I hear what you are saying @A DiabetesTeam Member

And it is a balance you have to seek because while knowledge is power Diabetes is a "gigantic" subject and it could quickly get overwhelming.

Probably because I worked for many years as a statistical analyst that also produced "study like reports" I still like to read them - and particularly since my diagnosis I felt "why not read about something that actually effects me".

But I still do need to stick to learning about some very focused bits and pieces about diabetes for a couple of reasons.

First, still the overwhelming majority of information out there is based on "theory" - we don't even "don't know" what we "don't know" about what causes it and some of the theories are wild and could leave you so afraid to even "breathe", which could make it worse, that the stress alone would advance the disease.

The second reason is I have to try and navigate what might be of value to myself or others without getting caught up going down a rabbit hole to something that I can't hope to understand or worse, misunderstand and take some action based on that misunderstood information and really mess something up.

For myself I know a couple of things are true.

First I don't ever remember a day when I was younger that I sat around thinking "one day I hope I know volumes about diet and diabetes".

Second, I never should have had to.

When I was diagnosed, given that (now) 1 in 8 people that I pass on the street is in the same boat, I should have been sent to some "education session" that gave me a little more information then "take your pills, cut out bread, potato and pasta - give up sugar sweetened drinks and get some exercise".

Like seriously, that is the best we can get from our "health providers" when you have just been told you have the 3rd most common chronic condition on the planet (right behind hypertension and heart disease).

The prescription is "lifestyle change" but they don't even provide a definition of what that is much less any real guidance as to what we should be doing, what can affect our efforts, what other things we can undertake, what we should also be tested for or to watch out for, when to be concerned and the list goes on.

So I simply decided since I can't rely on the professionals to give me the guidance I need to grow old and retain function - they are more worried about hurting my feelings or treating "today" and maybe a little into the "short term", giving us guidelines that WILL result in Complications, that I would have to do it on my own.

And when you have watched the Beast eat up people close to you, including my father which is still really fresh in my mind, I'm just that much more motivated to make sure that if it happens to me, it's not because I didn't know better.

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A Diabete...

You my friend are just too smart when it comes to diabetes you and @A DiabetesTeam Member, @A DiabetesTeam Member and so many others on here I`m sure what would we do without your knowledge and experience. You all have so much patience and explain things so well better then any doctor or diabetes specialist I have ever had since my diagnosis. I tend to feel since the beginning of this diabetes journey that I will do what I need to do to manage it but I don`t want to read about it or google info about or any of it since for me I can feel overwhelmed and yes knowledge is power but like the other health issues that I have I don`t want my life to be just about reading about everything I have wrong with me and would much rather hear from others and their experiences since I feel if I would throw myself into finding out more info on everything I have wrong with me I wouldn`t be living my life anymore but living for the diseases that I have now....Does this make any sense?

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A Diabete...

A Diabete...

I am 82, strict vegan diet, no genetic connection to type 2 diabetes, all I can say with certainty is we cannot control hormones, enzymes, chemical action, and reactions taking place automatically. Worrying about them is not useful. What we can do is diet control and moderate exercise, about 150 min/week, either gentle yoga or Tai Chi. rest leave to the Creator. We cannot control death, nor doctors from top to toe! I trust this is the Truth!🙂

It makes total sense to me @A DiabetesTeam Member. When I develped JRA at age 15 we did not have internet to search it up. Doctors did not know much about the juvenile form either at the time, so I had to learn the hard way which was by experience. When I had a fall at age 28 and my left knee was out of commision for 7 months, I was told by the orthopedist at the time, if I kept working standing up as a nurse (was a waitress also while studying to be a nurse), he told me by age 40 I would be in a wheel chair with knees and hip replacements. My reply from the 13 years living with arthritis at the time was this "if I do not work at a job standing up, my arthritis will become worse, a sitting job will make it progress even faster as by then I realize inactivity made my JRA worse". He still told me to stop working as a nurse and get a sitting job. Well I did not listen to him nor any other doctors who tried to have me change my career path. Yes my mobility is reduced now, mostly due to 4 herniated disc in my back and one of them being torn, that same torn disc paralysed my left foot back in 2017 prior to being torn, but it has nothing to do with my JRA, I had a car accident in 2011 which gave me cervical, dorsal, lumbar sprain, I had a severe back contusion in at age 23, which paralysed me waist down for 3 days. I believe the torn disc issue is from previous injuries, I even had scoliosis growing up and by my teens my back corrected itself by inverting my neck bones (inversion of my cervical joints, instead of having a lump in my neck sticking out when one puts their chin down like most people, my bones inverted inwards, hence the often neck pain and headaches at times, I now also have OA in those bones, throughout my spine and hands also, adding to my JRA. If I would have listened to doctors back then I do believe I would be in a hweelchair by now, I did not stop living my life for in case it would happen, I still have all my original body parts except the gallbladder. If I had listened to my Endo and his nurse that counting Carbs is not the way to treat diabetes and only medications can do that, I most certainly would not have gone off medications back in May 2020 and been off them ever since. Sometimes information you read or get, especially if your doctors are old like mine in their 70's they are old school and do not know knew stuff. So glad my Endo sent me to a Rheum who sotrted things out and YES as @A DiabetesTeam Member stated, my Rheum took me off the HRT's I was on for 11 yrs stating those do not help diabetes and can increase sugar levels, he also stopped the steroids and added Plaquenil instead, I believe all those changes plus diet helped more then advice Endo had given me. My Rheum is most likely in his late 30's so knows the newer stuff

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A Diabete...

A Diabete...

You never know what diabetes is going to do