First Officer
Member
- Messages
- 9
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
A salutary warning to all type ones.
My wife was diagnosed age one with diabetes in 1964. So she has had it for near on six decades. She is probably one of the longest diagnosed diabetics around. For the past forty years since we met and fell in love we have been aware of the dangers of diabetes in terms of retinopathy, renal failure, loss of nerve function in toes etc. Up till last year we thought we were all clear.
NO ONE EVER EVER TALKED ABOUT VASCULAR DEMENTIA!!!
Two years ago I noticed something was wrong. She was a Chartered Accountant running her own practice with me as her PA. She was getting a bit slow at her work. I thought it was simply lock down depression. How wrong I was! Long story short, she is presently on an endocrine ward with vascular dementia awaiting transfer to a nursing home. I doubt she will ever come home. I have lost my wife.
It seems there is a well established correlation between small vessel disease (SVD) and diabetes. Hence the focus on retinopathy and renal issues. The silent killer is dementia, which as I say, no one ever mentions.
It is too late to do anything for my lovely wife. And I don’t know what can be done to prevent SVD. But I do know that if no pne ever talks about a very real threat and it is completely ignored by the entire health system, you have absolutely no chance of preventing it.
My wife was diagnosed age one with diabetes in 1964. So she has had it for near on six decades. She is probably one of the longest diagnosed diabetics around. For the past forty years since we met and fell in love we have been aware of the dangers of diabetes in terms of retinopathy, renal failure, loss of nerve function in toes etc. Up till last year we thought we were all clear.
NO ONE EVER EVER TALKED ABOUT VASCULAR DEMENTIA!!!
Two years ago I noticed something was wrong. She was a Chartered Accountant running her own practice with me as her PA. She was getting a bit slow at her work. I thought it was simply lock down depression. How wrong I was! Long story short, she is presently on an endocrine ward with vascular dementia awaiting transfer to a nursing home. I doubt she will ever come home. I have lost my wife.
It seems there is a well established correlation between small vessel disease (SVD) and diabetes. Hence the focus on retinopathy and renal issues. The silent killer is dementia, which as I say, no one ever mentions.
It is too late to do anything for my lovely wife. And I don’t know what can be done to prevent SVD. But I do know that if no pne ever talks about a very real threat and it is completely ignored by the entire health system, you have absolutely no chance of preventing it.