Why Can’t I Eat Cake?

It’s very interesting that most of the health educators tell the diabetic patient you can’t eat this or drink that. It’s easy to lack empathy and be pious when your health is fine and you like your nice job telling your diabetic patients what to do. The vibe on the street is not good with a lot of patients feeling overwhelmed by information overload and left to sift through masses of knowledge to try to find what works for them. We as educators can try to do better, try pricking your fingers four times a day for one week to see what it feels like. You don’t know till your there, what it actually feels like to eat a food and become ill because something in your body is not functioning the way it should.

A lot of the older very well controlled diabetics had very little sympathy for younger patients who had drunk too much or ate too much chocolate or cake. They disliked lack of control and not following good diabetic diet. They all felt if the complications of diabetes were discussed the diabetic would show more control. So at what point do we show complications of diabetes without stimulating anxiety? The consensus of opinion varied so much, some patients wanted total shock factor and other patients did not want to know. Should this be a question we ask the patient, do you want to know the complications? Should it be mandatory the patient is told anyway?

What happened to the diabetic section in a store or supermarket? Probably due to the fact that everyone is different and what upsets one diabetic patient is not necessarily a trigger for another.

Using the insulin to have treats was fround upon by the older generation, most said if more than 2units were used it would cause other problems in the body. Probably due to a chemiosomotic shuttle and their disdain came from the fact they had probably tried it and found it detrimental to their health.