This was posted on the other forum I am on and I thought it might help some of you who are feeling a bit fed up of diabetes.🙂Bev
"Control" is the operative word for Type 1 diabetics, but Jessica Bernstein doesn't buy it, to the point that she'd like to see "control" expunged from the vocabulary. While she's at it, she'll excise the word "diabetic," too.
Bernstein, a psychotherapist who has Type 1 diabetes and counsels people with chronic illness, finds the d-word offensive and the c-word a myth. The best a person with Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes can hope for is to influence blood glucose levels by combining enough insulin and exercise to burn the sugar. The goal is to maintain a normal blood sugar range by administering the proper insulin dosage in relation to the amount and type of food they are eating. Type 1s are taught to measure their carbohydrates, but you can't measure emotion, stress, metabolism and all the other uncontrollables that play havoc with the numbers.
"There is a message in medicine that, 'Hey, if you've got diabetes and your blood sugars are out of whack, it's your fault,' " she says. "The fact is that the bulk of people with Type 1 diabetes have wacky blood sugars a good chunk of the time that is totally beyond their control."
People with Type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes can have wacky blood sugars, too. So both types are being encouraged to attend Taking "Control" out of Diabetes, a free educational event that Bernstein is giving Wednesday at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Berkeley.
Sponsored by the Greater Bay Area Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the event will double as a preview of a documentary film called "Blood & Honey" ( www.bloodandhoney.org) that Bernstein is making to examine diabetes within the broader context of pain and suffering, acceptance and transcendence.
"In general, there is this idea that we can control illness, not just diabetes," says Bernstein, warming up her power points in her North Oakland office. "For example, physicians will say, 'Oh, she's getting chemo and she's got her cancer under control,' or, 'He's taking his antidepressants so he's got his depression under control.' It is particularly emphasized in diabetes care."
Bernstein has had about 38 years to work through her theories since she was diagnosed with Type 1 at age 1. Growing up in Los Angeles, she was always the model patient who saw the top endocrinologists.
"I was kind of the superstar," she says. "Doctors singled me out as, 'This is my good patient who actually takes care of herself.' I always have been into exercise. I test a billion times a day. Everything is to the Nth degree, and yet ever since I was a kid, I've had very erratic blood sugar."
She went to diabetes camp, a weeklong overnight camp exclusive to kids with diabetes, for five years straight and spent another five on her doctoral dissertation titled "The Diabetes World." If there were a way to maintain better balance of her blood sugar, she'd know it.
"You'd think that things should be better, but they're not," she says. "I spent many years, up until my mid-20s, feeling really awful about myself. 'I'm a bad person, a bad patient.' "
Bernstein wants to give all people with diabetes a hug. Maybe get the Type 1 people in attendance to give a group hug to the Type 2 people, who comprise the vast majority of all people with diabetes. The JDRF estimates there may be 3 million Americans with Type 1 diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the total number of people with diabetes, including Type 2s who don't know it, at 23.6 million, or 7.8 percent of the population.
People with Type 1, which is generally considered the more severe of the types, have little or no pancreatic function, which is required for cells to absorb glucose. Type 2s have a pancreas that can produce insulin, but it is either not enough insulin to combat the overwhelming intake of sugar, or the cells ignore the insulin.
Type 2 used to be called adult-onset diabetes, though kids can get it. Type 1 used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes, though adults can get it. Type 1 is a chronic autoimmune disease. It doesn't matter what you eat or drink or how much exercise you get. At some point, the pancreas destroys its own insulin-producing cells.
As the name insulin-dependent suggests, a Type 1 must inject insulin or face death. Type 2s can negate the need for insulin by lowering their blood sugar through a combination of exercise and diet. In general, Type 2 is easier to control.
Just don't use that word at Bernstein's discussion. Use influence instead.
Taking "Control" out of Diabetes: 7 p.m. Wed. Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St., Berkeley. Free.
E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
"Control" is the operative word for Type 1 diabetics, but Jessica Bernstein doesn't buy it, to the point that she'd like to see "control" expunged from the vocabulary. While she's at it, she'll excise the word "diabetic," too.
Bernstein, a psychotherapist who has Type 1 diabetes and counsels people with chronic illness, finds the d-word offensive and the c-word a myth. The best a person with Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes can hope for is to influence blood glucose levels by combining enough insulin and exercise to burn the sugar. The goal is to maintain a normal blood sugar range by administering the proper insulin dosage in relation to the amount and type of food they are eating. Type 1s are taught to measure their carbohydrates, but you can't measure emotion, stress, metabolism and all the other uncontrollables that play havoc with the numbers.
"There is a message in medicine that, 'Hey, if you've got diabetes and your blood sugars are out of whack, it's your fault,' " she says. "The fact is that the bulk of people with Type 1 diabetes have wacky blood sugars a good chunk of the time that is totally beyond their control."
People with Type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes can have wacky blood sugars, too. So both types are being encouraged to attend Taking "Control" out of Diabetes, a free educational event that Bernstein is giving Wednesday at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Berkeley.
Sponsored by the Greater Bay Area Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the event will double as a preview of a documentary film called "Blood & Honey" ( www.bloodandhoney.org) that Bernstein is making to examine diabetes within the broader context of pain and suffering, acceptance and transcendence.
"In general, there is this idea that we can control illness, not just diabetes," says Bernstein, warming up her power points in her North Oakland office. "For example, physicians will say, 'Oh, she's getting chemo and she's got her cancer under control,' or, 'He's taking his antidepressants so he's got his depression under control.' It is particularly emphasized in diabetes care."
Bernstein has had about 38 years to work through her theories since she was diagnosed with Type 1 at age 1. Growing up in Los Angeles, she was always the model patient who saw the top endocrinologists.
"I was kind of the superstar," she says. "Doctors singled me out as, 'This is my good patient who actually takes care of herself.' I always have been into exercise. I test a billion times a day. Everything is to the Nth degree, and yet ever since I was a kid, I've had very erratic blood sugar."
She went to diabetes camp, a weeklong overnight camp exclusive to kids with diabetes, for five years straight and spent another five on her doctoral dissertation titled "The Diabetes World." If there were a way to maintain better balance of her blood sugar, she'd know it.
"You'd think that things should be better, but they're not," she says. "I spent many years, up until my mid-20s, feeling really awful about myself. 'I'm a bad person, a bad patient.' "
Bernstein wants to give all people with diabetes a hug. Maybe get the Type 1 people in attendance to give a group hug to the Type 2 people, who comprise the vast majority of all people with diabetes. The JDRF estimates there may be 3 million Americans with Type 1 diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the total number of people with diabetes, including Type 2s who don't know it, at 23.6 million, or 7.8 percent of the population.
People with Type 1, which is generally considered the more severe of the types, have little or no pancreatic function, which is required for cells to absorb glucose. Type 2s have a pancreas that can produce insulin, but it is either not enough insulin to combat the overwhelming intake of sugar, or the cells ignore the insulin.
Type 2 used to be called adult-onset diabetes, though kids can get it. Type 1 used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes, though adults can get it. Type 1 is a chronic autoimmune disease. It doesn't matter what you eat or drink or how much exercise you get. At some point, the pancreas destroys its own insulin-producing cells.
As the name insulin-dependent suggests, a Type 1 must inject insulin or face death. Type 2s can negate the need for insulin by lowering their blood sugar through a combination of exercise and diet. In general, Type 2 is easier to control.
Just don't use that word at Bernstein's discussion. Use influence instead.
Taking "Control" out of Diabetes: 7 p.m. Wed. Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St., Berkeley. Free.
E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
