As a youth growing up around my elders whom mostly are of, the African American Community; diabetes is prevalent for them- some would say it is due to the food desserts caused in, the low income communities (Ghettos) created for minorities mostly through low income housing – However that is a thought for another time.
As a youth though I use to wonder why people that were relatively young around me use to eat sugar free and low carbohydrate foods, watching their salts. Now as an adult I can understand how the availability of foods can cause unhealthy eating habits and also how the cost of “good for you” food is a real struggle ya’ll.
We really have tried all kinds of diets. Keto diets, B.R.A.T. diets, Portion counting diets, beach body diets you name it just to help wifey get to a healthy A1 counts and lower insulin intake.
I really have to wrap my mind around insulin dependency and careful minded eating habits. This is all new and I can only imagine what it must have been like for someone that has recently been diagnosed with this disease.
We can all relate to having to watch our diet, but for it to actually be a life or death issue! I am glad there is new innovative technologies now that help individuals keep count of carbohydrates and blood sugars.
“Nevertheless, even with the technologies that are suppose to make health monitoring things easier, it is daunting the responsibility involved, but we not only do what we can. Sometimes we do what we must to survive”.
The scary part about all of this is the expense involved with diabetes maintenance. You have to purchase test strips, meters, monitors, medications and health insurance only covers a portion of what is needed, so there is an out of pocket expense and if you can not afford your insulin then there is not much you can do but watch what you eat. If you are not good at math then you can only hope that you calculate the correct amounts of insulin because you could fall into a Diabetic coma if you are unable to control your blood sugars correctly.
It is a real catch 22 for someone with diabetes because; yes we are all born dying and trying to enjoy the good days in life, but someone with diabetes fights every day of their life trying to avoid loosing it and have those same good days that we all have.
#starvingforacure #gastroparesis
