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Has diabetes affected your career?

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Didn't read the whole report, but I can't say the diabetes has directly affected my career. The level of sickness I have had over recent yars has affected my career, but that would have happened even without the diabetes.
 
Sorry I should also have added I have been allowed extra lee way because of the diabetes, without it I may have been looking for another job some time ago.
 
The problems associated with diabetes e.g. the gastroparesis, fatigue and eye problems have affected how many hours I work i.e. I work 50% of a full contract. But I don't think that the diabetes has affected my career - if anything it inspired me to achieve more which led to me having a PhD and becoming a senior lecturer in my mid-late thirties.
 
cherrypie said:
Admittedly this study was conducted in America but I wondered if anyone here agreed with any of the report? "Lower life-time earnings and fewer job prospects..............." Could it be the Insurance side of things made the difference?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/economic-toll-of-diabetes-begins-early/?ref=health
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Hi cherrypie 🙂 In the past, Diabetes has never affected my work or job, but this new job ( since November) has caused problems. I have had 2 hypo's, and I have had trouble with bleeding at the back of my right eye. The last one, a couple of weeks ago, was a bigger bleed and I told my work that I was going to the hospital for an emergency appointment. I did go into work later, even though work suggested I had the day off, but I said no because the duty doctor wasn't overly worried. When I went in to work, the 2 bosses didn't ask how my eye was, because nobody talked to me😱 I seemed to had been sent to Coventry, until one of them did talk about my eye problem and said maybe if it was causing BIG problems.......... Basically,I believe, they were trying to get me to terminate my employent, but I didn't, If they want to get rid of me, then they are the one's that will have to do it. The atmosphere there was awful and I was made to feel like a leper, but I'm sticking with it and I'm not going down without a fight. I do hope this isn't a common thing amongst employers and I also get the basic wage. So not really a positive post I'm afraid. Sheena
 
The answer in my case is Yes - discrimination of the N th degree, leading to a nervous breakdown, they followed that up by more of the same plus blackmail, bullying, then to get out of it they made me an offer they thought I couldn't refuse, but said I had to consult a solicitor so I did, my solicitor had the temerity to ask questions, they refused to answer saying they couldn't be bothered if I was going to be awkward and would just discipline me and sack me with no payout - so I wimped out and took the money and sat and cried a lot for a long time.

And that's just the short version.

If an employer wishes to sack someone - there are certainly ways of doing it legally without resorting to such behaviour. If they don't know how - then they probably aren't fit to be employing people in the first place quite frankly.

Sheena - fair enough, good luck to ya Gel - but please don't make yourself ill because of it. I'd have been far better of telling them to stuff their job when they started the discrimination in the first place instead of trying to follow the laid down grievance procedure. They didn't follow their own rules - why the hell did I ? :confused:
 
trophywench said:
The answer in my case is Yes - discrimination of the N th degree, leading to a nervous breakdown, they followed that up by more of the same plus blackmail, bullying, then to get out of it they made me an offer they thought I couldn't refuse, but said I had to consult a solicitor so I did, my solicitor had the temerity to ask questions, they refused to answer saying they couldn't be bothered if I was going to be awkward and would just discipline me and sack me with no payout - so I wimped out and took the money and sat and cried a lot for a long time.

And that's just the short version.

If an employer wishes to sack someone - there are certainly ways of doing it legally without resorting to such behaviour. If they don't know how - then they probably aren't fit to be employing people in the first place quite frankly.

Sheena - fair enough, good luck to ya Gel - but please don't make yourself ill because of it. I'd have been far better of telling them to stuff their job when they started the discrimination in the first place instead of trying to follow the laid down grievance procedure. They didn't follow their own rules - why the hell did I ? :confused:
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Trophywench, it makes me so cross when people are treated in this way, when a lot of employers don't even deserve to be in that position of responsibility, it beggars belief 😱 The job has been playing on my mind a lot and maybe the eye bleeds I have been having are due to the worry, but I don't know and the bleeds could of happened anyway:confused:

It was Tuesday, 3rd January and the 2 hours I was there, it felt like 20 hrs, it was absolutley horrible. I'm biding my time.
ps you weren't a wimp, just trying to survive a nasty experience . Sheena
 
Yes, because I didn't know I had it. It was Jan, eleven years ago. I was exhausted. My head wasn't happy with the way I was carrying out my managerial responsibiliites. My class wasn't an easy one and I wasn't coping. I thought I was a burnt out teacher. Doctor agreed, put me on antidepressants signed me off for a fortnight. No physical check.
I didn't want to become one more casualty of the teaching profession, so we looked for plan B. By half term I'd given in my notice, and my husband had applied to retire early from the RAF. by Easter we were looking for our French house... but I was so thirsty, desperate for a long drink at each stop , sitting in the car with a bottle of water; well it was hot that Easter, I'd also begun to lose weight.....
 
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Short answer is yes and I was dismissed. The company I worked for settled a couple of days before the tribunal date - mainly because they had dismissed me a week before I got my pump - so on a technicality really!!

We then moved to Scotland (about 5 years earlier than planned) and I'm still looking for work.

Really hate being a diabetic and feel my life went drastically down hill since diagnosis!! Oh well, hopefully 2012 will be a better year! 🙄
 
Has never stopped me doing what i love doing ! 5yr appreticeship, paid off when out of of time (21), self employed electrian ever since (no work no pay) 😉
 
Yes ...i lost my job 2 weeks after DX ..and my boss was a fellow D 🙄...i was very stressed and stroppy he just wanted everything done immediately ...at the time, the metformin 3x 500mg and simvastatin was doing me no good but side effects 😱...but i did n't realise it was cos of the meds ....not practiced architecture since ..now run a charity shop ...much more fun!😉
 
No, not at all. But I do work for the NHS, which maybe makes my employer more understanding. I've never needed any time off because of diabetes-related illness except the week I was diagnosed, and they have been fine about letting me have time to go to clinic appointments and classes.

I actually know 3 other people with T1 in my line of work too, so it's not a problem.
 
PS I should explain that I'd never had the slightest trouble between 1972 and 2007. In 2007 when I'd been there 9 years injecting at my desk, they decreed that I must NOT. So I asked Where and they said the loo. I refused so I was relegated to the stationery cupbaord. I asked the cleaner (who'd been there 8 years when was the last time it was cleaned and she said Never, it's not even on the schedule. So I refused and so it went on ......

They wanted to get rid of me. They should have had the balls to do it.
 
Did diabetes affect my career – most definitely. By how much is hard to judge as each time it affects you subsequent effects are unclear. Originally I wanted to become a detective (and I still think I would have been a bloody good one). As our local PC had developed Type I and was still employed (mainly desk bound and visiting schools) I did not see a problem. A few years later I found out the police had a blanket ban and the Pc left the force on a technicality – early retirement with bad back at 43). After “A” levels I had one of the earliest gap years. The intention was to find a job with a company who would sponsor me for a degree. Yes there were grants but I thought employment in the holidays and more money were a win-win situation. It never happened and I ended up quite depressed meeting discrimination with many potential employers. In the end I started a maths degree the following summer. Three years later I still found prejudice but managed to find a job. However after a few years diabetes reared its head as my then manager decided to make life awkward by calling quick meetings just before I was due to eat, being difficult about time off for clinics, etc. In the end I volunteered for redundancy when the opportunity arose. My thirties were good and I did well in another company. However it was not really what I wanted to do. In my mid thirties I saw a job in Autosport and applied. The interview went well until they asked if I had any objections to driving an artic occasionally – they were willing to pay for any training. My dream job vanished like the morning mist and I returned to the day job. However diabetes seemed to produce a glass ceiling as non-events were made into issues and bored rigid I eventually left. Although I have worked fairly continuously I feel that diabetes, and now age, has both stopped any career and stopped me doing what I really wanted to. All of these means that I am in a money purchase pension scheme and can look forward to relative poverty in retirement whenever that happens.
 
This is not a good thread to read :( Sorry to all of you that this has affected. That does suck Stephen.

I have always wanted to be a midwife but this has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works with that, need to speak to more people about it I think.
 
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Yes, diagnosis stopped me from further Territorial Army service, professional SCUBA diving, working (paid / overwintering) in Antarctica, on ships etc, which made BSc Marine Biology virtually useless for field work, so I went on to get MSc, too.

But, on the positive side, I went as volunteer science leader on a youth expedition to Falklands & South Georgia, and marshal on adventure races etc all over UK, plus Belgium, Poland & Portugal, and competed in UK and Ireland. For one job I do, applicants need to have at least one of the following: professional experience of disability / long term medical conditions, personal experience of disability / long term medical conditions, experience of caring for a family member with disability / long term medical conditions. I had tow of those evn before diagnosis, but can probably do job better since diagnosis, not that I saw the job advertised before.
 
Without a doubt, I am sure I wouldn't be in the job I am in now. My diabetes has massively influenced my work in a positive way.

Without diabetes though i probably wouldn't be working in the NHS and be earning more money, however I can't imagine any other job giving me the satisfaction I get from what I do.
 
I think it was diagnosis at almost 13 years of age that made me want a medical career. I'm a GP and not directly involved in diabetes at the moment though
When I was a student and working crazy hours as a junior doctor my day to day control sucked athlough until the latter period HbA1c wasn't too bad. I was up and down likea rollercoaster- luckily always managed to sort out my own hypos- I can imagine people making noises about being in a responsible position and loosing it due to a hypo but I did not worry about this at the time
What scares me now is developping hypo unawareness of being in a position when I am not in control of my insulin or need for massive temporary increase in dose, culminating in severe hypos and then loosing license for a year as my options for work ( usually need to drive for home visits) would be limited- could still do out of hours as they have drivers- and some surgeries would probably be prepared to work round this and give extra patients to see in the surgery etc freeing up others to do more visits. In all honestly I imagine if I developed a habit of bad hypos I would be seen as a liability anyhow so if they were other than a temporary blip I wouild have other things to worry about
 
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