it suits me, it suits my tummy, it suits my lungs, it suits my blood glucose just fine. I'm no longer sugar addicted. I can walk past chocolate, sweets, biscuits, cakes without a flinch or a longing, in fact sometimes just the smell and look of the stuff makes my stomach heave. I do occasionally try something sweet just to test my reactions to it, and my reaction is ALWAYS "How in God's name did I ever EAT that stuff and LIKE it? How did I ever EAT that stuff without throwing up afterwards?" Because that's what sugary food makes me feel like now.

I'm nearly 60 and I can remember as a child NOT LIKING SUGARY FOODS and refusing them. I can also remember MY MOTHER telling me that I NEEDED sugar for energy. She had a sweet tooth, liked her sweets and biscuits so I had to like them too. I remember her putting sugar in my tea because I NEEDED it. I remember tasting it and thinking "Eeeeeewwww yuk!" I remember LEARNING TO LIKE sugary foods and I remember becoming ADDICTED to them and later on CRAVING them if I stopped eating them.

I like to think my Mother didn't intentionally poison me with sugar, although I know for definite that I was an unwanted child, she gave birth to me but didn't want me for her own reasons and that never changed throughout the whole of our time together. But she was incapable of loving me and accepting me and she 'sugar coated' the truth all of her life until she couldn't pretend any longer and blurted it all out to me when I was about 37 years of age and it devastated me. My Mother couldn't love me so she 'sugared' me instead. She substituted sugar for love. Love would have refused me sugar because it's poison. Sugar doesn't care if it kills you or not.

I honestly believe as a nation we need to question our relationship with sugar and our desire to have what we WANT and we need to look at our kids and love them enough to say NO to some of the 'tasty' things that are actually responsible for killing us softly.

Personally, I'd vote for a Government that had the guts to own up to its own greed and lack of responsibility in past years and then BAN cigarettes, sweets and alcohol completely and stopped giving us what we have learned to CRAVE because it's been pushed on us by previous Governments who cared more about the tax benefits of having us addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, than they cared about the health of the nation. Only now is our Government realising that greed has got it absolutely nowhere, because illnesses created by sugar, tobacco and alcohol are costing the nation a fortune in medications, benefits, etc. So they've gained nothing by advertising cigarettes and alcohol at all. Now we have an obesity and diabetes epidemic and the Government is panicking again. What did it expect? Processed foods which have sugar added to make them 'taste better' and sell more - forget that we grow fatter because we eat too much hidden sugars. Forget that our bodies were not built to cope with so much hidden sugar in our food. So long as it sells and our money is circulated, don't worry about the effects. But there is no EFFECT without a CAUSE.

That would be a Government I could respect because it would be a Government that recognised that being an adult is NOT about having what we WANT, it's about exercising discipline sometimes and turning down what we WANT in favour of what we NEED. And I personally don't WANT a Government that happily poisons it's own people and then blames them when they get ill and need to rely on the NHS and Benefits. Time our Governments became more responsible and authentic about it's 'care' for the nation.

Rant over :D
 

GlazedDoughnuts

Well-Known Member
Messages
196
GraceK said:
To Kimiwolf ... I have to disagree with you. Personally, I'm glad I can no longer eat what I WANT, in fact I wish I'd been diagnosed earlier and stopped eating what I WANTED many years ago. I might have been a lot fitter than I am now if I'd eaten a better diet.
There's no real nutritional value in ice cream, cakes, biscuits, sweets, Mr Kiplings etc. They're just sugar laden **** that rots your teeth and if you're an undiagnosed diabetic, cause you all sorts of ailments as a result of untreated high blood glucose.

I'm one of those nasty people who has no problem refusing to buy sweets for children, in fact I'd no more buy sweets for a child than I would buy a packet of cigarettes for an adult. I'm also one of those nasty people who makes loud comments in the supermarket about all the sweets on display at the checkout and how I think they should be removed and locked away in a cabinet just like the cigarettes are now.

I've had 50 years of being able to eat what I WANTED ... as a result I have dentures, and I had so many diabetic complications BEFORE I was diagnosed with diabetes that I was almost writing my will. I was never a huge sweet/cake eater but I did eat them. But sugar is just a poison as far as I'm concerned, but it's sweet, we generally like the taste of it, it's addictive and it SELLS - just like cigarettes and alcohol sell.

So no, I count my diabetes diagnosis as a PLUS in my life. It turned my life around from being a person who was dragging myself out of bed at 1pm every day to someone who's up at the crack of dawn and out to work at 7.45am every morning and loving every minute of it.

I LOVE my Metformin, I'm thankful I had no problems with it. I love that it's curbed my appetite by about 60%. I love my LCHF diet, it suits me, it suits my tummy, it suits my lungs, it suits my blood glucose just fine. I'm no longer sugar addicted. I can walk past chocolate, sweets, biscuits, cakes without a flinch or a longing, in fact sometimes just the smell and look of the stuff makes my stomach heave. I do occasionally try something sweet just to test my reactions to it, and my reaction is ALWAYS "How in God's name did I ever EAT that stuff and LIKE it? How did I ever EAT that stuff without throwing up afterwards?" Because that's what sugary food makes me feel like now.

I'm nearly 60 and I can remember as a child NOT LIKING SUGARY FOODS and refusing them. I can also remember MY MOTHER telling me that I NEEDED sugar for energy. She had a sweet tooth, liked her sweets and biscuits so I had to like them too. I remember her putting sugar in my tea because I NEEDED it. I remember tasting it and thinking "Eeeeeewwww yuk!" I remember LEARNING TO LIKE sugary foods and I remember becoming ADDICTED to them and later on CRAVING them if I stopped eating them.

I like to think my Mother didn't intentionally poison me with sugar, although I know for definite that I was an unwanted child, she gave birth to me but didn't want me for her own reasons and that never changed throughout the whole of our time together. But she was incapable of loving me and accepting me and she 'sugar coated' the truth all of her life until she couldn't pretend any longer and blurted it all out to me when I was about 37 years of age and it devastated me. My Mother couldn't love me so she 'sugared' me instead. She substituted sugar for love. Love would have refused me sugar because it's poison. Sugar doesn't care if it kills you or not.

I honestly believe as a nation we need to question our relationship with sugar and our desire to have what we WANT and we need to look at our kids and love them enough to say NO to some of the 'tasty' things that are actually responsible for killing us softly.

Personally, I'd vote for a Government that had the guts to own up to its own greed and lack of responsibility in past years and then BAN cigarettes, sweets and alcohol completely and stopped giving us what we have learned to CRAVE because it's been pushed on us by previous Governments who cared more about the tax benefits of having us addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, than they cared about the health of the nation. Only now is our Government realising that greed has got it absolutely nowhere, because illnesses created by sugar, tobacco and alcohol are costing the nation a fortune in medications, benefits, etc. So they've gained nothing by advertising cigarettes and alcohol at all. Now we have an obesity and diabetes epidemic and the Government is panicking again. What did it expect? Processed foods which have sugar added to make them 'taste better' and sell more - forget that we grow fatter because we eat too much hidden sugars. Forget that our bodies were not built to cope with so much hidden sugar in our food. So long as it sells and our money is circulated, don't worry about the effects. But there is no EFFECT without a CAUSE.

That would be a Government I could respect because it would be a Government that recognised that being an adult is NOT about having what we WANT, it's about exercising discipline sometimes and turning down what we WANT in favour of what we NEED. And I personally don't WANT a Government that happily poisons it's own people and then blames them when they get ill and need to rely on the NHS and Benefits. Time our Governments became more responsible and authentic about it's 'care' for the nation.

Rant over :D

 

Caterham

Well-Known Member
Messages
85
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I find this an interesting thread, because my answer would be 'nothing, because people do not know I am diabetic'

I am a well controlled type 2, on metformin. I do not have hypos, and am unlikely to. Nobody therefore needs to know I have it. The only person who does know is my wife.

If I ever change medicine and get hypos, I will tell some people around me, but not till then.

The only comments I get from people is how much less of me there is than there used to be, and I am happy with that.

In my opinion, telling everyone just makes you a target for the diabetes police, who look at everything you eat, or every beer you drink, and comment, even to themselves. We know more about diabetes than they will ever know (hopefully), so what is the point of telling them?

I have taken the last year as a major project in 'me', changing my diet a bit at a time, and trying to understand what is happening, plus reading a hell of a lot about the condition. At the moment I am fine (5.6 2 hours after dinner last night with 60g carbs), and as long as it stays this way I am keeping quiet.

I know others will disagree, but we are all different.