Hi all. I’m new to the community, so I thought I’d share a bit about me… and what better way than through the 1st paragraph in my personal statement to medical school:
Six years old, sitting on my hands in my primary physician’s office, I wondered why he wouldn’t look up from his clipboard as he stated that I had Type 1 diabetes. He did not try to relate to how my family and I would manage my new condition. My mom was away on business trips every weekend and my dad tended to faint while handling needles. Because my physician did not realize that my parents were unable to help me treat my disease, I was left to suffer seizures and blackouts for the next 12 months. Early on I learned the hard way that doctors can fail. Rather than losing faith in medicine, I was inspired to offer a different story for my patients and their families: a story of feeling understood and empowered.
SOOoO I didn’t know anyone else with diabetes until college, but it remained this unspoken topic, and I’m hoping to feel less alone via joining this forum. Maybe I’ll address my underlying resentments and anxieties towards this disease before going on to med school! Wouldn’t that be nice
But I look forward to using you all as a resource and hopefully as a sounding board!
@LarissaW Welcome to FUD! Can t wait to hear your perspective as a developing doctor.
It’s always tough, but it’s tougher for kids. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 18, shortly before I started dental school, so I only know second hand of having this disease as a kid.
And it was several years in practice before I even had a diabetic patient. I had never met another T1 before then.
Ya I’ve thought about it a lot of whether I’d like getting diagnosed later on but the big roadblock in that preference is that I’d know life without t1d if I’d been diagnosed later. So ignorance is bliss in my case? But I wouldn’t say bliss because we all know how taxing of a disease this is sigh
Did you feel really connected to that patient?? Meeting other diabetics now I feel like we just get each other as corny as it sounds
After I found online communities, I had more resentment towards the MEDICAL community for what they didn’t tell me.
I did 1 injection Lente a day, for first 20 years, long after new patients were being treated with newer insulin. Was not told about insulin pumps until 1995ish, while still using NPH and Regular insulin, with Food exchanges. I finally find online and in person support groups, and feel like I’ve traveled to the future, starting on insulin pump and then CGMS.
I similarly feel like certain medical professionals really failed me on sharing knowledge of the disease and also new technologies. I switched endos about 15 months ago, and my new endo was “appalled with how [I] had been managing [my] disease. It was like the stone age” (her quote)
I really feel like some fellow diabetics are more knowledgable about diabetes management than the professionals that work in the field…
This community is definitely a great place to connect and learn from other diabetics, I’ve learned a lot here! Heading off to med school sounds really exciting, best of luck I’m a college senior at the moment, with far less of a plan of what I’m doing next haha
I was diagnosed just before I turned 2, so I definitely share that “ignorance is bliss” situation with regards to living a “normal” life. I watched my brother deal with a T1 diagnosis at age 21 and I think the big difference is he had a huge fear of needles at diagnosis, a fear I definitely didn’t have time to form in the same way since needles just were part of my daily life for so long.
Oh man so you’re probably battling senioritis and this impending doom that college ends soon. That last semester goes by sooooo fast is all I can say. But don’t worry too much about what comes after. I feel like things fall into place for everyone (and if not then people switch their minds about where they work later on - no one has anything figured out )
Right?? All we can do is wonder… and o man that must’ve been tough for your brother. I’m guessing he’s come to terms with the pricks and injections?
Impending doom definitely, senioritis a little less so. Maybe it helps that I am on the quarter system so I’m on my second-to-last quarter rather than final semester I’ll try not to worry too much, but it’s a definite challenge
I think so, for the most part, it’s been like 6 years or so now but I think he still has a little fear for the needles. Definitely not as bad as when he was first diagnosed though, I can clearly remember being called into his room to try to talk him through the anxiety for his first few injections at home, poor guy So with the knowledge of how hard it was for him to cope with his diagnosis and adjust to the change, I am sort of thankful in a weird way that I was diagnosed so young. But both ways (older or younger diagnosis) have their own set of unique troubles that come along with them I guess
@LarissaW, watching my son go through diagnosis at 12, I think the need to grieve your past “easy” life is very real. So you potentially have one less reason to be depressed. I think going through diabetes management with little memory of your pre-diabetes time can be a blessing mentally. With that said, the mood swings of puberty combined with diabetes is an especially wicked combination.
Exactly how I view it. And it leads me to think what if I never had diabetes… but I think I’ve grown so much from it and ya it’s sucks real bad relentlessly but I really wouldn’t want to know my life without it. Is that weird of me? Probably who knows
I’m a college senior at the moment, with far less of a plan of what I’m doing next haha
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I’ll try not to worry too much, but it’s a definite challenge 
So with the knowledge of how hard it was for him to cope with his diagnosis and adjust to the change, I am sort of thankful in a weird way that I was diagnosed so young. But both ways (older or younger diagnosis) have their own set of unique troubles that come along with them I guess 
Hidden 2nd meaning.