As medical doctors and nurses huddled round me, introducing themselves as hurriedly as they pricked my fingertips with needles and caught IVs in my veins, and I attempted my hardest to tune out the encircling chaos of the emergency room on a vacation weekend, I had only one thought working by means of my thoughts: Please don’t be diabetes. Earlier than that weekend, it had by no means as soon as occurred to me that diabetes was even a risk for me. I used to be nicely into maturity, having celebrated my 27^th birthday simply two weeks earlier. I had at all times been the image of well being and had no household historical past of the illness. However after I noticed my physician earlier that morning, following weeks of wide-ranging (and more and more worsening) signs, like fatigue, excessive thirst, and vital weight reduction, and he ordered an ambulance to take me to the hospital after my glucose reached dangerously excessive ranges, it appeared, surprising because it was, {that a} diabetes analysis could also be in my future.

Even so, I spent the hours that adopted in utter denial, desperately clinging to every other rationalization. From what I understood, diabetes was the product of an unhealthy way of life, with plenty of junk meals and little bodily exercise. I recalled heeding parental warnings to not eat an excessive amount of sweet and sweets, lest I develop the illness and tearfully watching as Julia Roberts’s Shelby died from diabetic problems in Metal Magnolias. Extra not too long ago, advertisements for medicine like Ozempic and Mounjaro, which promised weight reduction to diabetics, solely additional solidified my concept of what an individual with diabetes appeared like. I believed that diabetes was the punishment introduced on by an individual’s unhealthy decisions, and it was deserving of all of the stigma that surrounded it. So, when the medical doctors returned to verify my new sort 1 diabetes analysis, I used to be horrified and heartbroken, and I didn’t know what I’d presumably accomplished to deliver this on.

What I quickly realized, nevertheless, was that my understanding of diabetes was all flawed. What I assumed I knew about it was solely incorrect, and I used to be removed from alone in having these misconceptions.

Meet the specialists:

• Michael Natter, MD, is a board-certified endocrinologist at NYU Langone Well being in New York Metropolis
• Elana Dumont, PsyD, is a New York Metropolis-based licensed medical psychologist
• David Ahn, MD, is a board-certified endocrinologist and chief of diabetes at Hoag Hospital in Newport Seashore, California

On this story:

The distinction between sort 1 and sort 2 diabetes

Confusion round diabetes is widespread, and most of it stems from a lack of information about its differing kinds. The 2 commonest, sort 1 and sort 2 diabetes, are sometimes grouped collectively (together with by the CDC), regardless of being two completely different situations. Though each end in excessive blood sugar and may result in the identical sorts of signs, sort 1 is definitely an autoimmune illness, whereas sort 2 is usually introduced on by way of life elements. “Sort 2 diabetes is an actual epidemic, and for those who take a look at prediabetes and sort 2 collectively, it makes up nearly 50 p.c of the grownup inhabitants [in America],” says Michael Natter, MD, a board-certified endocrinologist at NYU Langone Well being in New York Metropolis, who makes a speciality of treating diabetes. “Most laypeople assume diabetes is diabetes, so when somebody says diabetes, it conjures up a picture of sort 2.”

Diabetes is without doubt one of the oldest identified medical situations, having appeared in historic paperwork as early as 3,000 years in the past. As a result of the signs and finish results of excessive blood glucose are the identical for all diabetics, it wasn’t till 1936, a decade after the invention of insulin, that diabetes was categorized into two sorts. Whereas insulin injection helped efficiently handle the illness in lots of instances, others didn’t reply to the remedy, making it clear that the absence of insulin was not at all times the problem.