What I Want People To Know About Type 1 Diabetes
Hey y'all! I finally got around to posting again! Here's a question to start this post off with. When you think of t1d, what do you think of? Do you think of someone who ate too much sugar? How abt someone who may be overweight? What abt disease? There's so many things come to mind when someone mentions t1d.
For me, t1d is my whole life, it's basically a 24 hour job for me. I get no breaks. There's are days where I am tired and I am worn but I still keep going. There's some things that everyone knows about t1d but there's some things that I want everyone to know about t1d.
1. Yes, I can eat sugar.
I can actually eat just about anything I want, I just eat it in smaller portions and I watch my carbs. There are some things I will completely steer away from just because the carb count is so high but that doesn't mean that I can't eat it. One thing I want to advise to people is that even though it says sugar free, there's still carbs and I still have to limit how much of that I eat. I want to thank everyone that gets me sugar free anything, because it is much better than foods loaded with sugar. But just about every food out there has some amount of sugar, and I can eat any of it, just in healthy and moderate amounts.
2. T1D doesn't mean you can't be skinny.
I've had t1d for almost 18 years and I've not been overweight at all in my life. I've worked to keep myself in a good weight range and I still do. No I'm not perfectly in shape but not everyone is and I'm not perfect. The stereotype of being overweight and having t1d is a straight lie. You can be skinny as a rail and still get t1d. T1d attacks anybody no matter fit they are. Just watch for the signs.
3. No, I didn't eat too much sugar as a child.
I was 18 months old when I was diagnosed so I really didn't have a long length of time where I could eat tons of sugar. But even if I did have a huge amount of time before being diagnosed, the sugar I could've ate wouldn't have affected me getting t1d. So eating a lot of sugar as a kid doesn't mean you'll get t1d when you get older.
4. I don't have the same type of diabetes as your grandparent.
Your grandparent's diabetes is different than mine. And another diabetic's diabetes is different than mine. Most adults have type 2 diabetes which is different than type 1. A type 2 diabetic's pancreas still works, just not as efficiently. My pancreas as a type 1 diabetic does not work. At all. Which leads me to my next point.
5. I cannot just diet and exercise to get rid of my diabetes.
If I could just do those two things, I would've gotten rid of this a long time ago. I will have this disease for the rest of my life. Now, diet and exercise does help with maintaining good blood sugar but it won't get rid of t1d for me. A type 2 diabetic can exercise and diet and not have to worry as much about their diabetes. I will have to wait for a cure one day if they make one (which I'm hopeful for one someday!).
6. There is no bad kind of diabetes.
My diabetes is not the bad kind. So when you ask me if I have the "bad kind" of diabetes, I will start off with the fact that all kinds of diabetes isn't great. But there isn't a bad kind of diabetes. As far as I'm concerned, they're all not fun but are manageable. I'm not in a more worse condition, in fact, I'm quite healthy.
7. T1d is not contagious.
You will not get t1d from being around me or touching me. What I have is not gonna get you sick. But you could get me sick even if you weren't trying. My immune system as a diabetic isn't always a strong as it should be. Now, I will say that it has improved but it's not quite as strong as everyone else's. So I do try to keep myself from getting sick and I try to keep my immune system at its strongest.
8. Spread awareness.
Not just to your family but your friends too. To everyone. Dealing with t1d is a full time job and I can honestly say I've felt burnt out many times in my life with this. But I keep going in hopes that one day I won't have to deal with this again. I'm very thankful for the technology that has made diabetes management so much easier. It gives me a peace of mind as to what's going on with my sugars basically all the time. Spreading awareness for t1d means a lot to me. The more that people become aware of t1d, the more people are going to watch for it and make sure it's caught before it becomes fatal.
Thank you for reading this blog! I hope you've enjoyed! Feel free to contact me through the contact page and ask me questions or send ideas for my next blog posts! I will literally discuss any topic as long as I have a pretty good idea about it! (Please don't be afraid to ask me questions!) I'm currently working on my next blog posts as we speak, please be patient with me! I wanna thank y'all for everything y'all do to support me!
xo,
Maddie
EndFragment
