“Would they tell you not to eat a potato?”
This sentence is one of the first things my nutritionist said to me two years ago.
I was learning all about type 1 diabetes and what this would entail for me: when to take insulin, how much insulin to take, what foods contain carbohydrates etc. She told me that a lot of people have a misconception about type 1, this being that we CAN NEVER EAT CAKE OR ANY SWEET THINGS AT ALL EVER.
However, what a lot of people don’t understand, is that there are carbohydrates in lots of different foods. While our family members might tell us “oh be careful, don’t eat that cake in case you get sick!” would they think to tell us, “oh be careful now, better avoid that potato!” “better avoid that piece of fruit!” Absolutely not! And this is because of a massive lack of knowledge about what diabetes actually entails.
Yes, cakes are high in sugar. Yes, they would spike our blood glucose levels, but they would also spike any non diabetic’s sugar levels too. The difference is, one person’s body can combat this itself, and the other has to inject insulin. A type 1 diabetic can enjoy a slice of cake just as much as the next person, as part of a balanced lifestyle. I’m personally not a huge fan of cake anyway, I feel better when I have a healthier alternative, but on the rare occasion that I do have a slice of cake, I make sure I enjoy it. I am definitely not saying all diabetics should go and eat cake. I am simply making the point that there is a misunderstanding, and that diabetics are not condemned to a life without the occasional sweet treat.
I am speaking from personal experience only, in that, many of my friends often question my condition, and most of the time, get it wrong. “So you have to eat lots of sugar, right?” “So you can’t eat any of this, can you?” “Don’t you need to be careful with going to the gym?” After my diagnosis all I heard was, “no more cakes for you!”
Although these people all mean well, and I know they love me and the reason they are saying these things is because they WANT to look after me and get to know my condition more, the only reason they want to do this is because they are aware of it because I have it and they know me. Otherwise, I can admit, even I wouldn’t know about the details of diabetes.
I think it is essential to increase people’s knowledge and awareness of common conditions like diabetes, for a number of reasons.
First, my diagnosis was the worst experience of my entire life. I intend to write a blog piece about symptoms and what to look out for so that people can catch it earlier on than I did and don’t end up in the same situation as me.
Second, I think it’s extremely important for people to know what to do in cases where they might experience a stranger having a hypo, and know how to help them out. I have been in a situation before where I had to help a man having a severe hypo who had collapsed outside of my house, and I am not sure I would have known what to do if I wasn’t a type 1 myself.
Misunderstanding is definitely a problem for type 1 diabetes, as I have experienced. I know that the people who don’t understand my condition are simply trying to get to grips with it. I know that if I didn’t have it then I wouldn’t be as clued up. I know that people can never truly understand it unless they experience it themselves: the feeling of pure discomfort when your blood sugars are too high, feeling unstable and dizzy when they’re too low, having to deal every single day with needles and calculations. No one can truly understand something unless they really experience it themselves, but nevertheless, I think it is essential to work towards increasing understanding, and destabilising the misconceptions that surround the condition, so that people won’t simply say “don’t eat that cake!” and will instead consider exactly what diabetes entails.
Fitabetes 