Gestational diabetes is something only pregnant women get. There are several factors that can lead to it, but according to WebMD only about 4% of pregnant women get it. And even they are smug.
To the three people who get that joke, Garfunkel & Oates thank you. For the others? YouTube.
Type 2 Diabetes is the one that most people have. In fact, over 90% of people with diabetes have Type 2. Type 2 is preventable. A healthy diet and active lifestyle go a long way, and if you're lazy and eat nothing but fast food Type 2 diabetes is likely to be in your future. Before anyone flies off the handle, not everyone with Type 2 diabetes is obese and lazy, but a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits can definitely lead to diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can be controlled with diet, exercise, and some medications. It can also be controlled with insulin, which is why they shy away from calling it non-insulin dependant diabetes anymore. There are other factors that can lead to Type 2- including a family history of diabetes.
I have Type 1 diabetes. Interestingly enough, according to WebMD, most people with Type 1 have no family history of diabetes. (My paternal grandmother had Type 2, but other than that? Just me.)When I was a kid people always assumed I'd eaten too much sugar and given it to myself. Considering I was 14 months old when I was diagnosed, I think we can safely say that overindulgence on chocolate had little to do with it. The truth is that my immune system went all Kill Bill on my Islets of Langerhans (the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin). Viola! Diabetic.
It's all very wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.
Both Type 1 and Type 2 are serious, and untreated will lead to a whole grocery list of miserable complications, and even death. But the key word for me is preventable. I don't know what I could have done, or what my parents could have done, to stop my immune system from going wiggity wiggity whack on me. But if your doctor tells you to shape up and eat more greens or face diagnosis, I think it's safe to say that you had fair warning. Also, I was just informed by a friend (and my husband, who knows just about everything, confirmed this) that people with Type 2 diabetes who have undergone gastric bypass have been known to be cured. (Whether because of a strange self healing the body does when you slice open and refit a person's stomach, or because once you've had gastric bypass you have to change your diet dramatically I'll let you decide on your own.)
I probably sound unsympathetic to the 90% of people with Type 2. I am in some ways. I had a coworker several years ago who was a Type 2 diabetic. (One of my other coworkers referred to him as "that damned New Yorker.") He was overweight, didn't eat right, and didn't exercise, but he complained to me that his doctor wanted to put him on insulin. I told him he should take his meds, watch his diet and exercise to keep that from happening. He didn't, and while I felt his pain, I also felt he was an idiot. Some people, and not just Type 1 diabetics but some Type 2 diabetics, too, just don't have the option to "turn it around."
I don't know exactly what it's like to have Type 2 diabetes, but I imagine that the logistics are fairly close to being Type 1. You have to eat right. You have to check your blood sugar. You should maintain some level of exercise. And that's not easy. You've got no idea what it's like to have a high blood sugar until you've had one, and man do they suck. You feel like absolute crap. Tired. Thirsty. Nauseated. Weak. Irritable. Who the hell wants to exercise or eat healthy when you feel like ass? No one. Not even me. Especially not me. I'm the Queen of Lazy even on a good day. I procrastinate like it's an art form.
(insert snarky caption here at some point)
But I tell you what, if my doctor told me tomorrow I wouldn't have to wear a pump or do blood tests if all I did was follow a specific diet and exercise everyday, that elliptical machine of mine wouldn't have a spec of dust on it and I'd be eating exactly what I was told to eat. Would it be easy? Hell no! Would it be worth it? Abso-frickin-lutely.
When I got my first job with my current employer they fingerprinted me for a background check four times. Each time my fingerprints came back because they could not be read. I'd done so many blood tests over the course of my life that I had no fingerprints. I ended up having to have my fingers laser scanned four years into my career. My arms and legs and stomach are all misshapen with scar tissue from years of shots and insertion sets. I've already got a little bit of diabetic retinopathy starting in my eyes. And even with diet and exercise, I'm still jamming a tube into my stomach every four days, and having to give insulin, and not always doing a great job of things.
In spite of my unsympathetic tone, I'm actually glad most diabetics have Type 2. That means many of them have the opportunity to reverse the effects of diabetes and get themselves back to normal. One of my co-workers asked me the other day if I'd gotten any comments or feedback from Type 2 diabetics on this blog. I haven't really addressed the differences before, so I'd be interested to know what people have to say.
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