My ex husband has diabetes, and his blood sugar is under pretty good control most of the time, but I saw what he ate yesterday and it was terrible, it would be terrible for someone non diabetic..3 pastriess, two quarterpounders a sandwich and at least one piece of cake. I asked him if he had a death wish. I said your blood sugar is probably 400. If you wish to commit suicide please don't do it around me!! Sometimes he cares what he eats, and other times..it doesn't matter to him.
@K E Gordon I am like that, too. Only, I care more about the number of calories I gulp down, rather than where they originate! Everything I eat seems to wind up making my belly bigger. Frank
One colleague of my husband has a serious case of diabetes because he couldn't stand for long otherwise edema will set in and he would have difficulty walking. When in the office, he would be sitting with his feet propped up on a stool. But it's ironic because that guy would be eating almost anything with the reason that he had taken insulin shots (he injects himself before eating). And when my husband would mention about the food, the guy would just smile and crack a joke to divert the issue. He was one jolly good fellow and it pained my husband when he died 3 years ago from complications caused by diabetes.
Awww yeah, this disease can cause some real issues. There are many people who have died young, from it, have had strokes or heart attacks, kidney failure or amputation. I just think that it is hard to stay on a good eating plan all the time. However, it is important to try, if you care about living a normal life span anyway. I am sorry for your husband's friend, but he clearly made a choice to not take care of himself the way he should. We can't save people from themselves, although some of us are our own worst enemies!
@K E Gordon "if you care about living a normal life span anyway." That is just the thought which always came to my mind, even years ago, when I took the greasy, Prime Rib dish over the healthful vegetable bowl: just what constitutes a reasonable life span, anyway? I DID start watching my blood pressure in 1980, as suggested by a doctor, but watched nothing else. Now, at 74+, I wonder if a lifetime of frivolous non-concern might now catch up with me, or have I made it this far by not worrying about things? Diabetes, yes, I would be concerned. But not about many other things..... Frank
You are right on dying early. My husband's colleague died at age 66 and he had already one toe amputated when it became gangrenous. That is the agony of a diabetic - the thought of being deprived of food. And to think that eating is the most important of our life, it is really sad to hear a diabetic's lamentation of the deprivation. By the way, our physician said that you may be diabetic as per your genetic makeup but the diabetes may be passive. However, the diabetes will emerge if your body experiences trauma like an accident or a stroke. My husband is a candidate because of his family's history on diabetes that's why he is extra careful with his lifestyle. I'm glad that he was able to quit smoking in 2007.
Me. After a few years of carefully doing what diabetics are supposed to do, I simply got tired of having diabetes. I was taking Metformin, Glyburide, and Glucotrol. (After my "I don't care" episode, I was on insulin for a while.) I stopped testing, I stopped taking pills, I stopped even watching what I ate. About 2 months into my fit of denial, I felt horribly bad one night. My heart was racing, my face was flushed, my head was pounding, and I thought about the fact that I hadn't been doing what I was supposed to do. I hadn't mentioned it to Ken, and I wasn't about to, so I drove myself to the ER, where they discovered that my blood pressure was dangerously high, and my blood sugar was more than 400, which is as far as the hospital's glucometer went. I spent several hours in the ER, with the medical team forcing me to drink copious amounts of water and injecting insulin twice during that time. My biggest dread was the fact that they called my doctor and told him what was going on, and I felt foolish already! That was probably 8 years ago or so. Today, I am on glipizide. Period. My A1C hovers between 6 and 6.5. I watch what I eat pretty carefully, but I pay more attention to how much I eat rather than what I eat. And I exercise (Just Dance) pretty frequently (when there aren't workmen painting the rooms in our house or other jobs.) So I do understand the denial that one can go through when diagnosed with a chronic disease.