Tag: actually diabetes

Don’t Be That Person: A Halloween PSA

One of the many Seasons of Copious Amounts of Sugary Treats (in this case, Halloween) is upon us.

With great amounts of candy comes a a great responsibility that most people don’t even realize is a responsibility.

That responsibility is to not be That Person who makes Halloween related diabetes jokes online or in real life.

It’s not cute.

It’s not funny.

And it’s not anywhere near factual.

Sugar does not cause any type of diabetes, no matter how much people want to use it as a way blame people for a disease that they have little to no control over developing. That’s right, little to no control. Even type 2 diabetes, the kind uninformed and insensitive people just love making fat jokes about, has more to it than just weight.

So this Halloween, don’t be That Person who makes “wise cracks” like “I ate sooo much candy I’m gonna get diabetes” or “I can taste the diabeetus.” Don’t be That Person who posts pictures of candy or other Halloween treats on Tumblr and tags the photos as “diabetes.”

Also, don’t be That Person who posts otherwise cute Halloween-y fandom things (or non-Halloween-y fandom things) and throws diabetes into a discussion of candy or into a discussion of how cute characters are or how cute characters are together.

Don’t do any of these things. They are cute. They aren’t funny. They’re hurtful and harmful and spread misinformation which adds to the stigma and the shame that often follows the word “diabetes.”

Millions of people all over the world deal with this chronic disease. There is no cure for type 1; insulin is only a treatment. Type 2 can sometimes be controlled by diet and exercise, but sometimes that alone is not enough.

People with diabetes are people, not punchlines.

So this Halloween? Don’t be That Person.

Please help my dad get insulin and to see a doctor

nihilnovisubsole:

legendaryarmor:

We didn’t know my father was diabetic before he was rushed to the hospital this last Friday with a blood glucose level six times higher than it should be. After three days of hospitalization, he was released with a script for insulin, but no appointment or anything for a diabetes consultant and STILL with a blood glucose level higher than it should be (though granted it dropped a lot, so he is doing better).

My parents are good people, and they mean the world to me, but we are all extremely poor. My mom and dad don’t even really have a home right now; they live out of a hotel room at the place my dad works at, and my mom is about to lose her job since cyber cafes are being shut down in their state. I want to help them get some money so they can get him to see a consultant, get some insulin, and some better food without landing themselves on the street.

Please help if you can, either by donating or spreading the word. Please. I love my parents so, so much, and it breaks my heart to see this stuff happen to them; they are such wonderful people and they deserve far more than the American medical system is giving them. My paypal is heroknight@gmail.com. I can’t really offer much, but it would mean so much to me if you could help me and my family out.

This lady is one of two cool things to happen to me because of the Big Bang, and I’d hate to see her not get help.

To add to something the post I just made points out (that Type 1 isn’t just for children)…

People of ALL ages can have Type 1 or Type 2 or LADA; everybody who has diabetes developed at whatever age they developed it, and then they continued to age.

Most television ads involving diabetes or diabetes medication/supplies, however, paint diabetes as involving only two age groups: children and people over 50. That’s also about how a lot of the actual literature on diabetic health and nutrition does it, too.

This leaves a HUGE age bracket in middle in a “…so what do I do?” zone. Because people who get diagnosed as kids grow up. They become young adults and then adults and have different needs than kids and older people. But as far as marketing goes? Yeah, they don’t exist as far as people who only know about diabetes from TV ads are concerned.

As someone with Type 1 diabetes who has firmly aged out of childhood and is edging toward the older end of young adulthood…it’s a weird feeling, when I stop and think about it.

American Diabetes Month

November is a month chosen by many organizations to raise awareness about important issues. One of those issues that effects be personally is diabetes. I have been living with Type 1 diabetes for what will be 15 years this February. Diabetes is, unfortunately, one of the health issues that’s still largely in the dark of the mainstream cultural consciousness of the US, and probably other countries as well. It’s one of those health issues that often gets trotted out as the butt of jokes because of misinformation, or is seen as “not that serious” because, hey, “at least you don’t have cancer.” News flash: people can go into remission from cancer, and many can be cancer-free for many years after finishing their treatment. Diabetes is a disease you can control, but “control” is not “remission” and there is no cure for diabetes. Most diabetics will be dealing with this disease, in some way or another, until they die. So no, it’s not cancer, but it sure as hell isn’t somehow automatically a better alternative.

Here are a list of facts about the impact of diabetes from the American Diabetes Association:

About Diabetes
Prevalence
• Nearly 26 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes.
• Another 79 million Americans have prediabetes and are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
• Recent estimates project that as many as 1 in 3 American adults will have diabetes in 2050 unless we take
steps to Stop Diabetes.

The Toll on Health
• Two out of three people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke.
• Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure.
• Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults.
• The rate of amputation for people with diabetes is 10 times higher than for people without diabetes.
• About 60-70 percent of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of nerve damage that could result
in pain in the feet or hands, slowed digestion, sexual dysfunction and other nerve problems.

Cost of Diabetes
• The American Diabetes Association estimates that the total national cost of diagnosed diabetes in the
United States is $174 billion.
o Direct medical costs reach $116 billion and the average medical expenditure among people with
diabetes is 2.3 times higher than those without the disease.
o Indirect costs amount to $58 billion (disability, work loss, premature mortality).
o Further published studies suggest that when additional costs for gestational diabetes, prediabetes and
undiagnosed diabetes are included, the total diabetes-related costs in the U.S. could exceed $218
billion.
• The cost of caring for someone with diabetes is $1 out of every $5 in total healthcare costs.

Now, there’s also a myth that, if you just “take good care” of yourself and have good control of your diabetes, that you won’t have any complications. This is, sadly, not always the case, because no matter how much a person with diabetes tries, things can go wrong even if you’re doing everything “right.” Sometimes your body just betrays you. That’s how it goes. That’s a lot of how diabetes happens in the first place: genetic predisposition generally plays a major role in Type 1, Type 1.5, AND Type 2. Environmental factors, including some types of viruses, also play a role, and there are also other things that can increase the risk of developing diabetes.

Having diabetes means you have, automatically, a higher risk of basically all the “big name” health problems, and it means you have a higher risk of depression.

Diabetes is serious. It’s not a death sentence, but it’s no walk in the park, either. It’s not a punchline for people who don’t have the disease to use to belittle those who do.