Have you ever heard someone say, "Oh, I need to eat because my blood sugar is low" or made a light joke about getting diabetes from eating a sugary meal? Well I have, and here is why I find it extremely annoying:
At the age of three I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and at the age of seven, my little brother Billy was also diagnosed as well, with no history of the disease in our family.
The American Diabetes Association says only 5% of people with diabetes have this form of the disease (the other form is Type 2). With Type 1, the body does not produce insulin. The body breaks down the sugars and starches you eat into a simple sugar called glucose, which it then uses for energy. Insulin is a hormone that the body needs to get glucose from the bloodstream into the cells of the body.
Having a low blood sugar (or hypoglycemia) means the body doesn't have enough sugar to use as fuel in patients with diabetes. Symptoms of hypoglycemia include confusion, dizziness, feeling shaky, hunger, headaches, irritability, pounding heart, pale skin, sweating, trembling, weakness, and anxiety.
Now that you have a general understanding of what Type 1 Diabetes and having a low blood sugar is like, here is a personal description about what being low ACTUALLY feels like:
Have you ever been so shaky and weak that you are incapable of pouring yourself a glass of orange juice? Have you ever experienced hunger so bad that your stomach feels like an endless pit (I often compare myself to a bear preparing for hibernation)? Have you ever felt so emotionally unstable that you cry uncontrollably one second, and laugh the next? Have you ever been so irritable that everything in life makes you want to scream? These are all the physical feelings and emotions felt when experiencing hypoglycemia.
Having a low blood sugar is one of the most frightening experiences, in my opinion, because you lose all control of your body and emotions to this disease. I've acted in ways I would not normally have acted, and done things I would have never normally done had my blood sugar not been low. More often than not, you find yourself turning into a completely different person.
As a child, I experienced a few hypoglycemic-induced seizures, creating in me an almost irrational fear of letting my body get to that place again. The fear of being low has taken a toll on my life in many ways; I never want to be the person that I am when I'm low, which is an easily annoyed, hungry, dizzy monster. I'm scared to give myself too much insulin after I eat out of fear that I will become that monster again, which results in higher blood sugars. Lastly, feeling weak and out of control simply causes debilitating feelings of stress and anxiety.
All this to say: is your blood sugar really going low when you're actually just getting hungry? Most of the time, probably not (I understand there are certain situations where your blood sugar can go low without being diabetic, I'm not talking to those people with those circumstances). Having a disease or illness that you are unable to get rid of is not something to lightly joke about.
So next time you get the urge to make a diabetes joke...just don't.
