I really like being Diabetic because...

I am glad I have Diabetes so that I can pass on all the knowledge about it to my family so that they can avoid it if possible. Knowledge is power!

I'm glad I was diagnosed with diabetes because it motivated me to lose weight and keep it off, helped me to improve my general health, and has taken my mind off the possibility of my cancer returning as I spend all my time researching and learning about diabetes I have no time left to worry about what is a far more serious, unpleasant and life threatening disease.

I’m glad I have Diabetes as I’ve met all you wonderful folk here
Also like Bluetit I’ve lost over 4 stone and feel healthier than I have done in years

I am afraid I am not glad I have diabetes. High sugars , which are hard to control , frightened to eat many carbohydrates. Losing weight through sugars being high feeling like I have not much control of my health, concern about my long term health . I however am in admiration for type 1&2 diabetics who have got it all under control. Sorry about the rant folks.

I’m neither glad nor upset. It is what it is. Long term I think we will be a lot healthier than the general public who eat and drink to their hearts content without thought for what they are doing to their bodies. We have to think about what we are putting into our bodies on a daily basis. Like @Chowie who witnessed the guy with sticks and bowed back, which meant limited mobility. I think of my 33 year old sister in law, who died of breast cancer leaving 3 children under 7 including an 11 month old. Bet she would have swapped places with me like a shot. I myself lost 4 pregnancies in my younger days. It is all part of life. We pick ourselves up and carry on.

@Chowie thank you for your very positive post at the top of this thread.

I am not glad to have Diabetes but I am overjoyed I was diagnosed with diabetes. Otherwise, I would not be here to tell you.

I really like* being diabetic because.......

.....it is allowing me to indulge my ambition of becoming a theme park ride designer.



Scenario depicted is of an inadvertent post-exercise insulin overdose last night subsequently massively overtreated with far too much glucose.

*I don't. But I like the fact that others are sharing such positivity about it.

Snapsy said:

I really like* being diabetic because.......

.....it is allowing me to indulge my ambition of becoming a theme park ride designer.

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Oo they are pretty! I think you may have allowed me to find my previously undiscovered creativity...

I'm afraid I don't really like being diabetic, I can't think of anything great about it, I'm not in the slightest bit grateful for it and I'm certainly not glad about it. There's not a week that goes by when I don't think that I would happily kill someone to be rid of it, they would have to be a bad person, but still I can timagine having any real homicidal tendencies before. So diabetes has revealed that I could be an executioner for any reimposed death penalty crimes? Definitely not something to boast about.

But I am grateful that I'm diabetic now when there is insulin, NHS, pumps CGMs. So I'm grateful for the treatment/management options. But I'm not grateful for diabetes itself.

Maybe one day i will like being diabetic. I have plenty of hope.

I guess it stops me spending too much time being over ambitious in my career and making money hand over fist!

I wonder what id spend my time and little energy i have on instead?.???
Probables on my kids.

Its the obesity and its effects that causes me most of my ailments from IR which i believe type2 is a disease from too much IR too.
Not sure many like being obese because of a disease caused by sometimes just a little IR which then creates more obesity which then causes more IR which causes more ailments. A vicious circle.
I'm trying to reverse the cycle, some have succeeded. Some have only just developed it....some have had it for decades. May take decades to reverse too.
What a life!
A lifelong job which i guess has to be enjoyed along the way.
Any ideas?

New aims and success points with mini achievements can be a pleasure. What do you think?

I really like being diabetic because it gives me an excuse to enter numbers into a spreadsheet several times a day.

I also like being mildly autistic.

AdamJames said:

I really like being diabetic because it gives me an excuse to enter numbers into a spreadsheet several times a day.

I also like being mildly autistic.

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Oh I love my spreadsheets and apps too!

Grateful as it has made me have a greater awareness in my life!
Ie.. i have kept all copies of my blood tests, not just diabetic ones and have enough of them to ask consultant for help as some details are dropping although low/normal. I would never have been able to do this if I hadnt been T1.

I am grateful for insulin being invented and keeping me alive.

It is an illness that is able to be monitored and tracked and improvements to be made. Cancer, -well you dont know, and cant track it, only do your best...

I am grateful for my recent diabetic consultant and my cancer consultant. Without them I wouldnt have my beautiful puppy dog.
Friends and acquaintances told me I was mad and wrong. They encouraged me and actually state now how dogs improve peoples health and encourage ownership!!



Just grateful to be me..

Chowie said:

Hey Guys,
We really have so much to grateful for. It's coming up to Christmas, lets come up with a list of whats great about being Diabetic.
I will give you a few examples.
I'm glad I'm Diabetic because I now see a really good Dr at least twice a year, so if any other problems start they will be onto it much faster than pre D visits of once every 3 or 5 years.

Out of all the horrible illnesses out there, I think that by and large armed with our insulin pens or pumps we are really lucky.

I ate out tonight as I finished work really late. This guy about mid 30's shuffled in on 2 walking sticks with bowed legs and a twisted back, I had just given myself a discrete bolus, I thought WOW, I'm glad I have Diabetes...

Why are you glad you have Diabetes...

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donnellysdogs said:

Grateful as it has made me have a greater awareness in my life!
Ie.. i have kept all copies of my blood tests, not just diabetic ones and have enough of them to ask consultant for help as some details are dropping although low/normal. I would never have been able to do this if I hadnt been T1.

I am grateful for insulin being invented and keeping me alive.

It is an illness that is able to be monitored and tracked and improvements to be made. Cancer, -well you dont know, and cant track it, only do your best...

I am grateful for my recent diabetic consultant and my cancer consultant. Without them I wouldnt have my beautiful puppy dog.
Friends and acquaintances told me I was mad and wrong. They encouraged me and actually state now how dogs improve peoples health and encourage ownership!!

Just grateful to be me..

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I agree. I've been a diabetic for 56 years and with any other chronic complaints that wouldn' be the case. It' not easy but you can get help if you ask.

I'm an optimist but even on my most cheerful days I cannot bring myself to "like" being diabetic.

However I am grateful (hence my user name) that it turned out to be a disease which, for the time being, I can control entirely on my own -- at this stage my doctor is not much more than a very highly paid "coach"!! There are not too many chronic health conditions in that category. So many of them, such as various kinds of cancer, need considerable drug, radiological or surgical intervention with little scope for "self treatment" once the disease has been diagnosed.

At least for Type 2s, diabetes is a disease over which we have considerable "agency" (in my case, 100 percent "agency"). The only "agency" some cancer patients have is that nebulous psychological process that is called "fighting the disease." If you are an atheist and believer in conventional science (as I am), that phrase rings really hollow.

On the bad days, I wake up thinking: "Why me? I haven't led a perfect life but I see plenty of people with far worse life habits than mine and they didn't develop diabetes." Or, I wake up thinking: "You did this to yourself. A bit of daily exercise, a bit less beer, and fewer of those workaholic overnight computer programming sessions and maybe you could have avoided it altogether."

The silly "blame game" all over again. I know that we are supposed to go through a linear set of "stages" starting with "denial" and so forth, but in my case it is more like a circle rather than a straight line.

I do admire @Chowie for being able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Perhaps I will get there some day too....

donnellysdogs said:

I am grateful for insulin being invented and keeping me alive.

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That's a big one that occurred to me recently.

I don't need insulin yet, I'm fortunate to have Type 2 which I can just about keep under control using natural methods if I'm *very* disciplined with food and exercise, in spite of being diagnosed about 3 years ago. That's not to say it's easy, in fact I'd stopped trying to control it for a year, practically ignoring it, and my health took a tumble, huge HbA1c score and constant fatigue; that lapse has quite probably knocked years off my life and put me at much higher risk of all the complications, but right now it seems if I get very disciplined again, I can still avoid medication for now.

But it did make me think about the "what about if/when I can't manage this" and just how grateful I was to know that there are brilliant people out there who have worked out the mysteries of the human body and have given us things like metformin and insulin.

BTW I read one of your posts probably over a year ago well before I joined this forum (just today) and it floored me with just what you are having to deal with. It made me realise just how trivial, currently, my own health problems are. All things are relative.

I try to avoid the "other people have got it worse than me, so be happy" thought process however, because it's a bit perverse when you think about it. It reminds me of that (mis)quote "Whenever I feel sad, I cheer up when I think of that woman who had her face ripped off by a monkey".

So the insulin one is nice: That's 100% positive.

Today what I like most about being diabetic is that I got to see a picture of a lovely dog

I'm really glad to have Diabetes because it allows me to practice being a creative liar?

No, having Diabetes is a continual pain because I am constrained in all my eating and drinking decisions.

However if I had to choose a chronic illness (and what do points mean? Prizes!!!!) I would not be unhappy to end up with T2. Knowing people with Early Onset Dementia (some no longer with us) and various types of cancer I think that I am lucky to have something which is manageable. I could list all the things that I would rather not have which are worse than Diabetes but hey......

@Snapsy . That line for this morning is very very similar to my stroke pattern on the rowing machine.


@catapillar . I've said it before and I'll say it again. " I really like you ". Irrespective of your executionery tendencies


I always feel a bit awkward answering this type of question. I don't want to appear arrogant or insensitive to others, but I really don't mind this diabetes stuff. When I was diagnosed it felt like I had been given a reason, focus or purpose to become a better person. ( I wasn't a bad person ). I was just going through life aimlessly and negatively.
I was fortunate to be able to embrace my diabetes, work with it and use it to my own benefit.
Unlike others my diabetes has been a blessing, albeit in disguise .

catapillar said:

I'm afraid I don't really like being diabetic, I can't think of anything great about it, I'm not in the slightest bit grateful for it and I'm certainly not glad about it.

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Ditto. I resent it. I detest it. I despise it. I blame it both for things, and for absent things - things I have chosen not to have and not to do.

I do like therapy, though.

@therower I like your take on it! Nice one.