How to Help a Teen with Diabetes Burnout

[Northerner]

Growing up with type 1 diabetes adds an extra burden of responsibility to an already overwhelmed teen. In many cases, these teens have had to deal with insulin injections, carb counting, and the fear of overnight lows for years. It’s very likely that at some point, they’ll just want to quit. But type 1 diabetes isn’t like Girl Scouts or soccer or any interest a teen might outgrow. Throw into the mix shifting blood glucose numbers and social issues related to being different from peers, and frustration with the situation can lead to something called diabetes burnout.

Anyone with diabetes is subject to burnout—this isn’t a phenomenon unique to being a teenager. But in these cases parents may mistakenly read the situation as a form of rebellion

http://blog.joslin.org/2014/07/how-to-help-a-teen-with-diabetes-burnout/

 

[HOBIE]

Some people think they have problems. But growing up with the Bid "D" is hard mentally. I would employ any T1 person because I know they are a certain type with good quallaties. 😎

 

[KookyCat]

Must be so difficult for teenagers, as if just being a teenager isn't hard enough without all the stuff involved in pancreas impersonation. Hard for parents too having to relinquish some control but still making sure they're looking after themselves. Feel lucky I was older.

 

[trophywench]

Kooky - so do I !

I didn't ever rebel to the extent that teens seem to these days - it was a fate worse than death in those days to go against parents - and every grown-up you had anything to do with shunned and chastised you if you overstepped the mark - your place in the hierarchy of Life.

I hate to say it ! - but that WAS better for us, than cheeking everyone and often worse. Several of our grandchildren - girls!! - have been simply awful - and that's by MODERN standards, not my old-fashioned ones.

You need to grow up, knowing exactly where your parameters are.

 

[AJLang]

I grew up in my teens discovering boys and alcohol but on fixed doses of insulin because MDI wasn't invented. But I survived

 

[HOBIE]

I don't know how my parents put up with the normal things I did. Was diagnosed when 3. We lived at the time approx half a mile from the local shops. My mother thought I was in the garden but no I had got out & the local copper had seen me up the shops. 3yr old 😱 Have been like that all my life. 🙂😱

 

[KookyCat]

I guess it's all about personality, I wasn't obnoxious but I was a bit flighty, still am sometimes, also a wanderer, still am 🙂. I'm not sure what I'd have been like if I'd been diagnosed then, it's an interesting question but I suppose much like I am now, despite my stunning sense of humour (ahem), and generally relaxed approach to most things I was a nerd from the moment I was born so I suspect I'd have been experimenting and cursing much like I do now 🙂