Diabetes Awareness Month, Day 2. Ive had a lot of people say to me, Well, I knew a type 1 diabetic when I was growing up and they dont have all of the issues that you seem to have now? Whats the big deal? Let me just start by saying that just because people dont know all of the details about this disease that doesnt mean that it isnt a big deal. Because I am here to tell you that it absolutely IS... a very big deal. And when I say that every single person that lives with this disease is a SURVIVOR and a HERO in their own right... I mean that I would shout it from the rooftops! The way that type 1 diabetes is managed today and the way that it was managed before this generation is quite different. (and any diabetics out there that have been living with this feel free to correct me on any mistakes I may make here). From what I have been told and researched past generations of type 1 diabetics would get one shot a day (from a glass needle that had to be boiled every day). This shot was a long-lasting insulin that sustained them as long as they followed their plan. They had to manage their diet by counting calories and sugars. They were on a very strict diet and they had to check their blood sugar levels throughout the day by a urine strip. This strip would give them an average of what level they were in. If they were outside of a normal range they were given an injection to cover their high blood sugar or told to go outside and run it off. Because this type of management was really about self-control - no snacks between meals, unless absolutely necessary to correct low blood sugars, this is why we used to hear the stories about someone who lost a limb, or their eye-site, or had to be on dialysis, and many, many other things due to diabetes. Not to say that these things dont happen anymore with poor management, but statistics show that the numbers are dropping significantly. Today, management of type 1 diabetes is quite different. In the life of a diabetic today they are poked MULTIPLE times a day. Just imagine for a moment if you can if you had to have a shot every single solitary time you put something in your mouth... unless it is a protein (believe me, that doesnt leave much.) So, while on injections this meant that Jonah would have at least one shot a day (sometimes two) of his long-lasting insulin... one shot of short-acting insulin for every meal. And one shot of short-acting for every single solitary snack. Short-acting insulin is great, as long as you are counting carbs correctly, and you take into account that every thing we eat digests differently in out bodies, and that every persons body digests things differently. So in todays world, having a low blood sugar is a lot more common because of this way of managing. We also have glucose monitors now to check blood sugars instead of using a urine strip. This means that every time Jonah (or any other diabetic) wants to check their blood sugar... yep, you guessed it... another poke... Because of Jonahs high activity level this means he gets checked between 14-17 times a day... thats right folks... 14-17 finger pokes a day (including the middle of the night finger checks)... plus, all of the other pokes for food. Which is better, you ask? well, as far as Im concerned 6 in one and half dozen in the other. This means that yes, this way of management means that Jonah can eat WHATEVER he wants... whenEVER he wants... as long as he receives insulin to cover it. But sometimes I think it would be easier for me to tell Jonah to just go outside and run it off... Lord knows hes got enough energy to do it! It seems to me, that maybe yesterdays generation of diabetics didnt talk about their disease because they didnt have to explain to people why they are poking their fingers all of the time... or why they have to count every carb before they have that snack so people didnt know what it entailed unless there was a catastrophic incident (ie: limb amputation, heart failure, stroke, eye-site loss, dialysis... etc) All i know is that THIS generation of diabetics is a lot more vocal about their disease and their need for a cure... and maybe that is because they are in a situation of managing it more in public... whatever the reason... i am glad about that... because the discovery of insulin was in 1922... its almost been 100 years of Diabetics having to live with this disease... isnt that enough time for it to get the acknowledgment it deserves???
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 19:32:21 +0000