Ok, I have been having questions asked all my life life to me about diabetes and most of them aren't true. I just wanted to see if any one else has had ths experience. The 2 most common misconseptions are that diabetics can't eat ANY sugar whatsoever and people think it's like spreadable or catchable and so they begin to shy away...
I get the "Oh, so no sugar for you" response but have never experienced "Can I catch that". I would probably laugh at them if someone asked me that. My friends that aren't familiar with it always ask me questions after they find out. It is the randoms I run into that enjoy their perceptions more than the truth.
I get the sugar comment quite often. It's annoying when I'm in a high blood sugar, but I try to explain it.
Also, my current boyfriend has a family with a couple of type 2 diabetics in it, and I'm constantly getting the "you shouldn't eat that" regarding foods like potatoes.
It's frustrating, because although those starchy foods will negatively effect my sugars, as a type 1 diabetic on the pump, I have much more control than I feel those statements acknowledge.
This is what really pisses me off:
"So can do you have too much sugar or too little?" wtf?
"So were you a fat kid?" yes, look at my freakin childhood pics, umm no i was not you idiot.
"Omg why are you eating that ice cream, candy bar, ect ect." because i can.
"Is that a pager?" yes because everyone wheres pagers with tubes connected to their bodies.
Sorry about all the rants but the comments I put after the questions are what I would like to say.
One time my health teacher told me I had type 2 diabetes because I wasn't born with diabetes. Lets just say he really shouldn't be a health teacher.
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My favorite....People think that I caused my Diabetes by eating too much sugar!!!
I even hear my own sister tell her son that if he ate too much sugar he would get Diabetes and have to take shots. Of course I corrected her immediately, but she already knew it wan't true. She just didn't want her son eating a bunch of candy...great now getting it has become a threat....
I run this other website called The Diabetes OC where I feature bloggers each week and one of the bloggers from this week wrote a book about 50 Diabetes Myths check it out here http://www.thediabetesoc.com/2009/09/featured-blogger-of-week-sept-13-20.html
Ashley, I am right there with you on the whole T2 family member (who is also, coincidentally, a royal pain)...There's this woman who is the wife of one of my significant other's brothers, and she has a big mouth....
She was playing her own violin and (back of hand to her forehead for extra effect) was explaining the tragic nature of her existence (she has *sob* to take...steel yourself...like, shots of insulin every......single......day....), how she also has to take these two devastating medicines called Levothyroxine and Lisinopril...shudder!
The lady is very bothersome. By the time I part company with her (saying to myself, thank the gods for large favors), I have almost bitten my tongue in two from refraining to speak about that funny thing called reality that this oaf of a woman just cannot abide by very well...
I miss my mother in law terribly, and she was devastated by T2, so it's doubly annoying to hear this overprivileged, self-pity champion bemoan the fact that her fate has been so wretched. I'm fortunate that I have only had a negative experience with three T2's on this planet. The other T2's I know are decent, kind, open minded, real, wonderful human beings. They don't point fingers or insult either my disease or their own. I watched what T2 did to my mother in law, and I was forever changed by that experience. It somewhat dampens the anger I feel when I run into my sister in law. T2 is a hideous disease.
I hate T1, and I hate idiocy and ignorance about T1 and T2...sometimes it just seems like there is not enough brain to go around to everyone. Anyway.