General Advice

Tomk18 said:

Hi,

I am completely new to these forums.
I am type 1 diabetic of 2 years and am still finding it difficult to keep levels under good control. My diabetes apparently has stemmed from being a coeliac. There's a few things I'd like to know. I struggle keeping up with all my diabetes appointments due to work as if I booked time off every time I got an appointment through the door I would use all my holidays just on appointments does anyone else struggle with this? Also I was a huge chocoholic before being type 1 and seriously struggle to not eat it my point has always been if my pancreas worked like any other normal persons I would eat chocolate & the insulin would self produce so what is wrong with eating chocolate as normal & counting the carbs and providing myself with enough insulin. Am I being silly to think this would be ok?

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Your type 1 hasn't exactly stemmed from being a coeliac. Coeliac is an autoimmune disease where you're immune system thinks it has to kill gluten, but can't, so instead it kills your gut tissue. Type 1 is also an autoimmune disease where your immune system gets bored or over enthusiastic and decides to kill off your insulin producing beta cells. If you have one autoimmune disease you are more at risk of getting another autoimmune disease, basically because your immune system has got form for killing of healthy bits of your body that you actually need.

Are you in the UK? If so under the Equality Act 2010 as a type 1 diabetic you have a disability and your employer has to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate your disability, reasonable adjustments like letting you time off work to attend hospital appointments so you don't have to take holiday to attend hospital appointments. You should probably check with you HR department what their policy is on this.

The whole point of carb counting and the leading uk course on this, Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating, is just that. For a type 1 you can just eat normally and inject. There's no reason not to eat chocolate, if you are able to manage its impact on your blood sugar with carb counting. Of course, just like everyone else, that's no guarantee that eating lots of chocolate won't, you know, make you fat.

Tomk18 said:

Question regarding that then on job applications etc where it says do you have a disability would I put yes

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Under the equality act, the test for disability is a long term condition which, without treatment, would have a significant adverse impact on your ability to perform day to day activities. Without treatment a type 1 would be dead which is a fairly significant impact. So, for equality act purposes you are disabled. Which is good because it means you get the equality act protections.

Whether you want to tick the box for disability is up to you. But certainly, once you've got the job the employer should be made aware of your disability status so they know if any reasonable adjustments are required.

I work for the NHS and I have been told the Equality Act states time off is allowed for appointments but it doesn't state that it should be paid time so they make me use annual leave. I also attend other hospital appointments for other autoimmune problems so I understand the using of most annual leave for appointments

I also worked for the nhs prior to retirement. I was expected to adjust my working day / week to account for the time to attend routine medical appointments but not for any emergency ones

Tomk18 said:

The problem is every week another letter comes through with an appointment I don't see why there needs to be so many

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What sort of appointments. The only ones I have are a 6 monthly to have my hba1c, at which time I also get my prescriptions renewed.

A high cocoa chocolate should not be off limits to almost any diabetic - I get the 81 percent one from Lidl and find that I can eat it even without any medication - though I do not eat a lot of it - but you definitely know you are eating chocolate and not some sickly sugar and fat mixture.