Survey- How has diabetes affected your mood and eating habits?

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Done.
 
Some quick comments:

Q3: You just have "heart disease" but maybe should make it "cardiovascular disease"? For those of us with eg peripheral artery disease etc.

Q5: How often do you take diabetes meds. Need to have a choice for "not on meds"

Diabetic issues currently a prob: Kind of vague on whether this would include complications arising partly or wholly from diabetes, comorbidities etc. I can get p*ssed off with my PAD, but that's not exactly diabetes, tho diabetes was no doubt a contributing factor.

Diet type: Why no choice for vegan/vegetarian etc?
 
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Eddy Edson said:
Some quick comments:

Q3: You just have "heart disease" but maybe should make it "cardiovascular disease"? For those of us with eg peripheral artery disease etc.

Q5: How often do you take diabetes meds. Need to have a choice for "not on meds"

Diabetic issues currently a prob: Kind of vague on whether this would include complications arising partly or wholly from diabetes, comorbidities etc. I can get p*ssed off with my PAD, but that's not exactly diabetes, tho diabetes was no doubt a contributing factor.

Diet type: Why no choice for vegan/vegetarian etc?
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Thank you for your feedback. I agree "cardiovascular disease" would be a better term to use as it is more inclusive to various other conditions and i will take this in to consideration when writing up and analysing my results. Although, i have included an 'other' option where you are able to specify any conditions which do not fit in the categories already listed.

In regards to Q5, i think it is very important to address those who do not take any medication. Unfortunately this did not come to my attention during my pilot as it was carried out in a pharmacy where all participants were collecting their anti-diabetic medication! I will try to modify this question for those who do not take medication. In the meantime, i propose that you skip Q5 and to add note that you do not take any anti-diabetic medication in the last question of the survey.

In terms of the question where i ask "which of the following diabetic issues is currently a problem for you?". The definition of "diabetes issue" may seem unclear in terms of whether complications associated to diabetes are included.
I feel it is important to leave this open to interpretation when completing the questionnaire. This is because the aim of this question is to find out if you believe that diabetes has impacted your mental wellbeing. Some individuals may class their complications as a diabetic issue, whilst others will categorise it as issue separate from diabetes. It is up to the participant to decide whether they believe the complications has left them with low mood, and if they believe that diabetes is ultimately the root cause for the low mood.

I agree that it would have been useful and inclusive to add an option for vegan and vegetarians. I have included a "other" option where participants are able to add that this is the diet they follow.

I hope that this clarifies things!

Thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated as identifying limitations in my questionnaire is key to assess the success of the study. Please let me know if you would like anymore information.
 
Done 🙂
 
I found myself having to tick 'neutral' in a lot of cases where some mental health effects or other things certainly can be caused by diabetes itself if the person can't get/hasn't got their head around their diagnosis, but is also often caused by outside things in the persons life or more usually, a combination of things where the diabetes absolutely doesn't help and having to deal with it makes the whatever worse.
 
trophywench said:
I found myself having to tick 'neutral' in a lot of cases where some mental health effects or other things certainly can be caused by diabetes itself if the person can't get/hasn't got their head around their diagnosis, but is also often caused by outside things in the persons life or more usually, a combination of things where the diabetes absolutely doesn't help and having to deal with it makes the whatever worse.
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It is interesting that you say this. There is a research which suggests that diabetes changes the level of various hormones which may lead to increased stress or depression. Hence, i think that it is possible that people with diabetes are more vulnerable to stress, whether the source of the stress is diabetes related or not.
 
shahella said:
It is interesting that you say this. There is a research which suggests that diabetes changes the level of various hormones which may lead to increased stress or depression. Hence, i think that it is possible that people with diabetes are more vulnerable to stress, whether the source of the stress is diabetes related or not.
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But is it the Diabetes are an effect of living with a chronic condition?
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To be honest, I have found that I have LESS stress after being diagnosed with diabetes. I am a positive sort of person, so being made aware of having diabetes, and taking positive steps to alleviate this, has actually (probably silly to say, but it is true for me), made me feel better in many ways. My general mood is better. Increase in exercise is improving my fitness. Loss of weight in a steady and controlled manner makes me feel better physically and mentally. I feel I am more in control of my life now, and can see a future where not only the diabetes will be in remission, but physically and mentally I will be in a better position than I am now.
 
Done but - minor point - I’d have liked a Prefer Not To Say option for Gender, or a Sex question instead or in addition. Lots of people are gender-critical and that question stuck out to me as something that didn’t ‘fit’ with the rest of your questions.

Good luck with your research 🙂
 

Yes i think most long term conditions can have this effect. However in addition to this, i have found articles which suggest that if diabetes is not controlled, higher blood glucose levels can cause biochemical changes in the brain which increases level of stress/depression.
 
surdoux said:
To be honest, I have found that I have LESS stress after being diagnosed with diabetes. I am a positive sort of person, so being made aware of having diabetes, and taking positive steps to alleviate this, has actually (probably silly to say, but it is true for me), made me feel better in many ways. My general mood is better. Increase in exercise is improving my fitness. Loss of weight in a steady and controlled manner makes me feel better physically and mentally. I feel I am more in control of my life now, and can see a future where not only the diabetes will be in remission, but physically and mentally I will be in a better position than I am now.
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Thats great to hear! I am glad that it has had a positive impact 🙂
 
Inka said:
Done but - minor point - I’d have liked a Prefer Not To Say option for Gender, or a Sex question instead or in addition. Lots of people are gender-critical and that question stuck out to me as something that didn’t ‘fit’ with the rest of your questions.

Good luck with your research 🙂
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Thank you for your feedback, i will add this as an option.
 
Hi, thank you to everyone who has completed my survey! I have enjoyed reading your opinions on this subject in the forum too. Unfortunately, I still need more responses in order to meet my target. If there is anyone who has not yet filled it out, I would really appreciate your help!
 
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surdoux said:
To be honest, I have found that I have LESS stress after being diagnosed with diabetes. I am a positive sort of person, so being made aware of having diabetes, and taking positive steps to alleviate this, has actually (probably silly to say, but it is true for me), made me feel better in many ways. My general mood is better. Increase in exercise is improving my fitness. Loss of weight in a steady and controlled manner makes me feel better physically and mentally. I feel I am more in control of my life now, and can see a future where not only the diabetes will be in remission, but physically and mentally I will be in a better position than I am now.
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I agree with surdoux.
Prior to diagnosis I had a number of health issues including anxiety and depression.
I now realise they were largely caused by my following a 'healthy' diet which simply did not suit me and was pushing me into diabetes via pre-diabetes and was leading to weight gain, hormonal imbalances and stress and low mood and poor sleep patterns.

Once I had my diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and I went on to a High Fat Very Low Carb (keto) diet my health and well being immediately improved and it has been doing so ever since. It was like a cloud lifting.

(You can see from my 'signature file' below this post how my blood sugar levels and other tests normalised very quickly and have remained there ever since.)

More than a year on and I have been consistently more healthy and happy than I have been for decades and this is despite having some very difficult and stressful life experiences to cope with on top of the default challenges I have had to deal with for decades.

I don't think I am alone in finding that being diagnosed with diabetes and dealing with the situation logically has led to a much improved standard of life.


Interestingly from a pharmaceutical point of view - many years ago I was prescribed Metformin as a therapy for my PCOS and I took it for 3 years and then stopped because I didn't consider the benefits to be outweighing the side effects and during that period my health did not improve and neither did my mood. Changing my diet has made an incredible difference and I can only imagine how different things may have been for me if I'd only realised the benefits of this way of eating much much earlier. However I am glad to have got there eventually and I am looking forward to being younger and healthier in my sixties and seventies than I was in my forties and fifties.
 
Well, I have to comment re PCOS that lack of certain female natural hormones is at work too. Not much comfort to know, when you're young though! Just very glad it all worked for you though!
 
trophywench said:
Well, I have to comment re PCOS that lack of certain female natural hormones is at work too. Not much comfort to know, when you're young though! Just very glad it all worked for you though!
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Not in my case - I have oestrogen dominance and much too much of it.

Later in life I used progesterone cream to try and damp things down a bit and it worked but again with side effects.
It seems to me that most of my issues stem from carbohydrates in my diet combined with a consistently highly stressful life which destabilised my endocrine system due to overly high cortisol which overloaded my oestrogen receptors and led my body to overproduce oestrogen because it wasn't getting to where it needed to be and my system couldn't sense it via the receptors and kept pumping it out even though there was loads in my blood system. Something similar happened with my blood glucose system too I think. I'm guessing the carbohydrates overloaded my liver and the meds didn't help it either. Now I'm off meds and I'm keeping carbs to a safe minimum I think my liver and endocrine system are getting a chance to rest and function better.
 
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