• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Say there was a cure...

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.

everydayupsanddowns

Administrator
Staff member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Pronouns
He/Him
How about this for a head-scratcher...

It’s something I find myself wondering from time to time.

If there was suddenly a cure, and you could be rid of diabetes forever, and eat whatever you wanted with no carb counting, low carbing, dosing, tablets or any of the whole rigmarole would you

Leap at it with arms open wide and never look back...

or

Take it but remain fundamentally changed by your experience of living with diabetes for however many years...

or

Think twice about it...

or something else?
 
Take it absolutely, I’m very fond of my feet, and enjoy being able to see. I’d definitely carry on being very aware of what I eat though, I think a sensible diabetic generally has a good diet.
 
Ohh - I'd be over the moon with joy.
I don't think I would make dramatic changes, but it would be so great just to have a break from the relentless of never been able to drop 'off guard' without seeing the consequences on the next meter reading.

Like last night a few extra poppadum and the meter shoots up this morning.
I know I am fortunate to have a means of helping myself to control diabetes, but there are just sometimes when it would be great to have a holiday from the continuous vigilance.
 
Unless the sudden cure also wiped out one's memory, and if one had been diabetic for any length of time, I do not think one could not automatically watch what they are eating. Perhaps there would be a short period of time when one went mad but I think habit and common sense would soon prevail. After all healthy eating is healthy eating for everyone.
 
Having type 1 for 55+ years, I think I would find it very hard not to be very aware of what goes in my mouth every mealtime 🙂 Suspect it would take less than 5mins to get accustomed to no pump or needles though.
 
Interesting dilemma.
I would probably pause for thought.
Unlike Lillian, my habit of a lifetime is unhealthy eating (sugar addiction and bread and potato over indulgence) at least for the past 30 years and my diagnosis of just over a year and a half keeps my nose to the grindstone as regards keeping that in check. My change of diagnosis to Type 1 from an initial assumption of Type 2 where I learned to eat very low carb, did not change things even though I could now inject insulin to cover whatever carbs I eat, because I know how easy it would be to slide back into my old ways. I know that the more carbs I eat, the more I want and without this hanging over my head I don't think I would have had the motivation to change or to persevere.
Also, from having chronic joint pain and chronic and severe migraine, I no longer suffer either so being able to eat anything might have other consequences for my health.
It would be a difficult decision.
 
I dunno - I mean thanks, yes I spose I'd take the cure - won't alter my eating cos D hasn't changed it particularly however - at what price will it come - how many people eg you Mike! - would pretty instantly lose their source of income?

The NHS, DUK, parts of 'medical' companies if not whole companies, associated equipment manufacturers ...

Would I really welcome the shared responsibility of my cure causing potential hardship elsewhere?

How the hell could anyone prepare themselves for it? haven't we got enough to cope with already just now?
 
I'd be in a quandary as I have never been able to eat carbs, and the diet sheets were far from exotic.
I have always experienced low energy on high carb.
I suppose I could make a list of things to try - lasagne, wraps, tacos - difficult though.
 
I dunno - I mean thanks, yes I spose I'd take the cure - won't alter my eating cos D hasn't changed it particularly however - at what price will it come - how many people eg you Mike! - would pretty instantly lose their source of income?

The NHS, DUK, parts of 'medical' companies if not whole companies, associated equipment manufacturers ...

Would I really welcome the shared responsibility of my cure causing potential hardship elsewhere?

How the hell could anyone prepare themselves for it? haven't we got enough to cope with already just now?
Jenny,
That outcome has crossed my mind a few times whenever I read about potential cures, what would all those diabetes specialist nurses do? all those specialist diabetes consultants do? what about all the insulin manufacturers, needles etc It would be weird to think that one day all these skills, knowledge and medical equipment will no longer be needed. It would be like diabetes never existed, nobody would care or need to care. This forum would no longer be needed! How weird to think that, all the information that has been accumulated, all the knowledge about diabetes that has passed from person to person will be forgotten.
 
How about this for a head-scratcher...

It’s something I find myself wondering from time to time.

If there was suddenly a cure, and you could be rid of diabetes forever, and eat whatever you wanted with no carb counting, low carbing, dosing, tablets or any of the whole rigmarole would you

Leap at it with arms open wide and never look back...

or

Take it but remain fundamentally changed by your experience of living with diabetes for however many years...

or

Think twice about it...

or something else?
For some, who have never known it to be any another way, it would be a first time experience to live free of diabetes and all that entails, for people like myself who still remember the time before they had diabetes, it would be like going back in time and I'd jump at the chance of a cure! Things have been made a lot easier in recent years and has made diabetes much more manageable for many.

It may well get to a point in the very near future, that having diabetes will become so easy to manage that a cure may not make such a huge difference....
 
Er, do I want to go back to a marriage that went sour much later where at that time we were utterly boracic? OK I'd be 22, but all those people are going to be killed by Black September at the Munich Olympics any minute now.

No thank you.
 
Oh - I know - crusty rolls with thick thick ham, and real butter - lurpac, slightly salted. We used to have them at tea time after mum had been to town on Saturday. I would not want to go back to that time, but to eat one of those again would be good.
 
I wouldn’t go mad food wise I don’t think. Lost my taste for cream cakes et al. But I would love to be able to be spontaneous again, not worrying if I had all my kit with me, not having to remember to order insulin, test strips, lancets ( actually I don’t do that ), and all the associated meds that go with it. I’m assuming Mike that this cure includes me, ie my pancreas will grow back or I’ll have a transplant? 🙄
 
With eggyg on this one, no more kit ordering of, freedom to eat what you want when you want sure would be good thing.

Large fish n chips slice of homemade fruit cake mega bar galaxy chocolate lashings christmas pud yum yum yum
 
I agree with @trophywench , i would hate to be part of something where people would lose jobs. Though I do miss jumping in the car without having to test, going out without all the bumph we need, carrying a smaller handbag or going to special occasions where you can carry a tiny bag, and definitely as @Drummer said, crusty rolls and butter. It would be lovely to be spontaneous again but there are so many losing jobs every day i really don't want to be the cause of someone else's misery or hardship.
 
I have grown up with T1 being diagnosed at 18mths old, I've virtually known nothing else and a cure? Yes please, to be able to switch off, not have to remember to carry a pile of stuff when I go out, being low and thinking I need to be further up before I dive, the hypos the hypers, yes I would take the cure.
 
To just be able to go out, with say just house keys wow!
I would sign up to be the trial for the cure ha! Yes please, here I am.

I think I would always be aware of how to be healthy, the importance of things people take for granted, like how important daily exercise and drinking water is.
I would never abuse my body in the way people do with drinking too much and poor diets because I understand how important having this one body in working condition in.

i don’t think they could ever make diabetes that easy to control that a cure wouldn’t be the better option.
If it came sooner I might have another child, if it was 5 years ago I would have. That’s the only thing that it’s really taken away from me, I can’t do that to myself again with diabetes but without it, I might have.

That got a bit deep too quickly ha!
 
About 10 years into diabetes I treated a hypo with a mars bar. I work on the principlal that while a hypo is not nice you might as well enjoy the treatment for it.

Sugar rationing had come off some years before I was diagnosed and I enjoyed such tings and had put much sugar into tea and coffee.

This was forbidden after diagnosis. The diatary rules said: for any food, if you hate it you can have as much as you like, if you are indifferent to it you may have if in very modest amounts, if it is you favorate food and you love and crave it then you can not have it at all. Anything that improves the flavout is forbidden (salad dressing for example - out).

The mas bar was a disaster. I have never tasted anythig so bad in my life, and I wondered how anyone could think such things a treat, although just a decade before I had thought exactly that.

So would a cure make a difference? I am certain that I would not eat many mars bars but an extra slice of apple pie without haveing to work out what insulin I might need and when (for the unexpected extra carbs) might make the cure worthwhile.
 
A cure? I’ve pondered this before. Well yes please...no faffing around from me. I’d just grab my keys and go...somewhere...anywhere. No pastilles in my pockets, absolutely no handbag!

I would still eat a healthy balanced diet, as it’s food I enjoy, with a few extra treats thrown in with no thought...but I doubt these would be cake or anything over sweet as I just don’t like them that much and am usually quite disappointed...probably the treat would be a little more flexibility in when I eat..or don’t.

I imagine I would still test sugars from time to time, just to make sure this cure had worked and that might be a difficult habit to break. Exercise without any thought...no arm scanning...yay! Concerts...with just some money in my back pocket for a drink...yay.

Obviously I would hate my good fortune to mean the loss of jobs etc., but surely this is what all those people are working towards? So it would mean they'd succeeded in what they’d set out to achieve. Think of all the money the NHS would save too. Sadly there will still be other conditions for them to use their skills on.

Is it a blanket cure you’re thinking of Mike? If not can I be cheeky and say form the queue here?! 🙂🙂
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top