My H2B (that's Hubby-to-Be in Bridespeak) likes to watch ABC for some reason that I can't quite grasp. I strongly suspect he's under the illusion that they're more truthful. Or he just likes watching old people talk in monotone, maybe its a soothing thing to him.
Yesterday, he put on ABC as he does in the middle of the day on a weekend. They advertised a segment to appear last night on diabetes and a 'miracle cure'. My spidey sense was tingling, alarm bells were ringing and the word poppycock flashed into my mind in Neon letters.
So at 9.30pm last night I settled down with a big bowl of popcorn, prepared for some entertaining comedy. I lie. I didn't have popcorn, can't eat the stuff because it tops out my 'reasons why I'm Hypo' list.
As predicted, ABC had no idea what they were prattling on about. Everyone listen up, Blueberry Tea is gonna kick your diabetes into gear. That's actually a new one. Hallelujah we are saved!! The Menzies institute has your back. If you look up the Menzies institute and search for their diabetes research you are met with this very succinct and to the point description of how they interpret diabetes: 'Diabetes is a disease'. Their words radiate such a strong understanding of my medical condition, so I'm definitely going to just shut up now and drink the blueberry tea.
Sorry I lie again. Seems to be a problem with me tonight. I'm not going to drink the blueberry tea. Because blueberry tea is not going to cure or help my Type 1 Diabetes, as ABC so informs me: "A herbal tea with blueberry as its base has attracted the attention of medical researchers at the Menzies Institute for its potential to reduce insulin dependence in diabetics."
Not only are they blanketing all types of diabetes again, but they specifically mention insulin dependence, which lends people to relate the report more towards people with Type 1 Diabetes. The article is based off a single-person case study - an elderly Type 2 patient on insulin. They also talk to a nutritionist who says she has done some trials of her own and that those who drank the tea had better glycaemic control. I'm no medical officer, but if patients have bothered to go to a nutritionist, it is likely that they have made other significant changes to their dietary habits alongside drinking the tea that would aid glycaemic control.
How does this miracle cure work, you ask? A senior researcher has the very simple answer: "The tea has enabled that hormone, insulin, to improve glucose uptake into muscle and by doing that it lowers blood glucose levels and it does that by stimulating blood flow,". How amazing, so does Viagra. Basically, if the ABC are saying a healthy lifestyle will help to aid control in diabetes, then the article is not really telling us anything we don't already know.
As a person with Type 1 Diabetes I only have 1 point to make really. Don't drink the tea. Well you can, but only drink it because you like to drink tea. Don't stop taking your insulin. We're called insulin dependent for a reason. Because our insulin-producing beta cells are effectively dead. You can test it out if you want - go dig up your poor old dead bunny Flopsy from the garden and give her a hit of this so-called good stuff. Chances are, if Flopsy doesn't come back to life spontaneously, neither will your beta cells.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Friday, 20 February 2015
#effyourhealthstandards
Tess Munster somehow made it back to my newsfeed again today. I say again, because she's been there a good part of the past month.
For those who haven't a clue who I'm talking about, Tess Munster is a plus size model who recently got a large modelling contract.
I have no issues with plus size models. I think for the majority of the time, the term plus size is wildly inaccurate, because it basically just means 'average sized human being'. I don't own any fashion magazines and I have no idea what a Dolce and Gabbana is. I don't know fashion. I don't look at fashion. I shop at K-mart. That stuff is cheap and it fits over my butt. Like actually fits over it.
Kmart are pretty good on their advertising. I generally just see healthy looking men and women in their catalogues. In the last catalogue, a model had arm fat. And that's who we should be seeing. HEALTHY men and women in advertising.
Tess Munster is anything but healthy. I do have to give her some props. She is body confident.
Unfortunately she promotes a lifestyle to vulnerable girls who aren't body confident that tells them it's ok to become morbidly obese. She isn't someone who I would want an impressionable young teen to look up to. Neither are stick thin models, but they don't make my newsfeed.
Tess had a lot to do with #effyourbeautystandards. Thats a great movement. But she may as well add #effyourhealthstandards #dieyoung.
I have Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune condition that I could not have prevented no matter how hard I exercised or how well I ate. It hurts me so much to see people advocating for unhealthy lifestyle choices in the way that Tess Munster does. #effyourbeautystandards isn't about telling the media that we don't have to be stick thin, with huge boobs to be attractive anymore. It's now about my life, my body, I'll do what I want and what the hell is a carrot?
Tess Munster's social media pages makes being unhealthy look desirable. She's glamorous, eats what she wants wihtout caring and travels the world. What she isn't sharing on her facebook, or instagram or whatever it is kids are logging into and looking at these days, is the statistics on health issues from morbid obesity. She isn't sharing when her doctors warn her about Type 2 Diabetes, or heart diseae, or cancer. She doesn't share her BMI, or pictures of small cuts that take twice as long to heal with poor circulation. She isn't able to take a picture of her insides and share her possibly hardened areries, or struggling organs with you. She doesn't tell you how long it takes her to walk up a set of stairs, or how much harder she has to breathe to do that.
She's a model. Hello photoshop. I wear a size 12 and I have cellulite galore. And stretch marks. And my curves are sometimes just lumps of fat and not really curves. Tess Munster does not appear to have these. Her curves are smooth, she has no cellulite and where are the stretch marks? At size 22, she has these. What happened to #effyourbeautystandards?
I wish I could tell her exactly how much she does not want Type 2 Diabetes. Because it's not glamourous. Finding blood all over your hands/legs/face 5 minutes after a finger-prick isn't glamourous. Wincing in pain during needle isn't a great model face. Having to plan your life to a tee to include your diabetes would not make the jet-setting life very easy, I would imagine. It also might be hard to model with no legs. Just saying, as someone who has this secret fear about their diabetes.
I don't wish Tess ill. I don't hate Tess. I just think that Tess should appreciate that as someone who has such a large audience, she should take responsibility of that and pop up a picture of a healthy meal every so often. Or snap a pic mid-work out. Encourage people that you can still #effyourbeautystandards whilst being healthy, instead of using #effyourbeautfystandards to justify an unhealthy lifestyle.
For those who haven't a clue who I'm talking about, Tess Munster is a plus size model who recently got a large modelling contract.
I have no issues with plus size models. I think for the majority of the time, the term plus size is wildly inaccurate, because it basically just means 'average sized human being'. I don't own any fashion magazines and I have no idea what a Dolce and Gabbana is. I don't know fashion. I don't look at fashion. I shop at K-mart. That stuff is cheap and it fits over my butt. Like actually fits over it.
Kmart are pretty good on their advertising. I generally just see healthy looking men and women in their catalogues. In the last catalogue, a model had arm fat. And that's who we should be seeing. HEALTHY men and women in advertising.
Tess Munster is anything but healthy. I do have to give her some props. She is body confident.
Unfortunately she promotes a lifestyle to vulnerable girls who aren't body confident that tells them it's ok to become morbidly obese. She isn't someone who I would want an impressionable young teen to look up to. Neither are stick thin models, but they don't make my newsfeed.
Tess had a lot to do with #effyourbeautystandards. Thats a great movement. But she may as well add #effyourhealthstandards #dieyoung.
I have Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune condition that I could not have prevented no matter how hard I exercised or how well I ate. It hurts me so much to see people advocating for unhealthy lifestyle choices in the way that Tess Munster does. #effyourbeautystandards isn't about telling the media that we don't have to be stick thin, with huge boobs to be attractive anymore. It's now about my life, my body, I'll do what I want and what the hell is a carrot?
Tess Munster's social media pages makes being unhealthy look desirable. She's glamorous, eats what she wants wihtout caring and travels the world. What she isn't sharing on her facebook, or instagram or whatever it is kids are logging into and looking at these days, is the statistics on health issues from morbid obesity. She isn't sharing when her doctors warn her about Type 2 Diabetes, or heart diseae, or cancer. She doesn't share her BMI, or pictures of small cuts that take twice as long to heal with poor circulation. She isn't able to take a picture of her insides and share her possibly hardened areries, or struggling organs with you. She doesn't tell you how long it takes her to walk up a set of stairs, or how much harder she has to breathe to do that.
She's a model. Hello photoshop. I wear a size 12 and I have cellulite galore. And stretch marks. And my curves are sometimes just lumps of fat and not really curves. Tess Munster does not appear to have these. Her curves are smooth, she has no cellulite and where are the stretch marks? At size 22, she has these. What happened to #effyourbeautystandards?
I wish I could tell her exactly how much she does not want Type 2 Diabetes. Because it's not glamourous. Finding blood all over your hands/legs/face 5 minutes after a finger-prick isn't glamourous. Wincing in pain during needle isn't a great model face. Having to plan your life to a tee to include your diabetes would not make the jet-setting life very easy, I would imagine. It also might be hard to model with no legs. Just saying, as someone who has this secret fear about their diabetes.
I don't wish Tess ill. I don't hate Tess. I just think that Tess should appreciate that as someone who has such a large audience, she should take responsibility of that and pop up a picture of a healthy meal every so often. Or snap a pic mid-work out. Encourage people that you can still #effyourbeautystandards whilst being healthy, instead of using #effyourbeautfystandards to justify an unhealthy lifestyle.
Monday, 3 November 2014
Understanding
I was at an event hosted by Diabetes QLD last month, and there was an endocrinologist speaker who made mention a couple of times that people with diabetes were still the same people, but with an external pancreas.
A lot of people in the audience nodded their heads in agreeance at the remark. I always find these remarks confusing and difficult to make sense of. When talking of diabetes and the role it plays in our lives, I don't agree with this statement. Diabetes most definitely has shaped who I am as a person and how I live my life. I think it is foolish and silly to believe that you are still the same person as you were before diagnosis and that diabetes is just a little something you do on the side for shits and gigs.
I believe in giving diabetes the distant respect it deserves. It is more than running an external pancreas, because that external pancreas is being run 24/7. Saying we are simply running an external pancreas detracts from what we deal with on a daily basis.
Diabetes is my silent stalker, following me everywhere I go. 3 years ago, I was stalker-free. There were no hypos and highs lurking in the shadows. I had never had to sit out a meal and watch other people eat, despite being starving because my BGLs were too high. That level of self-control didn't exist for me before diabetes.
There is a fine line between letting diabetes run your life, and between giving it the attention needed.
This line also spills over into my relationships with other people. Which is another reason I didn't like this particular statement.
I learnt fairly quickly once people knew I had Type 1 Diabetes that they didn't actually want to know anything at all about it or how it affected me. My Diabetes is now only discussed without about 3 or 4 non-diabetics.
In the company of most Type Zeros, I stopped treating my diabetes like it had any impact on me. Then one day my older brother told me that 'he didn't feel sorry for me having Type 1 Diabetes because I could still eat whatever I wanted'. But he did 'feel sorry for his friend who was coealiac and a VEGAN BY CHOICE', because 'she can't eat much'.
I don't want pity from anyone for my diabetes. I live well with my diabetes. I just want understanding.
It was glaringly obvious that my brother, unfortunately, had no idea what it was that made having diabetes hard to have. I'm sorry your friend has coeliacs disease, I really am. That must be shitty. But the vegan thing - thats her choice. Comparing my auotimmune disease to her choice was really crappy. Being able to eat what I want is the trade off I get for nights when I wonder if I will wake up alive the next morning. Its the trade off for taking a massive supply bag with me everywhere. Its the trade off the fact that I might go blind one day. I don't know what coeliacs disease causes, but the choice to eat gluten or not is probably not that hard to do. If I inject insulin - the medication that saves my life daily - I am at risk of death by overdose simply because today I am more sensitive to it than I was yesterday. That's what I want people to understand - that its complicated and I don't ever get a break. I am always thinking about how to handle every situation with my diabetes.
I was on a CityCat the other day and for some reason read the safety instructions on where the life vests were located in case of emergency. I had to figure out a diabetes plan. My pump isn't waterproof, so in the hypothetical emergency, I was hoping I would be able to clip it to the top of my life jacket so it would stay above water and still work. I would have to somehow take my juice with me as I swam to shore, because that would be unintentional exercise that I had no time to prepare for, so the likelihood that I would hypo either in the water or on shore would be very high.
That's what diabetes is. No offense meant to my brothers friend who is coeliac and chooses to be vegan, but I don't think that those issues means that she has to worry about medical emergencies if she has to swim unexpectedly across the Brisbane River.
Diabetes is not just something I do on the side when I feel bored. Thats what I want people to understand.
A lot of people in the audience nodded their heads in agreeance at the remark. I always find these remarks confusing and difficult to make sense of. When talking of diabetes and the role it plays in our lives, I don't agree with this statement. Diabetes most definitely has shaped who I am as a person and how I live my life. I think it is foolish and silly to believe that you are still the same person as you were before diagnosis and that diabetes is just a little something you do on the side for shits and gigs.
I believe in giving diabetes the distant respect it deserves. It is more than running an external pancreas, because that external pancreas is being run 24/7. Saying we are simply running an external pancreas detracts from what we deal with on a daily basis.
Diabetes is my silent stalker, following me everywhere I go. 3 years ago, I was stalker-free. There were no hypos and highs lurking in the shadows. I had never had to sit out a meal and watch other people eat, despite being starving because my BGLs were too high. That level of self-control didn't exist for me before diabetes.
There is a fine line between letting diabetes run your life, and between giving it the attention needed.
This line also spills over into my relationships with other people. Which is another reason I didn't like this particular statement.
I learnt fairly quickly once people knew I had Type 1 Diabetes that they didn't actually want to know anything at all about it or how it affected me. My Diabetes is now only discussed without about 3 or 4 non-diabetics.
In the company of most Type Zeros, I stopped treating my diabetes like it had any impact on me. Then one day my older brother told me that 'he didn't feel sorry for me having Type 1 Diabetes because I could still eat whatever I wanted'. But he did 'feel sorry for his friend who was coealiac and a VEGAN BY CHOICE', because 'she can't eat much'.
I don't want pity from anyone for my diabetes. I live well with my diabetes. I just want understanding.
It was glaringly obvious that my brother, unfortunately, had no idea what it was that made having diabetes hard to have. I'm sorry your friend has coeliacs disease, I really am. That must be shitty. But the vegan thing - thats her choice. Comparing my auotimmune disease to her choice was really crappy. Being able to eat what I want is the trade off I get for nights when I wonder if I will wake up alive the next morning. Its the trade off for taking a massive supply bag with me everywhere. Its the trade off the fact that I might go blind one day. I don't know what coeliacs disease causes, but the choice to eat gluten or not is probably not that hard to do. If I inject insulin - the medication that saves my life daily - I am at risk of death by overdose simply because today I am more sensitive to it than I was yesterday. That's what I want people to understand - that its complicated and I don't ever get a break. I am always thinking about how to handle every situation with my diabetes.
I was on a CityCat the other day and for some reason read the safety instructions on where the life vests were located in case of emergency. I had to figure out a diabetes plan. My pump isn't waterproof, so in the hypothetical emergency, I was hoping I would be able to clip it to the top of my life jacket so it would stay above water and still work. I would have to somehow take my juice with me as I swam to shore, because that would be unintentional exercise that I had no time to prepare for, so the likelihood that I would hypo either in the water or on shore would be very high.
That's what diabetes is. No offense meant to my brothers friend who is coeliac and chooses to be vegan, but I don't think that those issues means that she has to worry about medical emergencies if she has to swim unexpectedly across the Brisbane River.
Diabetes is not just something I do on the side when I feel bored. Thats what I want people to understand.
Monday, 27 October 2014
Having diabetes is so often about what we have done wrong, what we need to work harder at. When we go to our Endo, educator or otherwise, they don't spend a huge deal of time concentrating on the parts that we're getting right. They're trying to fix what's wrong.
When things are going well with my diabetes, it becomes a background nuisance instead of an in-your-face temper tantrum, so I don't really think about it. I often forget the self high-five. The only time I ever really think to congratulate myself is when the oh-so-wonderful-must-be-magic 5.5 appears on my meter. Then its stop whatever I'm doing and happy dance it out.
Last weekend, my diabetes put on its 'Mr. Nice Guy' mask. It wasn't a fluke. I have been trying really, really hard lately. I'm going to take the time to tell myself: "Well done Ash, well done".
I woke up and went for a walk in the ridiculous Brisbane heat both days this weekend. First thing in the morning. It was good for my BGLs. (N.B. - exercise gives amazing BGLs all day. Exercise more).
The rest of the weekend was just a bunch of self-high-fives and some fist bumps with my fiance as somehow we managed to get diabetes to do what we wanted it to do.
It made what was a great weekend even better. You know you're doing something right when you can go to somewhere called 'Eat Street Markets' (read: gigantic street-food markets) eat a calzone, a potato spiral, a honeycomb milkshake and a cronut and end up on a 5.8. Just for reference: Cronuts quite clearly do not cause diabetes, as might have been stated by some very silly cafe a few months ago. 5.8. Non-diabetic range.
Getting it right just gives me so much more confidence to live my life as I want to. The difference between feeling controlled and uncontrolled for me can very much impact on what I feel comfortable doing. I had always wanted to go to one of those colour festivals, and there have been a few that I have almost signed up for, and with everything going so well, I finally got to go to one. I got covered in colour, and diabetes behaved itself.
Which was a massive relief because despite the Springflare fesival being a celebration as part of the G20 happening here in Brisbane this month, there was obviously no budget allocation for first aid. Like none, none. I had more medical equipment on me than the 1st aid tent. There were about 2 young volunteers working the tent with limited supplies consisting of tissues, rubber gloves and bottled (not even saline) water. I found all this out because I had to wander up there to get a BGL check done - thankfully I had my own supplies because they had none - and needed them to clean off a finger so I could actually find real estate to test on.
Fair warning for any Diabetics wanting to do a colour festival or run - pack alcohol swabs so you can clean a finger off. And bring some little zip lock baggies for your diabetes supplies too - I remembered one for my pump but forgot about my BGL checking supplies, and ended up with a pink lancing device.
It was so awesome to be able to enjoy my weekend without stressing that diabetes was doing things it shouldn't. I hope I have more of them.
When things are going well with my diabetes, it becomes a background nuisance instead of an in-your-face temper tantrum, so I don't really think about it. I often forget the self high-five. The only time I ever really think to congratulate myself is when the oh-so-wonderful-must-be-magic 5.5 appears on my meter. Then its stop whatever I'm doing and happy dance it out.
Last weekend, my diabetes put on its 'Mr. Nice Guy' mask. It wasn't a fluke. I have been trying really, really hard lately. I'm going to take the time to tell myself: "Well done Ash, well done".
I woke up and went for a walk in the ridiculous Brisbane heat both days this weekend. First thing in the morning. It was good for my BGLs. (N.B. - exercise gives amazing BGLs all day. Exercise more).
The rest of the weekend was just a bunch of self-high-fives and some fist bumps with my fiance as somehow we managed to get diabetes to do what we wanted it to do.
It made what was a great weekend even better. You know you're doing something right when you can go to somewhere called 'Eat Street Markets' (read: gigantic street-food markets) eat a calzone, a potato spiral, a honeycomb milkshake and a cronut and end up on a 5.8. Just for reference: Cronuts quite clearly do not cause diabetes, as might have been stated by some very silly cafe a few months ago. 5.8. Non-diabetic range.
Getting it right just gives me so much more confidence to live my life as I want to. The difference between feeling controlled and uncontrolled for me can very much impact on what I feel comfortable doing. I had always wanted to go to one of those colour festivals, and there have been a few that I have almost signed up for, and with everything going so well, I finally got to go to one. I got covered in colour, and diabetes behaved itself.
Which was a massive relief because despite the Springflare fesival being a celebration as part of the G20 happening here in Brisbane this month, there was obviously no budget allocation for first aid. Like none, none. I had more medical equipment on me than the 1st aid tent. There were about 2 young volunteers working the tent with limited supplies consisting of tissues, rubber gloves and bottled (not even saline) water. I found all this out because I had to wander up there to get a BGL check done - thankfully I had my own supplies because they had none - and needed them to clean off a finger so I could actually find real estate to test on.
Fair warning for any Diabetics wanting to do a colour festival or run - pack alcohol swabs so you can clean a finger off. And bring some little zip lock baggies for your diabetes supplies too - I remembered one for my pump but forgot about my BGL checking supplies, and ended up with a pink lancing device.
It was so awesome to be able to enjoy my weekend without stressing that diabetes was doing things it shouldn't. I hope I have more of them.
Monday, 19 May 2014
Food For Mortals
I didn't know this, but apparantely when you become diabetic, you don't need to eat anymore. We have no need to partake of any oral ingeston of any vitamins, minerals, proteins, good fats, or any other sort of nutrition at all. I think that all of my doctors must have neglected to tell me that I now absorb all these nutrients through magical diabetic sunrays or osmosis. Food is now something I have purely just to get fat.
At least that's the way non-diabetics can make it feel to me. I had a blood test on Saturday as my endo appointment was today. The collection lady was chatty and cheerful and my first impression was that I liked her and maybe I would always get my bloods done on a Saturday with her from now on. Unfortunately, my first impression was wrong. About halfway through the collection she took a closer look at what she was harvesting my blood for and out it popped:
"Oooooh this has your 3 monthly average (HbA1c) on it! Will it show that you've been a naughty diabetic?"
She was lucky there was a needle jabbing into my arm. Otherwise my fist might have (Who am I kidding might have? Would have. My fist WOULD have) met with her face.
Besides that fact that her job is purely to stick things into my veins and make me bleed into a little tube and not at all to question my diabetic habits, this is insulting. No wonder diabetics can have a pretty volatile relationship with food at points. The basic gist of it from everyone else is 'diabetic eating = bad. Starving = good'. Do not put anything into your mouth and you have done well.
I should have asked her if she had any alcohol last night, or EVER really and proclaimed she was bad.
EATING IS NOT BAD. That is all I have done that could possibly ever make me a 'bad' or 'naughty' diabetic. I test alot. I don't always write it down and I sort of went to my endo appointment empty handed, but I test so damn much that I could give my endo my ranges before and after each of my meals and what I needed help with. I take insulin for everything I eat. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way I wanted it to, but that's not for a lack of trying. The ONLY thing I could posibly have done to be a bad diabetic is to have provided my body with the nourishment it needs to sustain my life. I wasn't aware I had reached god status and no longer needed physical consumption of food.
And even if I didn't follow the testing and injecting regimen as closely as I do, I am still not BAD, and no diabetic is naughty for it and NOBODY has the right to make these judgments without knowing diddly-squat about us or what we have going on in our lives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)