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"Does it hurt?" & other reactions from non-diabetics

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
people often say to me 'I don't like needles' well u think that I do lol
 
different types of needles & injections

A lot of the confusion comes from the general public not realising that there are different types of injections - most people have experienced intramuscular immunisations as children and teenagers, then tetanus and perhaps travel vaccines as adults, and most will have blood taken from a vein at some point - lots if they pass though pregnancy, for example. If they have had injections with thin needles, this is most likely as local anasthetic at the dentist or before sewing up a cut in skin. All these types of injections are generally given by someone else and are more painful that subcutaneous insulin injections - and finger pricking is usually far more painful than insulin injections. If insulin injections are as unpainful as they are, then I'm happy having as many as necessary (usually 5 per day) to maintain an interesting life. I don't envy my friend with multiple sclerosis who has to give herself weekly intramuscular injections.
 
I've had should you be eating that? It's not like I stuff my face with cram buns and chocolate biscuits all day or even every day.

And I've had can you catch it from someone else?

The worst one I had was is it like HIV or AIDs.

I am diabetic not catching...
 
Haha, some of these have made me laugh.

I too get "does it hurt" and "oh no i couldnt do that" but most annoying is when people say, oh well my friend/family member etc has it really bad.... as if there are varying degrees.... lol
 
No, diabetes is not infectious, but it does have some similar effects to HIV / AIDS, as I discovered when I discovered a friend I know through activity sport is HIV+ eg both of us have been excluded from certain careers and leisure activities, both of us have a bit extra hassle getting travel insurance, both of us have to deal with out of date attitudes from health professionals and general public, both of us have seen health prospects improve for both conditions - in the early 80s, people died soon after getting HIV and people with diabetes still had shortened lifespans, while antiretroviral drugs and advances in blood glucose monitoring and basal bolus regimes have helped us both, both of us LIVE with our condition and will die with our condition, but fully intend to live fully until then. But both of us are careful to keep our blood to ourselves when dealing with wounds, which has happened most times we've met!
 
Please guys, be patient. People only ask because they don't know. They are ignorant and have no understanding of what it is like to be diabetic. Don't be angry, tell them if asked so that thay can gain at least some information. Afterall, who better to ask than a diabetic? Do we get trumpy when people ask us questions on here? I've said before that the general public know very little about diabetes and we were the general public before our diagnosis. We'd like a little consideration show to us, shouldn't we show some too?
 
we all moan about people not differentiating between type one and two - me included! But i always tell people im "diabetic" and not "type 1 diabetic" because its easier and cant always be bothered to explain! It annoys me when i then get the daft comments, "you dont look diabetic" or "oh, did your mum and dad give you lots of sweets when you were little" but thats my fault for not educating that one more person!

Im sure im not the only one who does it 😉
 
ditto ditto ditto

all the above replies i have had.

does it hurt, ooh type 1 you have the bad one, do you have to eqt certain foods, I dont know how you inject yourself I couldnt do it,

I understand it is ignorance and not malice, but the one that really bugs me is ," ooh dont know how you inject I JUST COULD NOT DO THAT", well newsflash yes you would. I really dont like this one and have occasionally said, yes you would if you had diabetes because you would be dead if you didnt do it! harsh i know but then people shouldnt annoy me when i feel low/high and feel crappy anyway!! hw he :D
 
Tracey, you are absolutely right. I told my best friend when he was diagnosed with type 1 in his early 20's, that "it's a good job I haven't got it because I'd never be able to inject myself" Well "HELLO!!" 15 years later here I am, and yes you pretty soon realise that you're going to have to learn how to. The one saviour for me is that we get to inject subcutaneously rather than intraveinously - I really would struggle with that. To my shame I didn't know that before I 'joined the club' and in my case I should have.
 
I am newly diagnosed and my fiancee watched me injecting for a few times at the start, the first couple of times she watched i felt more sorry for her as i put the needle in she put her hands to her face and cried a little. Think it was just the shock for her as i really did not like needles but surely i should be the one who was crying........ It seems to be getting a little bit better now though
 
Haha! I'm glad there are others out there that have similar reponses! People always firstly are shocked that I have it...but don't really know anything about. Surprised at having 4+ injections a day, always saying 'I couldn't do that if I was you'.....well you wouldn't have much choice! They also seem quite oblivious to it most of the time ! So I often get 'Why don't you have this massive slice of cake'...etc!

There are some nice people who genuinely want to know more, I find schools really should do more to educate people about conditions such as diabetes. Most people throughout my school years thought I had finger tests, and avoided sugar. It would be really good to have people who understand that there is a lot more to it! I've had a very difficult past 14 years trying to get it under control with only the support of one family member...until now meeting some good friends. School years may have been easier if there was a support system!...sorry for the irrelavance in this post!!
 
I have found in the short time I have had this that people always know some elderly relitive that had to have something amputated and cant wait to tell you
I noticed that dlife an american site has made some sort of card to explain to people this sort of thing is out of order its starting to p**** me off
colinw
 
other people reaction

when i say that graham is diabetic a lots of parent told me" what stage of diabetes?,he cannot have sweet stuff ever?> did you give him a lots of sweet food when was a baby? an elderly man said "he is on tablet is he ? is only a baby some relative children "i hate needles ican never inject! you will if you want to live isaid!!!
 
Do you ever get asked if he'll grow out of it? Heard that once or twice but think its getting less common now.....

Other parents probably feel a bit frightened they might feed him something he shouldn't have and make him poorly (as oposed to being the diet police)
 
Have had quite decent responses from my friends and neighbours about it. My neighbours were quite shocked about it, feeling sorry for me. 🙂

Before I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on November 11th 2008 I had pretty much no idea about what Diabetes was or the difference between Type 1 and Type 2. Of course now I do. 😛

And ironically for a diabetic I REALLY DO NOT LIKE needles. I sometimes get close to passing out when I have blood taken, as I did when I had some blood taken to test for diabetes, and so jabbing myself 8 times a day (BS test and insulin shots) is just so flipping ironic for me I have to smile sometimes. :D

Considering I'm deaf and wear hearing aids, me getting diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just makes me think either (a) I'm not liked upstairs or (b) I was a very naughty boy in a previous incarnation! 😛
 
I usually say no it doesn't hurt and then show them how tiny the needle is. Obviously it does hurt sometimes, but compared to other pain ive experienced it is nothing, and i think it's the last think im worried about when it comes to diabetes!
 
I can sympathise with your dislike of needles Marc. I hate the idea of them going into my veins - my wife has to go with me for my blood tests and hold my hand.
 
Same here, I hate blood test needles and flu jabs etc. and my fear of blood tests became worse after my weekend in hospital after being diagnosed with diabetes. First of all the nurse tried to get a line in a few times in differnent places (eeek) then a DOCTOR (the ones who are worst at it) and he managed to hit my artery (yep it hurt ALOT) and then eventually another nurse tried and got it straight away. I have small veins :(
 
katie said:
I usually say no it doesn't hurt and then show them how tiny the needle is. Obviously it does hurt sometimes, but compared to other pain ive experienced it is nothing, and i think it's the last think im worried about when it comes to diabetes!
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I find the needles don't hurt. Sometimes parts of my stomach seem more tender than others. :confused:

Also if my room is cold overnight then the insulin can hurt a bit for breakfast.

I've on the Novofine needles which are nice and small and barely register on my pain scales. However some wally at my GPs printed out some non-Novofine needles which were longer and bigger. Muchos ouchos. I complained to the pharmacy wondering why they'd given me different needles. They showed me the prescription they'd collected on my behalf and proved the surgery had made a mistake. A painful mistake that. I made sure the surgery fixed that. Still got some of those needles but won't use them as they really do hurt. If I run out of Novofine I'll have to use the others but I'm pretty good at managing all my medication and gear so that shouldn't happen. 🙂

Alan221 said:
I can sympathise with your dislike of needles Marc. I hate the idea of them going into my veins - my wife has to go with me for my blood tests and hold my hand.
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Cheers Alan. 🙂 I think, and Mum agrees, that I'm probably someone who was born with a hatred or fear of needles. Not made much better by my diagnosis of bilateral hearing loss (deaf in both ears that means!) at about 2 and half years old. So that meant a lot of tests whenever I went to my hospital consultant in London. And that meant lots of needles for blood tests and the like. Once my consultant went to a conference some other consultant hosted and thought I showed a lot of the symptoms of this weird condition this consultant was trying to prove existed because his counterparts in America said it didn't exist. So more tests. I had to have radioactive iodide injected into me so that the iodine would end up in my thyroid and the radioactivity of it would show up on an X-Ray and they could see what my thyroid function and so on was like. So it was radioactive iodide injected with a plastic needle. You know when old TVs used to not have any reception and you'd get that black and white fuzzy-ness? Well Mr Doctor tried to inject the stuff into my arms and I almost passed out, became very sweaty and all I could see was the black and white fuzzy-ness. I had to get into a wheelchair and have my Mum wheel me up and down in the cool air of the corridor to cool me down. Then the doctor tried again and told me I had veins like trunks of trees. Didn't do much for me that.

Then I had to spend an hour without moving my face with a big metal scanner plate or something in my face. It was so close to me I couldn't focus on it and it completely obstructed my view.

Thankfully I had a walkman and was able to listen to Queen's Made In Heaven. Quite a nice soothing album considering the circumstances.

And then I got diagnosed with Diabetes. Irony in full operation there.

katie said:
Same here, I hate blood test needles and flu jabs etc. and my fear of blood tests became worse after my weekend in hospital after being diagnosed with diabetes. First of all the nurse tried to get a line in a few times in differnent places (eeek) then a DOCTOR (the ones who are worst at it) and he managed to hit my artery (yep it hurt ALOT) and then eventually another nurse tried and got it straight away. I have small veins :(
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Ouch, bad luck. I almost passed out and vomited when they took blood for my diabetes diagnosis. I had to be helped into a room with a bed, lie down with the window open and a fan on me and suck some minty sweet to get my blood sugars back up.

I went to the hospital a few days later to see a Diabetic consultant doctor who confirmed that I had Type 1 diagnosis. For some reason they wanted more blood (see I told you, irony!) and we had to go and find the phlebotomist. Naturally I wasn't looking forward to this but we found out the phlebotomist was actually a trained phlebotomist and not just a nurse. She was a lovely woman from New Zealand and spoke to me and Mum like we were people and not just walking blood samples waiting to be taken. We told her about my record with needles and blood being taken. She just said, calmly and confidently, that no-one ever faints or feels bad when she takes blood. And she was right! Seconds after the needle was out, which I barely felt, I stood up and felt like nothing had happened to me. So I think it was a mixture of her being trained at this, indeed doing it every day, and not just being a nurse trained in basic blood taking but also her friendliness and character really helped.

Strangely we've not actually gotten the results of the blood test. They weren't taking it for blood sugar as I'd been issued with a tester by then. I must ring the hospital and find out what it was for and what the results were.
 
MarcLister said:
I find the needles don't hurt. Sometimes parts of my stomach seem more tender than others. :confused:

Also if my room is cold overnight then the insulin can hurt a bit for breakfast.

I've on the Novofine needles which are nice and small and barely register on my pain scales. However some wally at my GPs printed out some non-Novofine needles which were longer and bigger. Muchos ouchos. I complained to the pharmacy wondering why they'd given me different needles. They showed me the prescription they'd collected on my behalf and proved the surgery had made a mistake. A painful mistake that. I made sure the surgery fixed that. Still got some of those needles but won't use them as they really do hurt. If I run out of Novofine I'll have to use the others but I'm pretty good at managing all my medication and gear so that shouldn't happen. 🙂
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Are they called penfine - universal click? or something similar? because they did exactly the same to me, except the pharmacist realised I had never had them before and asked if i had changed. when i said no they told me to complain to my dr. they said the dr might have done it because they are cheaper (how rude). I haven't complained yet but only got them last time i got my prescription and im planning on making an appointment sooon.
 
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