Sunday, October 15, 2023

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…TYPE 2 DIABETES #15: What Do You Do When You’re TIRED Of Taking Care Of Your Type 2? PART 1 (MAYBE??? The Problem?)

For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!

PART 1 IS A BIT OF A RANT; PART 2 WILL OFFER UP SOME SOLID SUGGESTIONS!

Ya know, when I talk to my doctor about being tired of diabetes, he just brushes it off. I mean, he IS skinny as a rail, fit, and A PHYSICIAN’S ASSISTANT – he knows about diabetes. He knows EXACTLY what it does. So, of COURSE he avoids it.

But because HE avoids it, he sort of makes the assumption that once I have it, I can get better…

So, I wanted to find out if doctors have Type 2 diabetes – the quick answer is, “No idea, because the computer search doesn’t even RECOGNIZE the question!” Each time a searched I ended up with lists of hospitals that TREAT diabetes; specialist medical groups that TREAT diabetes; and medical resources for TREATING diabetes.

Only ONE resource even mentioned the possibility that DOCTORS can be diabetic…perhaps this is why when I visit certain physicians, PAs, nurses, and other allied personnel, they look at me with a critical eye – as if I intended to become a Type 2 diabetic through a slovenly lifestyle filled with sybaritic cupcake parties, a diet made up of any possible variety of sugar, pasta, fried food, and doughnuts. Like I’m somehow an IDIOT for ALLOWING MYSELF TO GET TYPE 2 DIABETES…

Maybe the above is an exaggeration – but only a slight one. Society at large ignores us on its constant and consistent path to consequence-free-maximum-gustatory-enjoyment, selling LITERAL tons of French fries, Big Macs, KFC/Raising Canes/Chick-fil-A/et al fried chicken…

BUT, the only admission to the guilt of (it seems like) having a weak personality and an inability to control yourself EVEN EXISTING IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION, appears ONLY (as far as I can tell), in a journal referencing a study of Taiwanese doctors (and even THEY come out of smelling like only slightly wilted roses): “The current study found that the risk for DM (Diabetes Mellitus) in physicians was lower than that in the general population. Stratified analyses showed lower risks in the age subgroups of 35–49 years and 50–64 years and in the male population. Emergency physicians and surgeons had a higher risk for developing DM than other specialists. In physicians, male sex and older age were risk factors for DM.

“An explanation for the lower risk for DM observed among physicians in comparison with the general population is that, despite heavier workloads and the related poor lifestyle, the former have better medical knowledge, higher disease awareness, and easier healthcare access than the latter; these benefits may mitigate the risk for DM among physicians. The current result is also compatible with previous studies in Taiwan that showed that, despite physicians having higher risks for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, migraine, and herniated intervertebral disc than the general population [13,14,15,16], the former were also less vulnerable to major and life-threatening diseases, including cardiovascular, cancer, and severe sepsis than the latter [13, 17,18,19].”

If you do a search of American doctors, it will appear to you that they (unlike their Taiwanese associates) are completely and totally invulnerable to being AND flavor of Diabetic. This would explain their disdain for those of us who visit them in their offices…

Or not. It could also indicate a profound effort by the profession to continue to practice the art of Super Invulnerability and Imperviousness to Normal Aging And Disease…but that’s a false belief…

A new study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the following: “Compared with people who don’t work in the medical field, health care workers face an increased risk of suicide, especially registered nurses, health care support workers and health technicians, according to a new study.

“The study, published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, estimates that the annual suicide rate in the United States among health care workers alone is about 14 per 100,000 person-years compared with about 13 per 100,000 person-years among non-health care workers. Person-years is a measurement that represents the number of people in a study multiplied by the years following them.”

I make an INFERENCE here – if the incidence of SUICIDE is higher among medical personnel – don’t you think it’s logical that something less deadly is ALSO higher than we’re aware of? I can’t even get a single Google hit on Type 2 diabetes among American medical personnel. OK – I checked: one hit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6753812/

BUT: this covered ALL pathologies in ALL health-related careers, and covered the whole planet. Hmmm…might there be a bit of deception going on at health clinics across America? Maybe a sense of DENIAL? (“I’m exempt from controlling my eating habits! Look at how hard my job is! I deserve a little slack! I can function JUST FINE with my blood glucose levels above 300! I just won’t check them, that’ll fix everything!”)

I’d be interested to see what the incidence of Type 2 diabetes is among the health care world…And if our caregivers are dodging the bullet – can we expect them to be sympathetic at ALL when we share our struggles with them? ‘cause I know how I ACT when someone starts questioning one of my weaknesses too closely…I can get a TEENSY bit defensive when people find out I own over 2000 books in my basement library, yessiree, BOB!”

Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/inspiration-when-youre-over-t2d#Four-things-to-try-when-youre-tired-of-type-2-diabetes ; https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7403-z#:~:text=In%20comparisons%20among%20physicians%2C%20emergency,for%20DM%20than%20other%20specialists. ; https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/health/suicide-risk-health-care-workers/index.html#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20published%20Tuesday%20in,among%20non%2Dhealth%20care%20workers.

Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg

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