Things a non-diabetic should know about diabetics
3 subtle aspects of living with diabetes
If living with diabetes was a mere “checking blood glucose and insulin injections” kind of thing, diabetes would be an annoying set of automatisms at its worst: take the shot, eat this, not that, check blood, repeat.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Diabetes comes with some subtleties that a person without diabetes will hardly imagine, and rightly so.
These subtitles can significantly affect a diabetic’s daily life in all areas, from work to social to innumerable other situations.
It is important to bring some very practical scenarios to surface from time to time, because they can explain or at least provide more context for the difficulties of being a diabetic. Perhaps, people without diabetes can take them into account. Here are three of them which I think are important:
1 - When blood glucose is unstable, focusing is hard.
I have experienced that the more blood glucose is unstable, the more ups and downs I have the harder it is to stay focused at work, studying or in any other situation even social gatherings. Of course, one can work on the stability of the blood glucose, but this is far from a trivial problem to solve in fact, most diabetics struggle with it. When an individual struggle to regulate their blood glucose, then the loss of focus can impact their performance and this can lead to frustration and even depression at times. If you live or work with a diabetic, it is worth considering this and maybe have a chat about it.
2 - Diabetes can disrupt sleep
Sleep is the true pillar of human’s life.
Good sleep = you’re more likely to have a good day,
Bad sleep = things can get very difficult very quickly.
One bad night of sleep can occur to everybody, but a diabetic struggling with their glycaemic index will likely have many more sleepless nights: going low or high during the night will disrupt one’s sleeping patterns. This means waking up unrested, weak and dizzy, and that will carry all throughout the day. This has consequences: a sleepless person will have a harder time working efficiently, studying, being present and kind to others and being energetic, just to name the usual ones.
Once again, everyone can have a bad night of sleep. Just know that struggling with glycemic index can make it a much more regular occurrence.
3 - Eating and the “waiting time”
Sometimes we eat with other people. A lunch with colleagues, with the family, friends, or whatever.
Sometimes a diabetic will have to sit and watch others eat.
High blood glucose levels require a waiting time from the moment of the insulin injection to the moment a person’s ready to eat. Insulin will first need to bring blood glucose down to a normal level, and only then eating can start safely. Skipping this crucial waiting time will lead to higher blood glucose levels after the meal, worsening the situation.
For instance, imagine you go for work lunch. Your diabetic colleague has high blood glucose levels but feels the social pressure of eating, so (s)he eat to please others. This will causa a spike that could affect its brilliance and mental clarity that is so important to pitch your business to a new potential client in the afternoon.
This could be the reason why your diabetic friend or colleagues or family member is not eating with you. (S)he’s not being rude, it’s just that (s)he’s trying to get things under control.
Take this into account!
Living with diabetes - now you know!
These are just a couple of possible scenarios, but their practical impact is already evident - performance at work performance or at school, dealing with others in social contexts, like a lunch or a work presentation, etcetera. They can even lead to deeper issues such as frustration and depression.
As I said at the beginning, living with diabetes is not just about injecting something from time to time there is much more going on under the hood, and often diabetics do you not have the courage - or have a hard time - to explain it to others.
So if you are a diabetic and you need the people around you to know a bit more, you can now share this blog post. And if you are a person without diabetes, hopefully you know have a better understanding on what living with diabetes truly means, and can take this information more into consideration.
Thanks for reading!
