Diabetes is a chronic disease, the symptoms of which often go unrecognised and are often attributed to the aging process.
One of the most common symptoms is fatigue and irritability, which many people simply put down to their getting older, or the increased stress in today’s workplace. Indeed, approximately 30% of diabetics are unaware that they have the disease, and it’s not until they start to experience some of the more extreme symptoms, genital itching, dire thirst, excessive need to urinate and blurred vision to name a few, that they pay a visit to their doctor.
Being diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic can be quite a shock, suddenly you have a life threatening, chronic disease. You may experience anger or bewilderment, or find that you are suddenly more aware of your own mortality and wonder how long you’ve got left.
The fact is, diabetes is a disease with which one can live a pretty normal life. Sure, it’ not just important, it’s vital that you take your medicine and monitor your blood sugars, and if you start injecting with insulin that can be a nuisance, but at the end of the day, you have it, and you need to get on with it.
However, some people spend far too long wondering how they came to have it. There’s always an “expert” on hand who will love to tell you where you went wrong. As a diabetic, you are 3-4 times more likely to suffer from depression, so these so called “experts” (in other words anyone who isn’t a healthcare professional) simply make matters worse with their fake wisdom.
They will tell you that you shouldn’t have drunk all those fizzy drinks for example. However, diabetes has nothing to do with the amount of sugar you may have eaten in the past. Where sugar is a problem is if by eating too much of the stuff you got fat, because obesity is definitely one of the causes of type 2 diabetes.
It has nothing to do with your sex either. Both males and females share an equal chance of contracting this disease.
Whilst there is some research that may suggest that stress may be linked to various cancers, there is no evidence at all that stress is responsible for diabetes.
Finally, whilst a change in your emotions do not cause diabetes, your mental attitude towards the disease certainly plays a large part in how one copes with the disease. A positive attitude towards your medication and monitoring will yield big dividends. That’s why it’s so important not to listen to the “experts”.