October 28, 2003
NHS and Diabetes...
Now, don't get me wrong... I have nieces who work as Nurses and a damn fine job they as well as the many other people in the NHS do but this misinformation just drives me mad!
Type II diabetes is so closely linked to obesity that simply losing weight can reverse it.
I'm not Type II, I'm Type I but this is just plain WRONG. There are NO cases of any type of diabetes being "reversed" and I find the inclusion of this totally incorrect statement on an NHS website astonishing.
Being overweight can certainly be one of the triggers for type II diabetes but it is not the only cause! Being a "Normal" weight certainly helps control diabetes but once you got it you got it forever. Perhaps, if you're one of the luckier type II's, you can control it with diet and exercise but most have to take something like metformin.
Most of the literature available from pretty much anywhere concentrates on type II diabetes as it is the most prevalent (something like 90% of all diabetics are type II) but I'm type I (otherwise known as insulin dependent) which means my pancreas has decided to pack it's bags and head for sunnier climes leaving me without insulin. It would, therefore, be great to see more literature with advice for how to control type I diabetes better.
I firmly believe the UK should move toward the DAFNE model of treatment and education for type I. Unfortunately, as it is resource intensive, I can't see this happening. When will the Government / NHS realise that if they educate people in how to treat this lifelong chronic disease they would see less diabetic complications in the long run and actually SAVE money as they won't be lasering the back of people's eyes for retinopathy or amputating their feet because of peripheral neuropathy?
You can suffer with type II for YEARS and be unaware; type I comes on in a matter of days / weeks and leads to a very nasty life-threatening situation called ketoacidosis as I now know as this was how I discovered I had diabetes - my BG on dx was 58 mmol/l which is 1044mg/dL in American. A normal non-diabetic range is between 4.0 and 7.0 mmol/l. To convert from mmol to mg/dL simply multiply your mmol number by 18.
As there are so many people out there likely to have diabetes and not even know it if you display any of the symptoms I urge you to go talk to your doctor. It may save your life.
AMEN! I know that I didn't know a heck of a lot about it until we had to out of necessity--and we're still learning. it's just not something most people think about or know too much about--like once you have diabetes you can't have alcohol or sugar ever again--and we both know that's not true, don't we, Dear!
Posted by: Carla at October 28, 2003 8:51 PM