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Hey, do you remember a couple of weeks ago when it was International Women’s Day and women got a cupcake (probably baked by a woman) and a breakfast (probably organised by a woman) and then we all agreed that gender equality didn’t need to be spoken about for another year?
Look, I know I sound cynical. But that’s only because I am. Every year at Diabetogenic, I write a post celebrating the incredible women working in diabetes. Mostly I centre diabetes advocates who are generally donating their time – and emotional labour – to power advocacy efforts and make change. And if you look back at the history of the DOC, you will see that the majority of the work has been by women in the community. (Don’t @ me with your ‘But I’m a bloke and I’ve done this’ commentary. It’s not the time for #NotAllMen.)
This year, I started to write something, and then stopped, and started again. And then stopped. Anyone who is a frequent visitor to this site or follows any aspects of my personal advocacy knows that I celebrate the incredible work done by grassroots and community advocates (many/most of whom are women) throughout the year and I didn’t want to buy into the ‘It’s-IWD-here-are-the-womens-now-it’s-back-to-the-misogyny-we-usually-deal-with’ crap that seems to be the aftermath of each and every IWD.
So, I’m using today – this random day – to give a shout out to some of the great things going on that you may have seen, or you may have missed. These things are powered by women who, in most cases, are doing this as extra work on the side of their day jobs, and everything going on in their personal lives. But it’s undeniable that it’s this sort of stuff that is going on all the time, usually flying under the radar, but it’s making a difference to so many folks in the diabetes world.
And so…
There is some remarkable work out of India where the Blue Circle Foundation continues to make a mark in diabetes advocacy. On IWD, a team of women from the Foundation conducted an awareness program for 200 women inmates in Yerwada Jail in Pune, India. This is part of their ongoing Project Gaia which creates safe spaces for women with diabetes. Snehal Nandagawli is just one of the women involved in this work. You can hear more from her at this week’s #dedoc° #docday°.
From the UK, Mel Stephenson-Gray has been a brilliant force in the diabetes community for a number of years. She recently launched a fabulous new Insta page celebrating and empowering women with diabetes. It’s called Diabetes Women’s Health Club and the information she’s been sharing (accompanied by gorgeous graphics) is brilliant. I loved the profiles of some of women who were groundbreaking pioneers in diabetes research. Go give the page a follow now!
Dawn Adams hasn’t managed to convince me that she is only one person because the sheer volume of the work she is doing is immense and she’s bloody everywhere. Dawn continues to blaze trails in her research and writings about diabetes and menopause (follow @MenopauseMither on Twitter for great information and support), has been featured in a number of Diabetes UK publications, spoke at the recent #dedoc° symposium at ATTD, and continues to be a daily support and mentor to people across the global diabetes community. I’ve barely scratched the surface with this list. Someone please send Dawn a coffee and cinnamon bun so she can sit down for 30 seconds and recharge her batteries!
Another woman who is a human powerhouse and obviously works 23 hours a day (lazily, she sleeps for an hour) is Jazz Sethi whose work with the Diabesties Foundation continues to multiply exponentially. She’s also a brilliant speaker and gave an emotional talk at ATTD last month. Check out just some of what she is doing here (and stay tuned for something super exciting that we’ve been working on together!)
Also at the recent ATTD #dedoc° symposium, Hamidah Nabakka from the Sonia Nabeta Foundation captivated the packed-to-capacity room, sharing stories of children and young people living with diabetes in Africa. This was held on the first day of ATTD and for the rest of the week, I had people coming up to me and saying that it was their highlight of the whole conference.
I’m getting to this a little late because it was started last year, but Niki Breslin started a brilliant Insta page to build community called ‘My Type of Family’ for anyone with diabetes who is planning and trying to conceive, pregnant, recently had a baby and parenting. There’s lots of great information and encouragement for the community with this page and definitely worth a follow!
I was so excited to see some artwork by Miss Diabetes from New Zealand make it across the ditch Melbourne in an IWD street art exhibition. Her comic ‘Women and Diabetes’ was on show in our city’s iconic Hosier Lane! Miss Diabetes’ diabetes advocacy is super well-known in the community thanks to her tireless efforts supporting Insulin4All efforts and with work she’s done with the WHO diabetes team. You can see the artwork here.
Anita Sabidi in Indonesia continues to drive and build community with her advocacy work that shine very bright lights on issues such as emotional wellbeing and mental health, and women’s health. Anita is a regular speaker about these important topics, and also leads a number of community initiatives supporting women with diabetes in Indonesia. She’s also speaking at #docday° this week.
Dana Lewis never ceases to amaze. Last week she ran 100kms in a day, but unbelievably, it’s not her physical feats that make her name so well known in the diabetes world. It is, of course, her work in open source AID. Last month she gave two presentations at the Open Diabetes Closing Conference, and she has an upcoming session at the ADA Scientific Sessions in San Diego. On top of that, she continues to publish regularly and is a force for nothing but good!
Ashley Ng from Australia has been documenting life with two gorgeous little girls on her blog, opening up about some of the more difficult aspects of parenting while living with diabetes. I love Ash’s candidness and honesty and am always grateful for her ability to be so raw, but also hopeful. Read and subscribe to her blog here.
These women are just a few of the many who continue to make our community tick and flourish. There work is not only meaningful on 8 March: it’s making a difference every, single day. The very idea that women and their achievements get just one day of real celebration (albeit while battling the calls of ‘where’s International Men’s Day?’) is in equal parts frustrating and insulting. I celebrate the incredible work that women spearhead all the time because I know that alongside that work, they are dealing with patriarchal attitudes that make their successes all the more remarkable. That deserves far more than a cupcake!
Postscript
The UN theme for the day was DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality, not the saccharine sweet ‘EmbraceEquity which means absolutely nothing and was created by some corporate machine that does nothing to advance equality in any way. So, if you spent IWD posting selfies of you hugging yourself, that’s great, but what did that really mean when it comes to advancing gender equality?
If you haven’t had a look at the website from the UN, it’s definitely worth it, even if it’s just to see the high-level details, one of which explains that online gender-based violence silences women and discourages their public participation. It may be odd to think this is a thing in the diabetes community when so much of what you see comes from women, but actually, it’s real. Harassment is a concern for many women, and I know of many women who have stopped sharing or locked down their accounts (permanently or temporarily), or deleted them completely, due to this harassment. I’m one of those women. This is something to be mindful of every day – not just a single day in March.
Is it really all that radical an idea to suggest that there is no one size fits all when it comes to people with diabetes and what they choose to eat? Surely any reasonably minded person would say that no one should be forced to follow a specific diet, in much the same way as no one should be told which diabetes tech they must use.
But in the last couple of weeks, and after a couple of different incidents, I’m realising that reasonable doesn’t play into the attitudes of many people when it comes to what can only be termed as diet wars. I don’t bait anyone with tweets about food. I really don’t. I’ve no interest in defending what I eat. It’s my business and mine alone.
My position is very clear on this, but I’ll state it again. I genuinely believe that people with diabetes should be able to eat the way they want. I also believe that it is incredibly privileged to get all preachy about what people should be eating when there is a lot that goes into how that decision is made. For some people, that decision is made for them in a lot of ways. It’s pretty ridiculous – and showing just how out of touch you are – to demand someone eat specific foods if they live in a food desert, can’t afford whatever they are being told to eat or if those foods are not culturally considered.
But let’s, just for a moment, pretend that we are living in some utopia, and everyone has access to, and can afford to buy, whatever food they choose to eat. We’ve taken out the factors that may make it difficult to afford and access the widest, freshest, healthiest variety of foods. Let’s now add to that and say that everyone is fully informed and has a high level of understanding about the different types of diets and earing plans available. This is as level a playing field as we can get.
Guess what? People will still make different choices and decide what works for them.
And that’s because there is no one way that works for every single person. That’s the bottom line. I think that’s a balanced starting point – understanding that not everyone is the same, not everyone wants to eat the same, and different things work for different people. That’s the way I think.
I want to make this position clear, because what comes next is perhaps not quite so generous.
After some pretty boring encounters in the online diet space, (I say boring, because haven’t we done this all before?), I decided to do something that I shouldn’t really do. But jet lag, too many long-haul flights on WIFI-enabled planes and, well, some sort of desire for self-sabotage, made me do a bit of a deep dive into the some of the people offering the more aggressive and downright nasty comments.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that the comments came from people who are very vocal about following a low carb diet because isn’t that where these comments usually come from? In my experience, the only people who have been critical of comments I’ve made online about food are those who are deep into the low carb community. I am not in any way tarring all those who eat low carb with the same brush. Of course I’m not. But there are ratbags in that community (as there are in all communities) who seem to take pleasure in seeking out and coming at those who have decided to eat a certain way, or comment about food in a certain way. And come at them they do. It gets personal, nasty, and downright horrid.
It is one thing to suggest people eat in a certain way. It’s another thing to refer to someone’s weight and fat shame them. A reply to one of my tweets that dared suggest that people with diabetes eat how they want, included a reference to ‘an obese nurse’. That tweet was followed by another low carb advocate (a physician) naming and adding a video of a diabetes educator and asking if she was the nurse. In what situation is this kind of behaviour okay?
Who are these people? I skimmed through the feeds of some of the people who commented on it being their low carb way or the high (but obviously not high carb) way, and it was unsettling. There was a lot of anti-vax sentiment. Along with anti-mask sentiments. One of two of them had an unhealthy obsession with Anthony Fauci, and wishing something terrible would happen to him. The Aussies in the mix had the same pre-occupation with Dan Andrews. I want to be clear – not everyone had these pretty extreme views, but a significant number did. It does the low carb movement no favours when so many of its members hold these types of views. It makes it easier to dismiss the whole community as being ‘cookers’ or anti-science, and I actually don’t believe that to be the case.
There are people who regularly comment on my posts and share balanced experiences about eating low carb and why it works for them. I always, always welcome discussions like this. It’s a great opportunity for me to learn, and I have adopted some of what folks like this have shared into my own diabetes management. I have also come to understand the frustration among some low-carbers because they feel that keto is not readily highlighted as an option and how many of them have been met with resistance by their HCPs when they’ve said they want to eat low carb.
But you know who else has been met with resistance? People using DIY automated insulin delivery systems. In fact, some people using a DIY system have been told what they are doing is dangerous and have consequently been ‘sacked’ by their HCP. But I am yet to see a single person from the #WeAreNotWaiting community shame anyone who has decided to not use a DIY system. Or ‘tech shame’ them. Or tell parents of kids not using a DIY system that they are the reason their kid will develop diabetes-related complications.
I’ll break this down again, by saying that I think low carb is a great option for people with diabetes. But it’s just that – an option. I know and see people with diabetes absolutely thriving, sharing in range A1cs and high percentage time in range each and every day on low carb, high carb, moderate carb and moderate-to-low carb (that’s generally where I fit in), vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, keto, Mediterranean, and every single other diet you can imagine.
I have a really simple wish and that is for people who are doing low carb do be left to do that in peace, and at the same time, they afford others the same respect and courtesy. It’s really not that radical an idea at all!
Want more on this topic? Here’s heaps I prepared (i.e. wrote) earlier.
The one where I was fat shamed after a TV interview.
The one where a fundraiser for kids in under-resourced countries was almost cancelled because of Easter eggs. (Still makes no sense!)
The one where a bloke hijacked an online discussion about menopause by demanding I explain why I don’t advocate low carb.
The one that was a plea for respecting choice.
The one that was in response to the storm after a chocolate cake recipe was shared.
The one where I shared the start of my own experiences of eating low(er) carb. And a follow up post.
Stress impacts diabetes in different ways. And of course, everyone’s response is going to be different.
Before Loop (which now feels like almost a lifetime ago), the effect of stress on my glucose levels was tricky and unpredictable. At times, it would make me high. Other times, I’d be in Hypotown (the town no one wants to visit) for hours, without any respite. The clever Loop algorithm tidies most of that up for me these days.
But when it comes to diabetes, stress doesn’t only impact what I see on my CGM trace. It’s far more than that. Loop can only do so much… Insulin automation doesn’t mean diabetes automation. And it certainly doesn’t mean life automation.
Let me talk about how it’s affected things in the last couple of months …
To some, it might look as though I have become lazy about my diabetes management. I have run out of insulin in my pump more times than I care to admit, scrambling to find my spares bag to refill the canula. I ignore the alerts, silencing alarms and putting the task that needs to be done out of mind.
I’ve let the batteries on my pump and RileyLink wear almost right down. In fact, the batteries have got to the point where they are so crucially low Loop has stopped working. Even the Red Loop Of Doom on my Loop app hasn’t been enough to swing me into action.
I’ve almost run out of insulin. I never do this. Ever. I have a system that works for ordering new scripts to make sure that there is always at least two weeks’ supply, and then back up plans for my back up plans. And yet, there I was, staring down the last few drops of insulin in a penfill. I don’t use insulin pens. I use vials. But I’d run out of vials and was using a penfill that I have for absolute emergencies.
This had become an emergency.
Same goes for pump consumables. I was reduced to searching the depths of my diabetes cupboard and discarded handbags looking for an infusion set, desperately hoping that there was at least one, somewhere, that would do the trick before I had to knock on the door of my neighbour, asking her to tide me over.
This is one part of diabetes burnout for me – the way that I deal with my diabetes tasks. It’s not feelings of resentment that I must do those tasks; it’s not feeling distressed that I must do them. It’s not even feeling a paralysis about doing them. It’s simply not caring enough about them to take the time and energy to engage my brain and actually do it.
I know that when I am stressed, something’s gotta give, and for me, that’s always been doing diabetes.
I cannot tell you how much having automated insulin delivery sweeps up a lot of it. Forgotten boluses get sorted by Loop. Sure, it may take a little extra time and mean a bit of extra time above my upper range limit, but if I don’t engage, Loop will bring me back in range soon enough.
The low-grade nausea I’ve been living with for the last month means that eating is sometimes difficult, but I don’t even need to think about what that means for glucose levels, because Loop mostly does it for me.
And sleep! Sleep the gift that Loop keeps giving has been interrupted, not by diabetes, but by waking stressed. Or, as has happened twice in the last week, with a splitting headache, so painful that the throbbing has woken me from a deep sleep. Pre-Loop, sleep disturbances would wreak havoc with my glucose levels (often because most of the time those disturbances were because of my glucose levels). But now, as I see the upward spike start because I’ve been woken in the middle of the night and glucose is being dumped because apparently, I’m now up and awake, Loop kicks in with an ‘I don’t think so’, and that spike is shut down quickly.
But the nausea is debilitating physically. And being woken in the middle of the night is exhausting. And the stress is leaving me feel a little hopeless all around, to be honest. Teary, emotional, tired. And burnt out.
Many years ago, after a couple of periods of intense burnout, I did a smart thing and found a psychologist to help me. Together, we learnt to identify the triggers that precipitated burnout. This has truly become one of the most powerful tools in my diabetes emotional wellbeing arsenal, because learning when I am heading down the slippery slope of burnout, and realising it’s coming, has meant that I’ve been able to address it before I get so deep into that dark space, it becomes challenging to come back from.
So, right now, I know this is happening. I can feel the stress and the physical manifestation of it, and I can see how it is influencing my diabetes. Today, I spoke with my psychologist – in a way waving a white flag of surrender knowing that I need someone else to come in and help me through this, because I can’t do it myself.
The win is that I’ve seen it and I’ve recognised it. The win is I’m seeking help. The win is that I’ve caught it before I’m plunging to dark depths (I hope).
It’s not a win that I’m feeling this way. It’s not a win that this level of stress has started to affect so much, including my diabetes. It’s definitely not a win that I’ve reached the point where I’m staring down the path to diabetes burnout despite the reason being un-diabetes-related stress.
But that’s how it goes. Diabetes becomes part of it. Of course it does. Because diabetes is always part of it. Always part of everything. Always hand in hand with whatever else is going on. Stress and diabetes leading to burnout. One of the few equations in diabetes that I can count on.
(Click to be taken to Instagram for details.)
This morning on ABC Melbourne’s Conversation Hour, the topic was how people are using the internet to self-diagnose mental health conditions using TikTok. Apparently, HCPs are seeing more people claiming to have undiagnosed mental health conditions based on videos they’ve seen on the app.
The question being posed in the discussion was this: Are Dr Google and TikTok helping raise awareness of mental health conditions or misleading millions of viewers?
‘Oh’, I thought. ‘We’re having this conversation. AGAIN’, as the hosts were engaged in a bit of pearl clutching and assumption-making. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the suspicion and cynicism I was hearing. Sure. It might be a different health condition and a different social media platform, but haven’t we been doing this for years? For DECADES?
Yes. Yes, we have.
The gist of the discussion today was questioning just how safe and sensible it is for people to use TikTok videos as a basis of self-diagnosing ADHD and other mental health conditions. The people in these videos are sharing their experiences and their symptoms, and others are recognising what they see. As a result, increasing numbers of people are heading off to their GP or a psychologist in the belief they have ADHD. Are these videos a good thing? Or is it misleading and dangerous?
There were stories of lived experience – people sharing how they had seen something on social media and used that as the springboard to find answers to health questions they have. And others explaining how difficult it had been to get help in the first place, often after having been dismissed for years.
Social media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Even if someone does self-diagnose – correctly or incorrectly – they still need to see a healthcare professional to find the right treatment and care. That’s certainly the case when it comes to diabetes. So much of what I have learnt about different treatments or devices has come directly from the community, but in almost all cases, I then need to see a HCP to actually access that new therapy. I can’t write myself a prescription if I want to try a new insulin. In most cases, new tech also needs a HCP sign off, especially if you want to access subsidy programs.
I’ve come to learn that a good healthcare professional is one who considers Dr Google a colleague rather than a threat. Those who grimace and dismiss someone who walks into their office with the announcement ‘I’ve been googling’ is really just admitting that they believe they are still the oracle of all information; information to be disseminated when they decide it’s time and in the way they believe is right for the individual.
We have moved on from that.
And surely we have moved on from the idea that social media is evil and highly distrustful. I’ve been writing and speaking about this for over ten years. In fact, in 2013, I wrote this in a post: ‘The diabetes social media world does not need to be scary and regarded with suspicion. The role of HCPs is not under threat because PWD are using social media – that’s not what it’s for. It is just the 2.0 version of peer support.’
I so wished that the discussion I listened to this morning had started with a different framing. Instead of highlighting how social media in healthcare could be problematic, they could have emphasised just how empowering and positive it can be for people to recognise themselves on social media. How seeing those stories and hearing those experiences normalise what we see in ourselves, and how they can help us find the right words for what it is that we have been thinking and direction for what to do next.
It’s not social media and online health discussions that are going to make HCPs redundant. Rather, it’s their refusal to understand just how important and useful these sorts of communications and communities can be. In a post in2016 I referred to it all as a ‘modern day kitchen table’. Sure that kitchen table now looks like a TikTok video, a Twitter discussion or an Instagram reel. But learning from others living similar lives isn’t new. And neither is searching for answers using something like Dr Google. It’s sustaining. And for so many, essential.
Diabetes and menopause – there are two things that have an image problem! Diabetes’ image problem has been discussed a bazillion times on here and is well documented by others.
And menopause? Menopause is middle-aged women; women who are past their prime and ready to settle down with a pair of slippers and a good book. Women who are a hot mess rather than just hot. Angry old women who are, at best, easily ignored, at worst, are given labels such as the incredibly sexist and derogatory ‘Karen’ thrown at us, especially if we dare demand attention for issues that are important to us. Oh, and we are invisible, apparently.
Well, fuck that. I am none of those things. I am as loud and out there and determined as I have always been. Sure, I like the idea of settling in for the night with a good book and a cup of tea, but I’ve been like that since I was in my twenties. And the anger isn’t new. Being radicalised as a kid does that to you, and I fairly, squarely, and gratefully credit my mother for it.
Turns out that my attention now is being turned to an issue that is one of too little research, too little attention, and too little available information that is relevant, evidence-based and engaging. And that is diabetes and menopause, and perimenopause.
Yes, I’ve written before about before. Missed it? Well, here you go: This time; this time and this time.
If you jump on Twitter now and search the words ‘diabetes’ and ‘menopause’ you’ll find a number of discussions which have been started by people with diabetes who are desperately looking for information to do with the intersection of these two topics. As well as information, people are asking to be pointed to examples of others who have been through it and are willing to share their stories. At the recent #docday° event, the inimitable Dawn Adams from IRDOC gave a rousing talk about why we need to focus more on this issue. (Follow Dawn on Twitter here.)
Here’s the thing: I still get diabetes and pregnancy reminders from my HCPs despite being 48 years old and very clear that having a baby right now (or ever again) is not on my to-do list. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and have an almost fully formed adult to show for it!
And yet despite that, I still get reminders about how important it is to plan for a pregnancy, take birth control to prevent it, and make sure that I take folate. Cool. That’s really important information. For women planning to get pregnant (and the birth control bit is important for women looking to avoid it).
But more relevant; more targeted; more person-centred for me is information about perimenopause and menopause.
Just over twenty years ago, when I was looking for information about diabetes and pregnancy, there wasn’t a heap of it. There was, however, a lot of research about it. What we really needed were resources for people with diabetes who wanted information that didn’t look as though it had been written and illustrated in the 1980s. We wanted the evidence-based materials that didn’t scare us. And so, working with other women with diabetes who were the same age as me, and looking for the same sort of information, we made it happen. The diary I published online when I was pregnant added to other stories that were already there. It was hugely reassuring to know that I could find others who were sharing stories that either mirrored my own or suggested the path that mine might follow.
These days, it’s super easy to find stories about pregnancy and diabetes. You don’t need to search too hard to find and follow diabetes pregnancies on Instagram, from pregnancy announcements through to delivery announcements and every twinge, craving and diabetes concern in between.
Less so menopause. Look, I get it. What’s the cute, good news story here? With pregnancy stories, there is a baby at the end – a gorgeous, cooing baby! There is nothing like that with menopause. Despite that, I think there are stories to tell and share. And a community to provide support and lived experience advice.
Right now, there is a chorus of people in the diabetes community who are calling out for this information and talking about the topic. I’m willing to bet that a lot of us were the ones who, twenty years ago, were calling out for decent diabetes and pregnancy info.
I’m not a clinician and I’m not a researcher. I don’t write grants for studies about menopause and diabetes that suddenly put this topic on the research agenda and start to help grow an evidence base. But what I can do is generate discussion and create a space for people to share their stories, or ask for information in the hope that others will answer the call.
The ‘The Diabetes Menopause Project’ isn’t really a thing. It’s a community cry to generate that discussion and some lived experience content. There are some great pieces already out there and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pointed people to those blog posts and articles. But there needs to be more, and they need to be easier to find.
And so, to start with, here is what I do know is out there. If I’ve missed something, please let me know and I’ll add to it. At least then there is an easy one stop place to find the limited information that is out there. Get in touch if you have something to share.
The Big M – More Taboo Subjects, from Anne Cooper.
Type 1 and the Big-M – a five-part series from Sarah Gatward about her personal experiences of type 1 diabetes and menopause from Sarah Gatward
Managing Menopause and Type 1 Diabetes – also from Sarah Garward, published by JDRF-UK
Menopause + Type 1 Diabetes – Ginger Viera’s writing for Beyond T1
I hosted a Facebook live with endocrinologist, Dr Sarah Price where, amongst other issues, we discussed diabetes and menopause
Research!! This journal article looks at the age menopause occurs in people with type 1 diabetes
I’ve always thought that being pushed out of my comfort zone is a good thing. There’s something to be said about feeling uncomfortable and being stretched outside the boundaries of familiarity.
And so, with that in mind, I jumped on a plane and flew to Barcelona for ATTD. If you read my last post, you’ll know it was nowhere near as easy and flippant as that last sentence sounds.
A lot of the stresses I had before I left ended up amounting to nothing. There were no endless queues at the airport, or crowds who didn’t understand keeping 1.5 metres apart. Almost everyone was wearing a mask. Security was even more of a breeze than usual (apparently laptops and other devices don’t need to be removed from carry-on luggage anymore), and, requesting a pat down rather than walking through the full body scanner was met with a nod and a smile.
Everyone wore masks boarding the plane and most seemed to leave them on throughout the flight. This isn’t something to treat lightly. The first flight alone was almost 15 hours long! My mask was removed only while drinking and eating, staying on snugly while I slept.
While there were no formal requirements for a supervised COVID test to enter Spain or return to Australia, my daily tests did cause 15 mins of countdown anxiety. One evening, someone messaged me to tell me that she had tested positive. We’d had a breakfast meeting the previous morning. I calmed my initial response (which was to freak out and burst into tears) by remembering that we’d all been masked up apart from the minutes we were eating.
When I arrived in Barcelona, I had been cautioned of convoluted arrival procedures and extra queues to check health and vaccination status. Before leaving, I’d had warnings and reminders from the airline and friends already there to make sure I’d completed my online Spain Travel Pass because the QR code would be needed. Except, it wasn’t. Passport control took under than 90 seconds. And my code wouldn’t scan for the woman checking my pass. ‘Where are you from,’ she asked me. When I said Australia, she laughed and told me just to go get my bag. (Clearly, she wasn’t up to date with our COVID numbers…)
Luckily, the people I spent most of my time with were all on the same page as me when it came to masking. We were not the norm. Most people were not masked up. I realised that when I walked into a hotel restaurant to meet someone a couple of hours after I arrived, and again as I walked into the conference centre on the Wednesday afternoon. As I stood on the stage to welcome everyone to the #dedoc° symposium, I was grateful to be greeted by a sea of masks with fewer than ten people in the packed crowd choosing to not wear one. And a couple of them searched in their bags for one after I and first speaker, Dana Lewis, thanked people for masking up.
I have to say it did surprise me to see so few healthcare professionals wearing masks, and eagerly reaching out to hug or shake hands when we met. I actually was okay with giving people I know a hug, but we always asked first. I adopted a weird kind of hopping around to avoid people I don’t know too well as they approached, instead extending my elbow.
I went into last week with a very clear idea of how I was going to, at all costs, avoid people. I’ve held tightly onto health measures (masking, distance, lots of hand washing, meeting people outdoors) since the pandemic began, and there was no way I was going to be partying like it was Feb 2020 just because I was back in Spain.
But there was a moment that I did throw a little caution to the wind. The evening I arrived, after my first meeting, I got in the elevator to the rooftop of the hotel where I was staying. It was the same place all the #dedoc° voices were, and they were having an informal meet up on the roof. I walked out, and a few of them – the ones I know well – screamed and charged at me. And instead of freezing and freaking out, I teared up and was happy to just be enveloped by them all. I was wearing a mask and, in that moment, that as enough.
Since I have returned home, I’ve been asked dozens of times what it’s like travelling and being at a conference again and how I coped. The answer isn’t straight forward.
Travelling again was terrifying. I didn’t enjoy being in transit at all. I struggled with there being so many people around me. And I was uncomfortable with the unpredictability of the whole situation. But I focused on the bits I could control and did my best to just deal with it.
Being at a face-to-face diabetes conference was in equal measure exhilarating and difficult. Being able to have in real life conversations with people about their advocacy and how they have been going is different to messaging or Zooming – it just is. Bumping into people in conference centre hallways starts conversations that absolutely wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And it’s those conversations that often lead to collaborations and new projects. I predicted in my last post that the muscle memory of a real-life conference would return without much effort, and I was right.
The equation for me is this: the good outweighed the bad. The moments of joy and delight dwarfed the moments of terror. The feeling of being part of something – that truly global diabetes community of truly incredible diabetes advocates and healthcare professionals and researchers – returned with a fierceness I wasn’t expecting. I felt at home and where I belonged, and the moments of anxiety – sometimes almost paralysing – were overcome by knowing that. And the peer support was immense. I didn’t realise just how much I needed that contact again.
I’m not going to be rushing back to the same conference and travel schedule I had built in 2019 – it’s not sustainable in so many ways. And there is a lot of risk assessment going on. I won’t be at ADA this year, but EASD is on the cards. Carefully chosen meetings with clear goals and plans are worthwhile.
The world is definitely a different place. But within those differences is the comfort of knowing that the diabetes world – the diabetes advocacy community – has absolutely not stopped doing what it does best. As I stood in corridors speaking with people and plotting and planning, or took the stage to chair a session, or caught up with people after hours on rooftops, I realised that it’s going to take a lot more than a global pandemic to stop the passion and dedication and determination of those who have one thing in mind and one thing in common: improving lives of people with diabetes.
DISCLOSURE
My flights and accommodation have been covered by #dedoc°, where I have been an advisor for a number of years, and am no working with them as Head of Advocacy.
Thanks to ATTD for providing me with a press pass to attend the conference.
I shared this photo to Twitter the other day:
I couldn’t care less if there are diet books on bookshelves at bookshops. Clearly there is a buck to be made with the latest fad diet, and so, diet scammers gonna scam and publishers gonna publish.
What I do care about is the framing that health is limited to weight loss and dieting.
Living with diabetes has the potential to completely screw up the way food, weight and wellbeing coexist. My own disordered thinking has come from a multitude of different sources. I know that even before diabetes I had some pretty messed up ideas about weight loss and my own weight, but once diagnosed all bets were off and that thinking went haywire! I know it didn’t help when, in the days before diagnosis as I was feeling as though I was slowly dying, someone effusively told me how amazing I looked after having lost some weight that I really didn’t ‘need’ to lose. And look at that! A little weight bias in there already as I talk about ‘not ‘needing’ to lose weight’.
I remember that afternoon very clearly. It was Easter Sunday and my whole family was at my grandmother’s house. I’d had a blood test the morning before because I’d gone to my GP with a list of symptoms that these days I know to be ‘The 4 Ts’. (In hindsight, why she didn’t just do a urine check or, capillary blood check, I don’t know.) I was feeling awful and scared. I knew something was wrong, and suspected it was diabetes.
But there I was, literally slumped on the floor against the heater (at my grandmother’s feet) because it was the only place I could feel any warmth at all. Sitting opposite me was a family member who felt the need to tell me how amazing I looked because I’d dropped a few kilos. I could barely see her across the room because my vision was blurry, but hey, someone told me I looked skinny. Wonderful!
That road to further screwing up my thought processes about weight and diabetes was pretty rocky and I was on it. I learnt that thing that we know, but we don’t talk about anywhere enough routinely, and that is that high glucose levels equal weight loss equals compliments about losing weight. (We don’t talk about it because there’s not enough research, but also because in the past a lot of HCPs have gatekept discussions about it because they think that by talking about insulin omission or reduction for weight loss will make people do it. Sure. And sex education for school-aged kids is a bad thing because by NOT talking about sex, teenagers don’t have sex. End sarcasm font.)
It has taken years of working with psychologists to undo that damage – and the damage that diabetes has piled on. I employed simple measures such as stopping stepping on scales and using that measure as a way to determine how ‘good’ I was being. As social media became a part of everyday life, I curated my feeds to ensure I was not bombarded with photos that showed a body type that generally is only achievable when genetics and privilege line up. I learnt to not focus on my own weight and certainly not on other people’s weight, never commenting if someone changed shape. I did all I could to reframe how I felt about different foods, because demonising foods is part of diabetes management.
I was determined to parent in a way that didn’t plant in my daughter’s head the sorts of seeds that had sewn and grown whole crops in my own. While a noble ambition, I realise I was pretty naïve. Sure, we absolutely never talk weight at home, we never have trashy magazines in the house celebrating celebrities’ weight loss or criticising their weight gain. I’ve never uttered the words ‘I feel fat’ in front of my daughter even when I hate absolutely everything I put on my body. Food is never good or bad, and there is no moral judgement associated with what people eat. But the external messaging is relentless and it’s impossible to shield that from anyone. All I could do is provide shelter from it at home and hope for the best.
But despite doing all I can to change my way of thinking and changing my own attitudes and behaviours, it takes a lot of work…and I find myself slipping back into habits and not especially healthy ways of thinking very easily.
Which brings me to my favourite bookshop over the weekend and standing there in front of the health section. I was looking for something to do with health communications, or rather, the way that we frame life with a chronic health condition like diabetes. I wondered if there was anything that spoke not about ‘how to live with a chronic health condition’ but rather ‘how to think with a chronic health condition’. I didn’t want to read more about what to do to fix my body; I wanted to find out how to help focus my mind and love my body. But there was nothing. Nothing at all.
Instead, there were shelves and shelves of books about losing weight, dieting, fasting, ‘cleansing’ (don’t get me started) and then more on fad diets.
When I tweeted the photo, one of my favourite people on Twitter, Dr Emma Beckett (you should follow her for fab fashion and fantastic, fun food facts), mentioned that it is a similar story in the ‘health food’ aisles of the supermarket, where there seems to be a focus on calorie restriction.
How has the idea of being healthy been hijacked by weight loss and diets? How has the idea that restricting our food, limiting nutrients, and shrinking our bodies equates health?
How did we get so screwed up at the notion that thin means healthy; that health has a certain look? Or that dieting means virtue? How is it that when we see diabetes represented that it so often comes down to being about weight loss and controlling what we eat, as if that will solve all the issues that have to do with living with a chronic condition that seeps into every single aspect of our lives?
It takes nothing for those disordered thoughts that are so fucking destructive, thoughts that I have spent so long trying to control and manage and change, to come out from under the covers and start to roar at me. Diabetes success and ‘healthy with diabetes’ seems to have a look and that look is thin. (It’s also white and young.)
Health will never just be about what someone weighs. And yet, we keep perpetuating that myth. I guess that steering away from the health section of bookstores is selfcare for me now. Because as it stands, it just sends me into a massive spin of stress and thinking in a way that is anything but healthy.
I facilitated an event for Ascensia (disclosures at the end of this piece) last night/early morning and the crappy time was partly (mostly) my fault, because although I sacrificed the Aussies and suggested we draw the short straw in the time zone lottery, I forgot that daily saving would have kicked in for us meaning kick off time was 11pm and not 10pm. That may not seem much – I mean, what’s an hour? – but there is definitely a psychological barrier about doing work after midnight. (Anyway, I digress, and that paragraph has just about put me to sleep).
The reason for last night’s adventures after dark was a facilitating gig for Ascensia’s latest Diabetes Social Media Summit (DSMS). The thing I love about (and why I am so keen to be involved) in these Summits is because they have tacked some difficult topics that are often hidden away.
This one was no different in that we looked to address something that needs more attention – diabetes and women’s health. In my introduction, I wanted to make the point that diversity and inclusion is important when speaking about any aspect of diabetes, and that for us to be truly inclusive in a discussion about women and diabetes, we needed to hear from women who represent all corners of the diabetes world. I particularly referred to needing better representation from women in the LGBTQIA+ community.
The other thing that we had wanted to make sure that we didn’t focus too much on diabetes and pregnancy, because so often that is the only easily information about women’s health and diabetes that can be easily found (and saying that, there does seem to be a bias towards women with type 1 diabetes). Of course, understanding and being aware of how diabetes can impact on pregnancy is important, but it is certainly not the only issue that women with diabetes want or need to know about.
In fact, one of the discussion points was that for some women, pregnancy is not a topic they want discussed. There is the assumption that all women of childbearing age need information about having a healthy baby when that is not the truth. Contraception discussions do not necessarily equal an invitation for pre-pregnancy counselling, and there needs to be some sensitivity in how healthcare professionals in particular raise the topic, and rid themselves of the belief that all women want to have kids.
There is so much more to talk about. So, so much more.
We touched on how much our cycles can impact and influence glucose levels (and a very amusing tangent where we joked about how when we see monthly perfect glucose patterns, they clearly don’t belong to people who menstruate – or people who understand the absolute havoc hormones can wreak on CGM traces).
We spoke about birth control and how the OCP can also make a significant difference to glucose levels, yet many of us were not told about that.
Of course, we spoke of menopause, but only briefly; briefly not because it’s not an important topic (or a super relevant topic), but because we just got caught up talking about other things (and perhaps my facilitating skills weren’t as tight as usual).
And we spoke about how cultural gender issues need to be shown and understood so that the experience of privileged white women with diabetes are not seen as the only experiences.
For me, the central message that I heard time and time and time again was that topics about the very things that occupy a lot of the headspace of women with diabetes are simply not discussed with us. And there is little research to inform our decision making, or even to help us form the right questions to ask. At best, we are given some piss-weak explanation that points a finger at diabetes being to blame. At worst, we are dismissed.
I do wonder when research and diabetes education will catch up. I know that there are some wonderful researchers doing some important work here, but we are so far from normalising discussions about women’s health and diabetes as part of our typical healthcare routines. We’re miles away from getting rid of the preconceived and outdated ideas about women’s sexual health.
Beyond discussing different women’s health matters, we also spoke about just how these discussions fit in the diabetes community. This was a completely unplanned turn for the summit (it was not a topic on the agenda), but I’m glad we had it and I’m glad that I am writing about it. Because of the nature of women’s health, sex and diabetes, there is a lot of taboo, shame, fear, and vulnerability. I know that some of the rawest and most open I’ve been in my writing has been when I have been dealing with moments in my life that were so, so hard and I was so, so vulnerable. When I look back, I sometimes wonder if I was right to hit publish after writing, and perhaps I should have tucked away the paragraphs until I was feeling stronger. Or not published at all. While I have been told that my words have provided some comfort to others facing similar challenges, it left my gaping, open wounds very public and visible.
After writing about miscarriages, I’ve been called selfish for wanting to have a child and potentially passing on diabetes to them. Writing about my fears of passing on diabetes to my child I’ve been told that perhaps I should have thought of that before I got pregnant. Speaking about body image concerns, I’ve been told to toughen up and stop being so shallow. I’ve seen and watched other women with diabetes experience the same thing, and I feel their pain as I watch them navigate the muddy, and sometimes distressing waters.
We spoke about how women are treated in the diabetes community, particularly when we write about struggles and difficulties, and the words and terms that are thrown our way when we dare to share how we are feeling. The ‘angry woman’ trope that I’ve written about before has been directed to many others too.
These discussions are real, and they are necessary. I am one of the loudest, most vocal supporters of peer support and have spoken about the value and importance of diabetes peer support and the online community on stages literally around the globe. Peer support saved me at times when I thought I was broken beyond repair. But it also can be a source of pain and bullying and nasty confrontations, and perhaps we need to have those discussions too so that when someone decides that they are ready to share and be especially vulnerable that they look out for themselves as much as looking out for the community. It’s all very well to want to share to connect and help with our own and others’ isolation but leaving ourselves exposed isn’t easy.
One of the attendees last night reminded us that we could share with selected friends in the community, still allowing for that peer support but under the protection of a safe space. It’s interesting, because until maybe two years ago, I had never experienced how unsafe the community can be to individuals. I’d not felt that before. While I still share a lot, these days I’m more inclined to turn to those trusted friends in the DOC who I know will be honest, open, but never nasty or judgemental.
Online spaces are different for women than they are for men. The misogyny that is inbuilt to even those that we think are allies comes out, often surprising us, as throwaway comments about a woman’s age or appearance. It is ever present in the diabetes community too. I’ve rolled my eyes as some of the most vocal advocates who have loudly aligned themselves as being supporters of women, revert to type, with snide sexist commentary. I’ve seen people in the DOC referred to as ‘angry old women’ for daring to be furious, older than 25 and a woman! I roll my eyes now when I know someone has called me angry. I also know that they’ve just announced to everyone how threatened they are of women who dare to not go quietly, and how they expect us to remain in our place!
There was so much more that we could have spoken about last night. We didn’t touch on body image and disordered eating (and yes, I know that this is not the domain of women only, but this is about us!), we didn’t talk about sex all that much either, even though it is often highlighted as an issue that needs more coverage and information. Again, it’s not because they are not important topics; it was because the fluid conversation took a feminist turn that highlighted a highly biased social and healthcare environment where it is seen as perfectly fine that the needs, and concerns of fifty percent of the diabetes community are barely considered.
Perhaps if we had a more feminist approach to, and model of, healthcare, the misogyny that has meant the topics important to us have not been researched, and are not discussed, could be eliminated. And women with diabetes would not be feeling ignored.
Disclosure
I was invited by Ascensia to help plan the agenda for #DSMSWomen and facilitate the discussion. I have been paid an honorarium for my time.
Do your diabetes appointments take on an eerily familiar routine? When I was first diagnosed, each appointment would open with the words ‘Let me see your book’. My endo was referring to my BGL record, an oblong-shaped book that I was meant to diligently record my minimum of four daily BGL checks, what I ate, what I thought, who I’d prayed to, what TV shows I’d watched and how much I exercised.
I did that for about the first two and a half months, I mean weeks, okay, days and after that the novelty wore off and I stopped.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I did that thing that pretty much every single person with diabetes does at one point or another – I made up stuff. I was especially creative, making sure I used different coloured pens and splotched coffee stains across some of the pages here and there, little blood speckles for proof of bleeding fingers, and, for a particularly authentic take, OJ, to reflect the made-up numbers that suggested I’d been having a few lows.
I’d show those creative as fuck pages – honestly, they were works of art – when requested, roll my sleeve up for a BP cuff to be attached, and step on the scales for my weight to be scrutinised. Simply because I was told that was what these appointments should look like, and I knew no better.
And then, I’d walk out of those appointments either frustrated, because I’d not talked about anything important to me; in tears, because I’d been told off because my A1c was out of range; furious, because I hated diabetes and simply wasn’t getting a chance to say that. And anxious, because looking at the number of kilograms I weighed has always made me feel anxious.
The numbers in my book, on the BP machine or the scales meant nothing to me in terms of what was important in my diabetes life. They stressed me out, they made me feel sad and hopeless, and they reduced me to a bunch of metrics that did not in any way reflect the troubles I was having just trying to do diabetes.
These days, not a single data point is shared or collected unless I say so. I choose when to get my A1c done; I choose when to share CGM data; I choose to get my BP done, something I choose to do at every appointment.
I choose to not step on the scales.
I don’t know what I weigh. I might have a general idea, but it’s an estimation. I don’t weigh myself at home, and I don’t weigh myself at the doctor’s office. I think the last time I stepped on a set of scales was in January 2014 before I had cataract surgery and that was because the anaesthetist explained that it was needed to ensure the correct dose of sleepy drugs were given so I wouldn’t wake up mid scalpel in my eye. Excellent motivator, Dr Sleep, excellent motivator.
Last month, I tweeted that PWD do not need to step on the scales at diabetes appointments unless they want to, and that it was okay to ask for why they were being asked to do so.
There were comments about how refusing to be weighed (or refusing anything, for that matter) can be interpreted. I’ve seen that happen. Language matters, and there are labels attributed to people who don’t simply follow the instructions of their HCP. We could get called non-compliant for not compliantly stepping on the scales and compliantly being weighed and then compliantly dealing with the response from our healthcare professional and compliantly engaging in a discussion about it. Or it can be documented as ‘refusal to participate’ which makes us sound wilfully recalcitrant and disobedient. It’s what you’d expect to see on a school report card next to a student who doesn’t want to sing during choir practise or participate in groups sports.
What surprised me (although perhaps it shouldn’t) was the number of people who replied to that tweet saying they didn’t realise they could say no. it seems that we have a long way to go before we truly find ourselves enjoying real person-centred care.
Being weighed comes with concerns for a lot of people, and people with diabetes often have layers of extra concerns thanks to the intermingling of diabetes and weight. Disordered eating behaviours and eating disorders are more common in people with diabetes. Weight is one of those things that determines just how ‘good’ we are being. For many of us, weight is inextricably linked with every single part of our diabetes existence. My story is that of many – I lost weight before diagnosis and people commented on it favourably, even though I was a healthy weight beforehand. This reinforced that reduced weight = good girl, and that was my introduction to living with diabetes.
From there, it’s the reality of diabetes: insulin can, for some, mean weight gain, high glucose levels often result in weight loss, changes to therapy and different drugs affect our weight – it’s no wonder that many, many of us have very fraught feelings when it comes to weight and the condition we live with. Stepping on the scales brings that to the fore every three months (or however frequently we have a diabetes healthcare appointment).
Is it always necessary, or is it more of a routine thing that has just become part and parcel of diabetes care? And are people routinely given the option to opt out, or is there the assumption that we’ll happily (compliantly!) jump on the scales and just deal with whatever we see on the read out and the ensuing conversation? And if we say no, will that be respected – and accepted – without question? Perhaps another positive outcome is that it could encourage dialogue about why we feel that way and start and exploration if there is something that can be done?
It shouldn’t be seen as an act of defiance to say no, especially when what we are saying no to comes with a whole host of different emotions – some of them quite negative. Actually, it doesn’t matter if there are negative connotations or not. We should not be forced to do something as part of our diabetes care that does not make sense to us or meet our needs. When we talk about centring us in our care, surely that means we decide, without fearing the response from our HCPs, what we want to do. Having a checklist of things we are expected to do is not centring us or providing us the way forward to get what we want.
How do we go about making that happen?
Yesterday, the Australian vaccine rollout was expanded to include children. This follows the TGA approving the use of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children in the 12 – 15 year age group. ATAGI responded by including children with diabetes in that age group into Phase 1B, meaning they are eligible right now for a jab (provided, of course, they can find one…!).
Already I’m seeing in diabetes online discussions some parents of kids with type 1 diabetes saying their child will not be getting the vaccine, stating that the reason for that decision is because their type 1 diagnosis came shortly after one of their childhood vaccines.
And so it seems a good time to revisit this post that I wrote back in 2017. It has a very long title that could have been much more simply: correlation ≠ causation.
It is understandable to want to find a reason for a health issue. Being able to blame something means that we can, perhaps, stop blaming ourselves. I imagine that for parents kids with diabetes that desire to find something – anything – to point to would come as somewhat of a relief. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that vaccines are that reason.
Unfortunately, the idea that vaccines are the root of all evil and cause everything under the sun is a myth that is perpetuated over and over in antivax groups; groups where science, evidence and logic goes to die. Vaccines save lives and they are safe. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
My sixteen year old is not in a priority group and cannot be vaccinated just yet, but she is ready to go as soon as her phase has the green light. All the adults nearest and dearest to her – her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncle, friends’ parents – are fully vaccinated now, and she knows what a privilege it is to be in that situation. She understands that with that privilege comes responsibility to do what you can to protect vulnerable cohorts in the community. And she also understands that vaccines are safe and they save lives.
If you are feeling unsure about getting a COVID vaccine – for you or your child – please speak with your GP. Don’t listen to someone in a Facebook group. And that may come as a surprise to anyone who knows how important I consider peer support and learning from others in our community, but to them I say this: I listen to and learn from people in the diabetes community because they don’t suggest anti-science approaches. They talk about support, and provide tips and tricks for living with diabetes. If anyone tells me to ignore doctors (because all they care about is getting rich), or to stop taking my insulin (because there is a natural supplement that will do the trick), I would block them as quickly as I could. Science works. Science is why people with diabetes are alive today. Science is why we have vaccines. Trust science. THAT’S what makes sense.
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In the next couple of weeks, our kid gets to line up for her next round of immunisations. At twelve years of age, that means that she can look forward to chickenpox and Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis boosters, and a three-dose course of the HPV vaccine.
When the consent form was sent home, she begrudgingly pulled it out of her school bag and handed it to me. ‘I have to be immunised,’ she said employing the same facial expressions reserved for Brussels sprouts.
She took one look at me and then, slightly sheepishly, said, ‘I don’t get to complain about it, do I?’
‘Nope,’ I said to her. ‘You don’t get to complain about needles because…well because…suck it up princess. No sympathy about needles from your mean mamma! And you have to be vaccinated because that’s what we do. Immunisation is safe and is a really good way to stop the spread of infectious diseases that not too long ago people died from. And herd immunity only works if…’
‘….if most people are immunised so diseases are not spread,’ she cut me off, finishing my sentence. I nodded at her proudly, signed the form and handed it back to her. ‘In your bag. Be grateful that you are being vaccinated. It’s a gift.’ (She mumbled something about it being a crappy gift, and that it would be better if she got a Readings gift voucher instead, but I ignored that.)
Over the weekend, the vaccination debate was fired up again with One Nationidiot leader, Pauline Hanson, sharing her half-brained thoughts on the issue.
I hate that I am even writing about Pauling Hanson. I despise what she stands for. Her unenlightened, racist, xenophobic, mean, ill-informed rhetoric, which is somehow interpreted as ‘she just says what many of us are thinking’, is disgusting. But her latest remarks go to show, once again, what an ignorant and dangerous fool she is.
Her comments coincided with a discussion on a type 1 diabetes Facebook page about vaccinations preceding T1D. Thankfully, smart people reminded anyone suggesting that their diabetes was a direct result of a recent vaccination that correlation does not equal causation.
I get really anxious when there is discussion about vaccinations, because the idea that this is something that can and should be debated is dangerous. There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause diabetes (or autism or anything else). There is, however, a lot of evidence to show that they do a shed-load of good. And if you don’t believe me, ask yourself how many cases of polio you’ve seen lately. People of my parents’ generation seemed to all know kids and adults with polio and talk about just how debilitating a condition it was. And they know first-hand of children who died of diseases such as measles or whooping cough.
This is not an ‘I have my opinion, you have yours. Let’s agree to disagree’ issue. It is, in fact, very black and white.
A number of people in the Facebook conversation commented that their (or their child’s) diagnosis coincided with a recent vaccination. But here’s the thing: type 1 diabetes doesn’t just happen. We know that it is a long and slow process.
What this shows is that even if onset of diabetes occurs at (correlates with) the time of a vaccination, it cannot possibly be the cause.
When we have people in the public sphere coming out and saying irresponsible things about vaccinations, it is damaging. People will listen to Pauline Hanson rather than listen to a doctor or a researcher with decades of experience, mountains of evidence and bucket-loads (technical term) of science to support their position.
The idea that ‘everyone should do their own research’ is flawed because there is far too much pseudo-science rubbish out there and sometimes it’s hard to work out what is a relevant and respectable source and what is gobbledygook (highly technical term).
Plus, those trying to refute the benefit of vaccinations employ the age-old tactic of conspiracy theories to have people who are not particularly well informed to start to question real experts. If you have ever heard anyone suggesting: government is in the pockets of Big Pharma / the aliens are controlling us / if we just ate well and danced in the sunshine / any other hare-brained suggestion, run – don’t walk – away from them. And don’t look back.
I have been thinking about this a lot in the last couple of days. I have what I describe as an irrational fear that my kid is going to develop diabetes. It keeps me awake at night, makes me burst into tears at time and scares me like nothing else. If I, for a second, thought for just a tiny second that vaccinating my daughter increased her chances of developing diabetes, she would be unvaccinated. If I thought there was any truth at all in the rubbish that vaccines cause diabetes, I wouldn’t have let her anywhere near a vaccination needle.
But there is no evidence to support that. None at all.
Diabetogenic 