Life with T2
TAMING THE BEAST Diabetes NZ volunteer Grace Wyatt shares her type 2 story.
I
burst into tears. It was February 2019, and my new doctor had just told me that I had type 2 diabetes. I’d been aware of the probability for many years but had hoped to avoid the family trap I’d inherited – and the medical predisposition I have as the result of surgery. With the help of tissues and careful handling by this new doctor, I got over myself, and we discussed the situation. I wanted to try and reverse my HbA1c, and she was reluctant to put me on medications immediately, so she readily agreed. I was sceptical about reversing the diagnosis, but, for reasons I’ll go into soon, I was more suspicious of diabetic medications. We talked about what I could do to help myself. I subsequently found out that this was something that should have been discussed, in depth, with me at least three years previously. Apparently, I had been prediabetic without knowing it. I’d been concerned about my slow weight gain for many years but could not seem to shift it, and although I was told to lose weight in 2018, I don’t remember being told I had insulin resistance, or that I had pre-diabetes, or what either of them meant. In 2019, my new doctor and I talked about how I could lose weight and continue doing exercise as, at 65, I was already walking 5–6 km a day. (I still do.) She’d read my notes and knew that I am prone to anxiety and raised stress levels. She was purposefully laid back about the situation as we have since discussed. To be fair, I also think this may have been why my previous doctor, knowing my family and medical history and my tendency to anxiety, had not been specific. However, that was the very reason I needed to have been told and supported, to avoid what I was now facing. Maybe there had been an assumption that I already knew, given my family experience, or maybe there was miscommunication on both sides. In any case, I’d already proven that I prefer to meet medical crises head-on. A RARE METFORMIN ALLERGY
My background is one of genetic predisposition for late onset type 2 diabetes, which my maternal grandmother and mother, sister, many first cousins, paternal aunties,
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DIABETES WELLNESS | Summer 2021
