If your doctor says it's time for you to take insulin, it's only because that's the best way to manage your blood sugar. The primary goal of diabetes treatment is to keep blood sugars as close to normal as possible to reduce the risk of diabetic complications.
Toward that end, most people with type 2 diabetes begin a treatment program of diet, exercise, and perhaps one glucoselowering pill. Then, within a few years, either the dose or the amount of pills they take (or both) is increased. Also, insulin may be added to their protocol.
The truth is this: If you control your blood sugar as close to normal as possible, along with the other conditions of diabetes such as high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high blood pressure, and if you lose weight if necessary and get regular exercise, you have the greatest opportunity to stabilize your diabetes and slow or perhaps even halt its progress. You also may be able to eliminate the need for medication (although the need for medication may return). But this doesn't mean that if you are prescribed insulin, you are a failure.
Even if you do "all the right things" to take care of your diabetes, you might at some point need insulin. How the body responds to diabetes is highly individualized, and for some people genetics, certain medicines, and other health conditions are also determinants of how their diabetes will progress.
What's also true is this: Judging yourself a failure if you need to use insulin is just that - a judgment - and it's one that is not in your best interest. Psychologists say it will benefit you much more to understand that if insulin is being recommended, it's simply because insulin is the best medicine to manage your diabetes. Now it's up to you to commit to or continue to do your best to manage your diabetes, to respect yourself for your efforts, and to move forward. The only "failure" related to using insulin occurs if your doctor is telling you to do so and you refuse.
"Insulin changed my life," says Gary, having used it for five years. "I have so much more energy, and my blood sugars are in such good control. I only wish I hadn't fought my doctor for so long." Gary began his treatment on oral medication, a healthful diet, and exercise, and this kept his diabetes in reasonably good control, with A1C values around 7.0 percent, for the first few years.
Within two days of his starting a basal (long-acting) insulin, Gary's blood sugar dropped significantly, his energy returned, his mood brightened, and he scheduled his first adventure trip in a long time.
Psychologist Wendy Satin-Rapaport says one reason why people associate insulin with failure is that it seems to be the last straw after so many "failures" with diabetes tasks: years of unsuccessful attempts to lose weight, not being able to adhere to an exercise regimen, or getting a complication that they've worked so hard to avoid.
People with diabetes may also experience "diabetes aggravation," uncomfortable feelings brought on by situations unique to the process of living with diabetes. Repeatedly experiencing these situations heightens feelings of failure. Such situations include: health worries about the present and future,anxieties and frustrations related to blood sugar testing, criticism from family members or one's medical team and food temptations at mealtimes and parties.
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