In that case, I agree completely, and it's good to see your clarification. It didn't read that way in your original posting, and its context. I support your viewpoint fully in that case, and it makes me feel like hiding in shame at the general condition of the human race when I see how ready so many folk are to lead the lifestyle you describe. My frustration is equally felt against those who make their fortune out of the cynical marketing that lies at the heart of this inexorable plummet into a killer lifestyle.
For what it's worth, knowing this and comparing their lifestyle with your own is particularly frustrating on the day when you're diagnosed with Diabetes, and the medics say to you "you'll have to eat healthy, you'll have to exercise and you'll have to try to lose weight" and they go into the detail and you think "but I already prefer healthy food, prefer healthy recreation and keep my food intake down to highly moderate proportion - what else can I do to improve?". But I'm not looking for sympathy, only trying to bring some balance to the debate.
Enjoy your healthier lifestyle, I agree it is definitely preferable, and I hope it does prevent you from becoming "one of us".
Your detailed response, and the respect and sympathy are much appreciated, but I still really have to stress that I believe you have your facts wrong. I note your questioning of conventional wisdom, and I share your cynicism to some degree. I think the fundamental difference in our views hinges on what we mean by "progressing" or "getting worse". There is no doubt in my mind that suitable measures can keep the condition controlled - that is, you can achieve the results that you describe, keeping your blood glucose within the limits that you state, and avoiding the undesirable effects of the disease, including the threat of cardiovascular problems. The important word is control, not cure, nor even prevention of worsening. The point about the progression is that it will take more and more of the various measures, certainly starting with the ones that you describe, to achieve that control, regardless of how well you achieve that control. The pace of progression may vary from individual to individual but it will nonetheless progress.
I question how large a sample your viewpoint is based on. As you will have seen in my posting, the conclusion that it is, by its very nature, a progressive disease was drawn from the largest clinical research study ever conducted. How large a sample is your conclusion based on? And how long have you been suffering the disease? I would be interested to know what country you are in, as the clinical guidance in the UK for treatment of the condition certainly confirms your own target of 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) two hours after a meal. There is no way a doctor in the UK could suggest 180 as being adequate control without breaching the guidelines. Those truly operating in the field of diabetes also always advocate vigorous exercise, not moderate - albeit with suitable caution as to the effect on your heart of taking it too far, particularly if carrying significant weight, or as you get older, hence my purchase of a heart rate monitor for use in exercise to ensure that exercise taken is anaerobic, not just aerobic, but within the safe zone. I feel that the experience you quote tends, of itself, to indicate that your sample size is quite small - possibly yourself and your mother - no disrespect intended. Like you I had a parent with the condition - I watched my father die of the complications from the condition when I was 10, in the 1960's, when ignorance of the disease was unfortunately still incredibly high.
All I would ask is that you separate the concept of keeping the disease under control, which means achieving the targets you describe, from the concept of progression of the condition, which is the underlying degree to which your body is failing to carry out its own control, and that therefore requires intervention to achieve control, so meaning that, as time progresses, the measures to achieve the control have to increase, and that, despite your possibly justified scepticism, you accept that the sample size on which these conclusions are based is massively greater than that on which your own conclusions have been based. The longer the myth that you can freeze the condition "providing you're a good boy" continues to be propogated, the longer it will take to truly battle the effects of this awful condition.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, my source of reference for my statement that you can avoid insulin by dying from the diabetes induced complications first, which was a touch of self-targetted sick humour, is the direct experience of watching my father die from the massive brain haemorage (forgive spelling - I've no dictionary at hand)when I was ten years old and he was 64. This was accompanied by his being certified blind, not having the use of his legs through diabetic ulcers, and losing his mental faculties. A highly unpleasant experience resulting from the poor understanding at that time of the very issue we are now debating - because he was type 2, he was not considered to require insulin.
Oh NO!, check your facts!Yours is the disinformation, and really the most dangerous, as you encourage complacency that is life threatening. How dare you try to minimise this serious risk. Consult the experts, your own doctor, or any other knowledgable source on this topic. It can, and must be controlled, which is where I suspect your flawed understanding arises, and in that case its threat to life can be avoided, but it will always keep moving on, regardless of how well controlled, and the measures required to control it will always keep increasing. Consider the following extract from the UKPDS, the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), the largest clinical research study of diabetes ever conducted.
"One of the most striking observations of the UKPDS is the progressive nature of Type 2 diabetes. For people taking tablets it is often necessary to increase the dose, add other tablets or eventually to commence insulin treatment. The results of the UKPDS mean that combinations of therapies with different modes of action are likely to be used more often then previously. People with diabetes need to be informed that every few years additional therapies may have to be added including insulin. If the subject of a possible future need for insulin therapy is introduced early, peoples' concerns and fears can be addressed directly. They should be reassured when they need more therapy that it is not their fault that diabetes progressively worsens with time. People with diabetes taking insulin injections will also often require dosage increases over time to maintain glycaemic con"
I, personally, am now on 300 units of insulin per day, in addition to 6 tablets of 4 different types. It's difficult to find a pain-free injection site any longer. My doctors agree that this is high, but necessary and not unexpected.
You really have proved my point about the stunning ignorance being published on this site! Be warned fellow sufferes, ignore his comment.
Mmmmmm....well, OK, some apologies take a little while to swallow, but I think I detect sincerity, and I guess we do now have a more equitable picture, so apology accepted. And if I have appeared hpersensitive, perhaps you will find this understandable when you are suffering a killer disease and it's progressing at a fair rate of knots - and make no mistake, without care and attention, to a level that, despite publicity, is highly intrusive at the more progressed stages, it is a killer.
Also, I would not dream of insisting that there are not a sizeable proportion of sufferers where the cause and effect are the way round that you describe, but, as I think we're now agreeing, there is a whole complex picture of causality.
One thought for you though - even though you have now displayed some knowledge and understanding, have you noticed how many people who clearly don't possess either of those have jumped on the bandwagon since you posted yours? what a wonderful species we really are, eh?
Thanks for the response - the two variants aren't as different as some of the writings cause us to think, so it's good to be supportive of each other. Mine too is made up of short-acting and long acting, in about equal quantities. I do one long-acting and 3 short-acting each day.
Hey, I really just can't believe that you are making such a fuss when you only take 15 units per day - see my other posting for how much I (a type 2) take per day - 20 times the quantity that you do! Plus type 2 is progressive, unlike type 1, so we know it's always going to get worse. For Christ sake stop wingeing and count yourself lucky!
I feel myself getting far more freaked out at the ignorance of one diabetes sufferer for others than for the ignorance shown by the non-sufferers. There have been some good explanations for why these non-sufferers feel the need to be so aggressive to us, see the posts responding to "why the agression?" I can find no similar excuses for the ignorance or need to be agressive of a sufferer of one type of diabetes for sufferers of the other type.
Anyway, at risk of repetition, but responding to a very different posting, let me tell you:
You say that type 2 just pop a pill, unlike type 1 sufferers who take multiple shots per day. I am type 2. Let me tell you what I take:
6 tablets per day, of 4 different types for diabetes or diabetes related conditions (body lipid control, bp control, etc.)
4 insulin shots per day, totalling around 300 units per day. I have lumps developing all over the various sites that I inject, despite my attempts to rotate, because of the sheer volume of insulin that I am injecting. Now do you feel so inclined to put our version of the disease down? It's one disease, and this type 1 type 2 thing is an unnatural divider, so let's pull together to support development of anything that moves us closer to a cure for diabetes - regardless of type.
There is no cure for either type of diabetes. If you are type 1, you should know that. And type 2 will always get progressively worse. Is that true of type 1? Recent research is actually showing that this is, in fact, the only real key difference between the two types - most (possibly all) diabetics are born with the potential for diabetes, but some have the progressive version (type 2) whilst others have the "sudden onset" (I can't think of the correct term) version. So let's not attack each other. Even if we remove the word cure, and insert control, your simplistic view can surely not have come from a diabetes sufferer. See my other postings for more on this.
Yes, but I'm afraid to advise you that you won't stay that way. Diabetes is a progressive disease, and regardless of how well you control it now, it will gradually get worse. Very few type II manage to avoid moving onto Insulin injections eventually, and many of those that do avoid it only through dying as a result of failing to maintain control before they get to that stage.
Look, for those of you who clearly don't have even the first clue about the realities of this killer disease, let's put you straight - it's not a choice between the "cheaper things", the "healthy lifestyle" or the avoidance of laziness and taking the medication. To be absolutely clear, type 2 diabetes requires that you lead the healthy lifestyle, take the exercise, eat healthy food, etc, plus that you take 5 different types of tablet and give yourself 4 injections per day, to the point where your body is physically trying to reject the distribution of the very insulin that is increasing your weight. Boy, oh boy do I hope that you (and those others of you who are so ready to attack those of us unfortunate enough to suffer it) get to find this out for yourself first hand some day. Who shall we start on next? Oh, I know, all aids sufferers deserve it for being gay (with the level of intelligence shown by many of you on this topic, I'd better make it clear that I do not mean that last statement - but you probably do, don't you?)
Yeah, it's a joke - it's wonderful how little it takes to make the truly ignorant laugh isn't it? Well let me know when you have been struck by a chronic life-threatening disease that you have done nothing to deserve except be born with "inferior" genes, and I'll fall about laughing.
In the mean time, let me at least put you right that it's the diabetes that causes the high blood glucose, not the obesity.
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, I agree completely, and it's good to see your clarification. It didn't read that way in your original posting, and its context. I support your viewpoint fully in that case, and it makes me feel like hiding in shame at the general condition of the human race when I see how ready so many folk are to lead the lifestyle you describe. My frustration is equally felt against those who make their fortune out of the cynical marketing that lies at the heart of this inexorable plummet into a killer lifestyle. For what it's worth, knowing this and comparing their lifestyle with your own is particularly frustrating on the day when you're diagnosed with Diabetes, and the medics say to you "you'll have to eat healthy, you'll have to exercise and you'll have to try to lose weight" and they go into the detail and you think "but I already prefer healthy food, prefer healthy recreation and keep my food intake down to highly moderate proportion - what else can I do to improve?". But I'm not looking for sympathy, only trying to bring some balance to the debate. Enjoy your healthier lifestyle, I agree it is definitely preferable, and I hope it does prevent you from becoming "one of us".
Your detailed response, and the respect and sympathy are much appreciated, but I still really have to stress that I believe you have your facts wrong. I note your questioning of conventional wisdom, and I share your cynicism to some degree. I think the fundamental difference in our views hinges on what we mean by "progressing" or "getting worse". There is no doubt in my mind that suitable measures can keep the condition controlled - that is, you can achieve the results that you describe, keeping your blood glucose within the limits that you state, and avoiding the undesirable effects of the disease, including the threat of cardiovascular problems. The important word is control, not cure, nor even prevention of worsening. The point about the progression is that it will take more and more of the various measures, certainly starting with the ones that you describe, to achieve that control, regardless of how well you achieve that control. The pace of progression may vary from individual to individual but it will nonetheless progress. I question how large a sample your viewpoint is based on. As you will have seen in my posting, the conclusion that it is, by its very nature, a progressive disease was drawn from the largest clinical research study ever conducted. How large a sample is your conclusion based on? And how long have you been suffering the disease? I would be interested to know what country you are in, as the clinical guidance in the UK for treatment of the condition certainly confirms your own target of 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) two hours after a meal. There is no way a doctor in the UK could suggest 180 as being adequate control without breaching the guidelines. Those truly operating in the field of diabetes also always advocate vigorous exercise, not moderate - albeit with suitable caution as to the effect on your heart of taking it too far, particularly if carrying significant weight, or as you get older, hence my purchase of a heart rate monitor for use in exercise to ensure that exercise taken is anaerobic, not just aerobic, but within the safe zone. I feel that the experience you quote tends, of itself, to indicate that your sample size is quite small - possibly yourself and your mother - no disrespect intended. Like you I had a parent with the condition - I watched my father die of the complications from the condition when I was 10, in the 1960's, when ignorance of the disease was unfortunately still incredibly high. All I would ask is that you separate the concept of keeping the disease under control, which means achieving the targets you describe, from the concept of progression of the condition, which is the underlying degree to which your body is failing to carry out its own control, and that therefore requires intervention to achieve control, so meaning that, as time progresses, the measures to achieve the control have to increase, and that, despite your possibly justified scepticism, you accept that the sample size on which these conclusions are based is massively greater than that on which your own conclusions have been based. The longer the myth that you can freeze the condition "providing you're a good boy" continues to be propogated, the longer it will take to truly battle the effects of this awful condition.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, my source of reference for my statement that you can avoid insulin by dying from the diabetes induced complications first, which was a touch of self-targetted sick humour, is the direct experience of watching my father die from the massive brain haemorage (forgive spelling - I've no dictionary at hand)when I was ten years old and he was 64. This was accompanied by his being certified blind, not having the use of his legs through diabetic ulcers, and losing his mental faculties. A highly unpleasant experience resulting from the poor understanding at that time of the very issue we are now debating - because he was type 2, he was not considered to require insulin.
Oh NO!, check your facts!Yours is the disinformation, and really the most dangerous, as you encourage complacency that is life threatening. How dare you try to minimise this serious risk. Consult the experts, your own doctor, or any other knowledgable source on this topic. It can, and must be controlled, which is where I suspect your flawed understanding arises, and in that case its threat to life can be avoided, but it will always keep moving on, regardless of how well controlled, and the measures required to control it will always keep increasing. Consider the following extract from the UKPDS, the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), the largest clinical research study of diabetes ever conducted. "One of the most striking observations of the UKPDS is the progressive nature of Type 2 diabetes. For people taking tablets it is often necessary to increase the dose, add other tablets or eventually to commence insulin treatment. The results of the UKPDS mean that combinations of therapies with different modes of action are likely to be used more often then previously. People with diabetes need to be informed that every few years additional therapies may have to be added including insulin. If the subject of a possible future need for insulin therapy is introduced early, peoples' concerns and fears can be addressed directly. They should be reassured when they need more therapy that it is not their fault that diabetes progressively worsens with time. People with diabetes taking insulin injections will also often require dosage increases over time to maintain glycaemic con" I, personally, am now on 300 units of insulin per day, in addition to 6 tablets of 4 different types. It's difficult to find a pain-free injection site any longer. My doctors agree that this is high, but necessary and not unexpected. You really have proved my point about the stunning ignorance being published on this site! Be warned fellow sufferes, ignore his comment.
Mmmmmm....well, OK, some apologies take a little while to swallow, but I think I detect sincerity, and I guess we do now have a more equitable picture, so apology accepted. And if I have appeared hpersensitive, perhaps you will find this understandable when you are suffering a killer disease and it's progressing at a fair rate of knots - and make no mistake, without care and attention, to a level that, despite publicity, is highly intrusive at the more progressed stages, it is a killer. Also, I would not dream of insisting that there are not a sizeable proportion of sufferers where the cause and effect are the way round that you describe, but, as I think we're now agreeing, there is a whole complex picture of causality. One thought for you though - even though you have now displayed some knowledge and understanding, have you noticed how many people who clearly don't possess either of those have jumped on the bandwagon since you posted yours? what a wonderful species we really are, eh?
Thanks for the response - the two variants aren't as different as some of the writings cause us to think, so it's good to be supportive of each other. Mine too is made up of short-acting and long acting, in about equal quantities. I do one long-acting and 3 short-acting each day.
Hey, I really just can't believe that you are making such a fuss when you only take 15 units per day - see my other posting for how much I (a type 2) take per day - 20 times the quantity that you do! Plus type 2 is progressive, unlike type 1, so we know it's always going to get worse. For Christ sake stop wingeing and count yourself lucky!
I feel myself getting far more freaked out at the ignorance of one diabetes sufferer for others than for the ignorance shown by the non-sufferers. There have been some good explanations for why these non-sufferers feel the need to be so aggressive to us, see the posts responding to "why the agression?" I can find no similar excuses for the ignorance or need to be agressive of a sufferer of one type of diabetes for sufferers of the other type. Anyway, at risk of repetition, but responding to a very different posting, let me tell you: You say that type 2 just pop a pill, unlike type 1 sufferers who take multiple shots per day. I am type 2. Let me tell you what I take: 6 tablets per day, of 4 different types for diabetes or diabetes related conditions (body lipid control, bp control, etc.) 4 insulin shots per day, totalling around 300 units per day. I have lumps developing all over the various sites that I inject, despite my attempts to rotate, because of the sheer volume of insulin that I am injecting. Now do you feel so inclined to put our version of the disease down? It's one disease, and this type 1 type 2 thing is an unnatural divider, so let's pull together to support development of anything that moves us closer to a cure for diabetes - regardless of type.
What an excellent answer - well done for putting it so neatly. Haven't got used to this site yet, so don't understand why the score is so low.
There is no cure for either type of diabetes. If you are type 1, you should know that. And type 2 will always get progressively worse. Is that true of type 1? Recent research is actually showing that this is, in fact, the only real key difference between the two types - most (possibly all) diabetics are born with the potential for diabetes, but some have the progressive version (type 2) whilst others have the "sudden onset" (I can't think of the correct term) version. So let's not attack each other. Even if we remove the word cure, and insert control, your simplistic view can surely not have come from a diabetes sufferer. See my other postings for more on this.
Yes, but I'm afraid to advise you that you won't stay that way. Diabetes is a progressive disease, and regardless of how well you control it now, it will gradually get worse. Very few type II manage to avoid moving onto Insulin injections eventually, and many of those that do avoid it only through dying as a result of failing to maintain control before they get to that stage.
Look, for those of you who clearly don't have even the first clue about the realities of this killer disease, let's put you straight - it's not a choice between the "cheaper things", the "healthy lifestyle" or the avoidance of laziness and taking the medication. To be absolutely clear, type 2 diabetes requires that you lead the healthy lifestyle, take the exercise, eat healthy food, etc, plus that you take 5 different types of tablet and give yourself 4 injections per day, to the point where your body is physically trying to reject the distribution of the very insulin that is increasing your weight. Boy, oh boy do I hope that you (and those others of you who are so ready to attack those of us unfortunate enough to suffer it) get to find this out for yourself first hand some day. Who shall we start on next? Oh, I know, all aids sufferers deserve it for being gay (with the level of intelligence shown by many of you on this topic, I'd better make it clear that I do not mean that last statement - but you probably do, don't you?)
Yeah, it's a joke - it's wonderful how little it takes to make the truly ignorant laugh isn't it? Well let me know when you have been struck by a chronic life-threatening disease that you have done nothing to deserve except be born with "inferior" genes, and I'll fall about laughing. In the mean time, let me at least put you right that it's the diabetes that causes the high blood glucose, not the obesity.