If everyone was T1D (or T2D, as the case may be on here), would you feel different about living with this condition?
Is the thing that can make it hard the fact that not everyone has to do the things we do to take care of ourselves?
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I think the thing that makes it hard is how individualized it is. Many basics are common, yet our ways to adapt/deal with most situations will vary greatly.
And none of us wanted to have this in the first place.
But if everyone had it, then most would learn and adapt more quickly based on everyone else’s knowledge and experience.
I was diagnosed at age 5, and didn’t meet another diabetic until I was in college. Thought I was one in a million. What a huge change it would be if everyone was diabetic back then.
On the other hand, I know many non-diabetics with other medical or family/job situations, and wouldn’t trade places with them for a moment, even if it made my diabetes go away. Its all relative.
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Great question!
If everyone was diabetic, it is possible there would be so many imposed limitations on what others think we could do. Would the limitations they feel be projected onto us?
Or would it go the other way - where everyone understands that we can do whatever we want?
I went skydiving when I was 20. I also got certified to scuba dive at the same age. It was easy, I just didn’t tell them I was diabetic.
Would something like that be available? Would people all say, “Yes we can do this!” Or would they say, “No, this is not safe.”
Maybe all of us would be pulled down to the lowest common denominator.
Personally, I feel glad I am in a small minority. It makes it easier for me.
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For me, yes! Since I overthink about how others see me and my diabetes. And because if living with diabetes is the “normal” then I wouldn’t have spent so much time hiding it when I was younger and dealing with the psychological aftermath of that.
For me, again yes, because I too often sit down and compare myself to others.
The fact that I have to do more planning and thinking on how to take care of myself… that is something that I have resented and cried over many, many times… but recently, I’m kind of starting to love that I have this mental and physical burden (IDK if that’s my favorite word for it) that the majority of people don’t have. It’s made me who I am today, and I am so dang thankful for the struggle. I think it makes me a better and cooler person 
. But I wouldn’t be that cool if everyone had the advantage of diabetes!! 
Sorry I didn’t intend for this post to come out this way, and it’s not even like my diabetes is being well behaved today (my cousin made me a loaf of bread today, and I may have eaten nearly the whole loaf 
) but this is how I feel right now. Probably won’t be how I feel tomorrow or yesterday, but that’s ok 
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I think it would go this way.
It also makes me think that if everyone had diabetes that a larger SES gap would appear because of how expensive diabetes tech and supplies can be, BUT if everyone had diabetes then I would bet insurance would cover everything.
Can I ask what you mean by this?
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Yes!
An endo appointment years ago…I was one and done with that guy! He took a red pen and circled every single BG reading that was below 70. (Last time I have let any endo have my meter! Never again!)
Some people have problems below 70. Or maybe they say 70 because they don’t want you to go below 50 (like telling someone to meet you 30 minutes before they actually need to, just so they are not late).
That is kind of like lowest common denominator. Just because 70 might be an issue for some, they just clumped me into that same group, and circled my numbers below 70. Rather than treating me differently and realizing that I don’t really need BG numbers circled on a printout!
Or what about pumps? Like the Medtronic 670G having a target of either 120 or 150? Same thing I think. We are treated by the standard that anyone else might need to have higher BG to be safe, so they do that for everyone. It is not individualized.
I get frustrated with the endo appointments because there are a few million other diabetics that I am compared to. They want to treat me like those others. What if there were 7 billion other diabetics?!? How much worse might my appointment be?
Those are just instances with medical treatment. Imagine if every single person in the world had diabetes. Could you go to a restaurant and order a milkshake?!?
Would things like milkshakes become like booze during the prohibition? Would we need to go to speakeasy milkshake bars. Would we need to buy milkshakes from illicit establishments, because in general, a lot of diabetics are not drinking milkshakes. Would stuff like that be banned?
Would all cars have BG meter testers integrated into them? You can’t start the car if your BG was less than 100?!?
My mind races with the potential horrors that might be.
I don’t know for sure if they sort of stuff would actually happen, but just a few possibilities.
So that is kind of what I mean by least common denominator. You may not agree that those things would be the case, I do not know either.
But that is just my explanation of what I meant by the term.
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Yes, I think it’d be easier for me.
It wouldn’t really be a condition anymore. It’d be like… needing to eat. We can name off all the issues people face in eating properly… money, depression, education, etc. I imagine those same concepts would apply to diabetes if everybody had it.
I imagine people would still want to experience the euphoria of the more intense/extreme adventures… climbing everest, ultramarathons, etc. But there’d probably be more information on what had worked for those people in each of these adventures. So it actually might be easier to do them.
I think people would be capable of empathizing with others dealing with the same condition. Since everyone has it, there’d probably be more research into ways to cope with it or cure it. Which would be awesome.
Yeah, but it tends to make me unhappy to focus on this too much. Nobody really wins. Everyone else usually has their own issues that make their lives difficult. I can’t really empathize completely with them on the things they’re facing, and they can’t really empathize with me over mine. I think if we all had diabetes, we’d all just have different difficult problems we’d be facing instead.
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This was very striking to me. I think I was lucky to be diagnosed at 21 years old when everyone was scattering in different life directions. I wasn’t in grade school or high school with this condition, when there are non-stop opportunities for being different to be noticed. Like in the class room, or the cafeteria, or gym class…etc.
The coolest!! 
The thing I keep thinking about is if everyone was diabetic, what amount of cohesion would there be in the community? On the one hand, there could be more empathy for everyone…and people wouldn’t feel like they stood out taking injections of testing their bg in public. But on the other hand, there would be different struggles and different priorities within the subsets. I imagine it wouldn’t be dissimilar from the feminist movements over the years. White feminists tend to have different experiences and priorities than minority groups, and these are completely different than the conservative groups of women that tend to campaign against it. There were women who spoke out against women’s suffrage back in the day.
This makes me think of my experience as a female pilot. All I ever wanted was a shot to prove myself. No special treatment. And then you see weak female pilots who got extra chances that they would not have gotten had they been male. And that is what keeps all women from progressing, IMO. Bc when I earn a spot, other males who have been passed over for weak females will think I only got it bc I was female. And then there are the female pilots I knew who “happened” to bake a cake for their check airman on the day of their checkride. OMG YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!
So I hadn’t considered “the lowest common denominator” aspect of this question, but it is certainly an interesting concern. And I think it is valid.
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If literally everyone had it … I wonder how/ if it would change the focus from managing it to curing/ eradicating it.
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If everyone had it, I don’t think it would even be seen as a disease or something that needed curing. Generally, things are only seen as diseases because they only affect some people. It would be like people feeling like they had to “cure” 20/20 vision…
With some of my other conditions that are very much affected by the way society is structured, I think it would definitely make things easier if everyone had them. If everyone had severe food allergies, then food labels would always be clear, everyone would understand about cross-contamination, social events wouldn’t be so fixated on food, it would be normal to decline to eat something, eating out wouldn’t be stressful because all restaurants would know exactly how to prepare food safely, and manufacturers would always have clear information about their ingredients and facilities. If everyone were legally blind, the world would not be designed with the assumption that vision is the primary sense of interaction with the world, all materials and websites and technologies would be fully accessible, there would be no stereotypes or discrimination, cities and buildings would be designed to make navigation easy without vision, all transportation systems would be available to everyone regardless of level of vision. All those things would just be normal and so all the hours of effort those of us with these conditions spend on advocacy and accessibility and accommodations would be freed up for other things.
I feel diabetes is different, because it’s so much more internal. It doesn’t really matter what people around me do or don’t do in the same way those other conditions do. How well I manage my blood sugar is largely up to me. Sure, it might be nice if everyone knew what it was like, but I don’t think it would help me or change much; everyone would still need to self-experiment to figure out what worked best for them. The only difference is that medication and technology would probably be a lot more accessible to everyone.
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As I read through the responses I wondered if anyone else saw it this way. This was my first impression. If we all were T1 or T2, as I am, would we consider it a disease or would it just be another fact of a normal life like eating or breathing or drinking water, just something everyone must do. If everyone one was dragging out their insulin at every meal would we not think it a normal part of life.
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I don’t think it would change much for me. The thing I hate most about diabetes is the risk of getting complications in the future. That feeling wouldn’t change. The other annoyances in daily life come second to that. If everyone had diabetes, everyone would have to deal with that and that might change my feelings in some ways, but hypos etcetera would still be annoying.
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If everyone faced those complication would there be more research to prevent them. Oh, listen to me. It almost sounds like I am wishing D on everyone so our problems would be solved.
Bad Gary!! Bad Gary. Go sit in the corner for punishment.
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Most of the risk is due to uncontrolled diabetes, over long periods. My eye complications started after 20 years of using single Lente injection per day, which was around the time they started A1C testing. My A1C was in 12-14 range, and early goal was to be in the 9s. DCCT changed everything, and new emphasis on getting lower A1Cs rather than just avoiding hypos, and I switched to a pump.
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Yes
Yes. That’s nothing to do with the conditions we specifically endure. No one ever writes about the people who plant the soil around them despite the armies that march over that soil and destroy the crop.
So there are some who take arms against a sea of troubles and many others who will just be our own moses and hold back the sea, for an instant.
We cannot justify ourselves, or our actions, because we have a problem. All we can do is fix it.
No difference. One provider says type 2 at diagnosis in my early 20’s (note all t1 sysmptoms present weight loss 60lbs, ketone uria, elevated AG, polyuria, polydypsia, low c peptide, (that may have been the only test then), and insulin sensitivity, another says type 1.5, now magically T1. Same goals.
If insulin was needed as commonly as an aspirin - it would be a helluva lot cheaper and sitting on a shelf easy to buy! The technology and regulatory stranglehold on getting that and CGMs out to market and compatibility with other devices would also slowly go away. I think the fact that T2 is so prevalent and becoming even more common - we are seeing the supply side of needed diabetic supplies increasing while prices (should be) dropping. I usually thinks of things using the supply/demand curve.
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