I'm getting more and more
anti-type terminology. While Type 1 and LADA are pretty clearly defined, Type 2 is just a garbage-can diagnosis,
because there are SO many things that can go out of whack to cause what
appears to be "classical" Type 2, and one person's treatment needs may be very different from
another's.
And I just read an article about diabetes in Africa (which also occurs in other tropical countries) that is NOT Type 2, nor is it type 1b,
although that does occur. They are calling it Type 3 (sorry, caretakers, you slot is being occupied! And not only that, some are now calling Alzheimer's Type 3, too. So WHY am I anti-type terminology???), and it is related to malnutrition, and not insulin
resistance (there goes the Type 2 criteria), and occurs often, but not always in
children. If the child's nutrition status improves, and there is no
permanent damage to the pancreas, it can go away (there goes the Type 1
criteria). Personally, I would rather see diabetes classified by cause:
autoimmune diabetes, insulinopenic diabetes, insulin-resistant diabetes,
surgical-diabetes, malnutrition-diabetes, PCOS diabetes, Cystic
Fibrosis diabetes, whoa, I've already described 7 types! If diabetes
were described in this way, it would at least give docs a clue as to how
to treat -- as an insulinopenic diabetic, I don't want docs harping on
oral drugs, which I'm afraid will happen if I have to switch docs when I
go on Medicare.
Don't you think it's time to stop oversimplifying diabetes, and recognizing it for the vast array of disorders it actually represents, and start concentrating on identifying and treating people properly?
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