I have always found some of the terminology used in our diabetes world a bit…….odd. How many of us have been in the company of strangers when our child, who is a good distance away, checks their blood sugar and shouts to us; “I’m high again!” Funny to watch the strangers hearing this and shaking their heads in a ‘tsk-tsk’ shame on us and our drug addict kids.
Not a big fan of the Type 1/Type 2 naming club either. Now I also think that we can waste millions of hours in trying to change it and many have certainly tried. But I am not so sure I have ever heard of a Type 1/Type 2 Cancer, allergy, MS, cystic fibrosis, flu or anything else for that matter. Type 1…..type 2…..really? Nonfunctional Pancreas Diabetes……..or NFP………and Low-functional Pancreas Diabetes LPD….perhaps. But truthfully Type 1 and Type 2 is surely better than Juvenile and Adult Onset Diabetes……what a mess THAT was…….right?
Another phrase I have always hated, never understood, and also lived with in one of our children is Brittle Diabetes. Short version/definition is extremely hard to control diabetes. Brittle sounds like if you drop it, it will break. Also interesting that it is the same name as a hugely high in sugar peanut-candy treat, don’t you think? It certainly does not describe what we went through. Perhaps, ‘what-the-heck-is-going-on-we-never-sleep-she-has-no-idea-what-she-is-feeling-and-we-all-feel-out-of-control diabetes might be a better name although tad long I admit.
How about in your life? What diabetes phrases or words have had you scratching your head? Perhaps it keeps you up at night. Or up in the early morning. In the dawn….a dawn phenomena, oh wait………
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One reply on “Brittle Diabetes?…….and Other ‘Fun’ with Names”
I have for a long time thought only us old farts still used the term
‘brittle’. However, i recently heard the parent of a young child used the term. I actually do not mind the term used in reference to me. But I was a little of put hearing it in reference to a child.
Being diagnosed in 1974, we would discuss brittle to indicate severity of disease. The more brittle the more severe which means less predictable and less stable and likely more unable to be alone, drive, or watch after children. This all occurred before modern pumps, modern insulin and modern times.
As I said the term is largely no longer used. It should stay that way. No one needs to tell me they are ‘brittle’ for me to take their diabetes seriously. As we often say in TUDiabetes, there is no good kind of diabetes. Even if yours is brittle and mine is not (whatever that means), It is still diabetes and for me tha tis no damn good. .