One report today is by Jeff Howard. He says he waited too late to avoid more longterm damage to his body that can result from diabetes -- failing eyesight, circulatory problems, loss of a part of a toe, fatigue. 20 years after his diagnosis, he's making the dietary, exercise and weight management changes that help, managing stress, and getting enough rest.
He's decided to aggressively self-treat his disease (along with the treatments by doctors and physical therapists). He's positively pursuing positive changes in lifestyle that will help him. Here's the WebMD clip. http://blog.thediabetessite.com/howard-type-two/?utm_source=social%20&utm_medium=dbsaware&utm_campaign=howard-type-two&utm_term=20141103
This insidious disease quietly consumes "a little bit of your body amputated here, a little more later, a little more later," he says rightly.
I recently got hearing aids to help me with my difficulty in hearing some speech. As my audiologist put it: "Diabetes will take what it wants."
I've talked to people whose relatives have said: "I don't care, I'm going to eat what I want." They have known that amputations will be a result and they accept that. They live with and endure amputation after amputation.
Not me. My mother's loss of her left leg below the knee and her struggles to learn to stand upright again on two legs was a stark lesson. But like Jeff Howard, I wasn't serious enough. On my own, I lost part of a toe to what was then diagnosed as diabetes.
The Diabetes Awareness Ribbon is effective because it tells real people's real experiences with diabetes. They're not keeping silent any more about the struggles they have with the disease. I admire their courage in sharing what they are enduring in order to help other people.
They may just get through to Americans who are surrounded by addicting processed food full of sugars-fats-salts.The food industry isn't doing anything to counter diabetes...we have to do it ourselves.
Read the account in the 2013 book by one of my heroes, Dr. David Kessler, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. It's the adaptation for young people of a 2009 book he wrote, The End of Overeating.
But there is nothing in Your Food Is Fooling You -- How Your Brain Is Hijacked by Sugar, Fat, and Salt that won't help any adult trying to contend with diabetes.
It's Diabetes Awareness month. On the Diabetes Awareness Ribbon site, this southern gentleman Jeff Howard has become aggressive. He's not raising his voice. But he's not playing. He's in charge. Back down, diabetes.
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