I have been living with T1 for nearly 40 years and heard all sorts of rubbish.
1. Doctor: Rice is a high GI food, you shouldn't have it often.
Me: I don't, but for the opposite reason: it makes me go hypo. [because it takes a lot to get assimilated with me, and I gather this is not entirely unheard of…] See, it is all noted down in my diary. (I show her the data. At the time I was using a diary as there were no meters with downloadable data)
Doctor: No, it's impossible. Can't be like that, you should have been forgeing your data.
Me: I can think of several better ways of wasting my time…
2. A never-seen-before doctor (without looking at me): Well… You should definitely quit smoking.
Me: Only… [was starting to say: Only, I never smoked in my life!]
N-s-b doctor: Please do not interrupt me! And I see you travel a lot for business, so you will find it difficult to eat healthily…
Me: Actually, I… [I work as an editor from my home, cook all my meals myself and am a nearly-vegetarian]
N-s-b doctor: Stop interrupting me! Oh, and this: prostatitis. That won't make things easier, especially as you're in the habit of drinking a little too much, I see…
Me: What the… [I have been a teetotaller for ages]
N-s-b doctor: Will you let me speak, once and for all? – Finally raising his head and seeing… me. A woman, of an entirely different age from that written on the record, and looking rather amused.
Me: I'll forget all the embarassing details about whoever it was, provided you find out my own record and discuss my case, ok?
3. Usually, when I go to the diabetes clinic my doctor downloads the data from my meter, it takes a couple of seconds and then we proceed to talk about everything, adjust therapy and so on. Once, though, she was ill and I had to meet another doc. Same age of the former, by the way.
Doc: Why didn't you bring your diary? Forgot?
Me (putting my meter on the table): I don't use a diary, I just bring my meter and Dr. ** downloads the data.
Doc (fiddling with my meter as it was some puzzling thing from outer space): Why didn't you bring a print, then?
Me: The meter is far too old to fit my own computer. It will only work with those you have here at the clinic, I'm afraid…
Doc: Why don't you use a newer one, then? It would help if you could see the charts on your own PC, you know? And print them.
Me: It surely would, but if I bought a newer meter, then the NHS would not pay for its newer stripes, and I cannot afford them. [we have a strict policy on what kind of stripes are to be paid by the NHS, in Italy]
Doc: Well, I can't lose time with all this downloading… You come back some other time and you will bring all your data written on your diary: hour, BG records, time of day, every single thing you eat, every single thing you do, medicines, colds, flus, weather conditions, every single time you get angry or depressed, every…
He's probably still going on and on and on; as for me, I got up and left. Diabetes doctor, or CIA spook? (But: one who can't even manage a meter from the 1990s?)