November is National Diabetes Awareness month. To support this and bring awareness, I am going to try my best to post something here every day of the Month (I know I missed Nov. 1, but this is a start)
This year, 2010, has been an amazing year... I am getting settled in NY, I rode my first hundred miles to support JDRF, I got engaged to the most amazing and supportive man, I turned 30 (gulp..) and it will be my 28th year of living with Type 1 diabetes.
Recently I have been thinking a lot about the misconceptions of the condition and the blanket use of the term Diabetes. While there are similarities between the conditions they are quite different.
I am a Type 1 diabetic! I have an insulin pump, which works similar to a pancreas to dispense insulin into my body 24 hours a day- but I control it. I tell it when and what I am eating (my head spins with nutrition facts).
I can eat what I want (as long as I know what it is)
I am not allergic to sugar.
I did not eat too much sugar as child to cause this (I was 2, and my parents didn't allow sugar:)
I do not have a 'Bad case' of diabetes because I have an insulin pump.
I do everything in my control to live a healthy life and my numbers still look like a roller coaster.
Type 1 diabetes is an auto- immune disease, which is a condition that my own body has killed off my own beta (insulin producing cells) leaving my body unable to change glucose (carbs, sugar (its all the same)) into energy for survival. So, we rely on artificial insulin to control our diabetes.
People with Type 2 diabetes produce insulin, but their bodies become resistant to it, so they control their condition by diet, exercise, oral medication and sometimes insulin to control their diabetes.
The results are similar- high blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, leads to life threatening complications.
Historically Type 1 has been referred to as Juvenile Diabetes, but now we call it Type 1 because people of all ages are diagnosed with it and sadly enough more and more youth are becoming diagnosed with Type 2, mainly due to the increase in child obesity, sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diets.
Take some time to educate yourself about Type 1 (and Type 2) diabetes. http://www.jdrf.org/, http://www.diabetes.org/, http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/, http://www.diabeteswellness.net
This will be my 28th year of living with Type 1 diabetes and I am still learning from it. It is a complicated condition and I am doing my best to keep up with it. I have good days and bad days, and all together am lucky to have the support and life that I do- we will continue to educate and fight until we find a cure and make life easier for those living with the condition.
No comments:
Post a Comment