Ahhhh, Im sure we are all familiar with those people who think they know everything. Although we try our best to just let these people think what they want, when it comes to my diabetes, I cant help but correct some people on the things they say about diabetes.
When I was first diagnosed, the most frequent response to someone finding out was "But you're too young to have diabetes". This bothered me the most because they obviously thought I had the kind that can be caused from eating unhealthy (Type 2 Diabetes). I had to explain to them that people can actually be born with Type 1 diabetes and that I am amongst hundrends of thousands of teens and children that are insulin dependant. It is actually shocking how many people think the two are the same or get them mixed up. I personally and someone who can openly talk about my diabetes because I know there are a lot of people who could ask me a hundren questions on the spot because theyre curious, so I dont mind informing them, especially those who are confused between the two.
For anyone reading this who is trying to make sense of diabetes, the first thing that I cant stress enough is that Type 1 diabetes has no cause besides that it can be hereditary if it runs in the family. There are quite a few different branches of diabetes, but Type 1 and Type 2 are the most common. However, I cannot stress enough, that T1D and T2D are completely different! Yes, they both require you to check your blood sugar levels, and yes, you do need to accomodate sugary things like soda and ask for diet instead, or even skip the donut at Tim Hortons, but they work completely the opposite. But what is the difference? Type 1 diabetics are required to take insulin, no matter what, for the rest of their lives because theyre pancreas, for some unknown reason in most people, has stopped producing insulin, which turns sugar into energy for the body to use. Type 2 on the other hand, is when the body produces kind of like an immunity to its own insulin, often times from an unhealthy diet, or even hereditary as well. Basically, the body requires more insulin that usual to convert the sugar into energy due to the immunity to it. Two totally different things are going on inside the body between the two types of diabetes.
Its really frustrating for a type 1 diabetic to hear someone say "Shes diabetic because she ate too much sugar!". This is 100% wrong. Even in a type 2 diabetics life, that may not be the case. Just because we have to watch what we eat, doesnt mean that we have Type 1 because we didnt watch it so closely before. Development of Type 1 Diabetes has absolutely nothing to do with how we ate prior to our diagnosis. When people say stuff like this, it makes us feel like its our own fault that we have Type 1 Diabetes, and its not. A lot of us are already self concious about the fact that we have it and the things we go through on a day to day basis, so its not fair to make us feel like we did this to ourselves and blame it on an unhealthy life style before we were diagnosed just because you googled diabetes on the internet and got a general result without further researching it. The type of diabetes I have now is probably not the same as the diabetes your grandfather was just recently diagnosed with in which he takes just pills for, so please dont treat me like they are. On the other hand, diabetes regardless of the type is still a serious matter, and both type 1s and type 2s should be respected for what their life has thrown at them.
Jenn :)
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