We are people who have diabetes. Read the David Mendosa website, list of negative words used to describe up and resist using them. Like diabetic, a person who has a heart attack is not forever after known as a cardiac, a person with haemerhoids (excuse spelling) is not a haemerhoid. We are sometimes referred to as being ‘non-complaint’ if we are not gaining control of the condition. We are said to have ‘poor control’ , we are told it is a ‘lifestyle disease’. All have negative connatations. I make no apology for stealing these notes from http://www.mendosa.com, please look at his website and lets change the way we are talked about and how we talk about ourselves.

Only a little rant but I feel better now.

Have taken your point on board and it is very valid. Thanks for making it so well. 😀

I must say I had a real problem when I was diagnosed with diabetes. At first the really competent (not) doctors at South Tyneside told me I had Type I, which I could regard as misfortune, and which was OK in some ways, but meant I ended up injecting insulin quite unnecessarily for almost a year. Thank goodness for the doctors at the QEII in Gateshead, who informed me that a simple blood test tells you which type you have, and I was definitely Type II. I was shattered to think that I had an entirely self inflicted disease. But now I am totally determined to reverse this, because discovering this diet means that now I have the tools. Before I heard of this diet and research I had no idea that losing weight could have such an effect, and because of the extra insulin (thanks again South Tyneside) I had put on a lot of weight. Now I have the means and the motivation – I just need to keep to the guidelines for eight weeks.

There was a post a while ago from someone who’d had similar experiences at hospitals in the North East. Sorry I can’t remember the details.

Iwanttobeslim – you mentioned in your post that you were shattered that you had a self inflicted disease. That’s what I thought about myself (and that’s how it is portrayed on the media) but now I am beginning to think that it really doesn’t look as though it is self inflicted.

There is the clearly bonkers advice that lots of carbs are healthy. Then just walk around a supermarket – how many aisles have any food in them that we can actually eat on BSD. Most processed food is just full of junk. Supposedly healthy low fat foods full of sugar. We are bombarded by adverts for high sugar foods. Once we start eating all the high sugar foods we start craving them more. When my husband stopped eating sugar he said it was worse than giving up smoking. Great for food manufacturers profits but not great for your health.

Cut out the bad carbs and sugar and once you get past the first week or so you lose the cravings for carbs and sugar. After a while you find you don’t need will power because you are no longer craving sugar and actually really don’t want or need it. Bad for the food manufacturers profits but great for our health.

I know that I am ok as long as I stay off the sugar – I feel that the carb monster is safely locked away. Is it locked away for good. You know I don’t really know and I feel that I am safer if I don’t even try to find out. As I absolutely love the food I am eating now I cannot ever see myself going back on the bad stuff but know I will always need to be on guard in case it creeps back into my life.

Can I just say that I am not talking about me. This is an article on the David Mendosa site and it just rang a few bells with me. As to why are we called diabetics when no one else gets called after their illness, why some of the language used is negative and why we are blamed for the illness. I get your point Krysia, it is in some way a lifestyle illness as we are changing our lifestye and improving our health. Just as a smoke can give up smoking. The problem with diabetes is that it is caused by one of the things that keep up alive, food. Also, we have only been doing what everyone else does, eat potatoes with our roast dinner, have rice with our curry or pasta with our meatballs. I really don’t think it is our fault unless we have been reckless with our diet and health. Even then there is so little good advice out there and the big macs are taking over the world. Even here in France where levels of obesity are generally low (10%) they are now rising. I just thought it was an interesting article and worth looking at the website.

I remember doing an NLP course about 20 years ago, and finding the “People with XXX” wording odd to get my head around.
With most things, it’s surprising how natural the less defining/accusatory forms of “person living with” have become so much more common – and how in others it hasn’t – but I certainly hear the “person with” phraseology as frequently as “diabetics”

Clearly just catching on more slowly with some ailments than others!