History of Diabetes - I lie...

[Paulus Magnus]

Consider, BTW, the cases of women who experience gestational diabetes (diabetes during pregnancy.) In most cases, if properly managed, these cases of diabetes resolve once the woman gives birth. Without getting too far into that, point is, once diabetic, not any more. I remain under the impression from your two posts here that you may not be diabetic today. I don't know how/if you treat yourself specifically for diabetes (diet, exercise, medication) or how/if/how frequently you monitor your blood sugar.

This is it, I don't treat myself in any way whatsoever and I'm not required to. However, I do live differently, I eat more healthily, eat less sugar, more active and I may test my blood sugar once a year if I suspect something is amiss. These are my changes though and not part of any Diabetic maintenance regime. I'm not monitored in anyway whatsoever as I was proven to be entirely normal.

If you're diabetic and under control, you take information demonstrating these two things to your dive physician. As a few others have noted on this thread, diabetes or not, you can dive your heart out! It takes management if you are, but you get used to that. Living conservatively does not mean living less than fully. I repeat my suggestion that you get the UK diabetes association(s) involved if you still run into resistance.

Even if you were someone like my father - who is refractory to insulin, wears a pump and goes through so much insulin he still has to inject frequently - I'd dive with you in a flash too. That's because he's done some learning about diabetes and controls it as well as anyone, and it does not dominate his life.

I'm not diabetic so I don't have to control anything. I can eat as much chocolate fudge cake as I like with the only effect being an enlarged waist measurement. I can also eat nothing for 24 hours, run 10 miles and only have the normal effect of feeling light-headed and a bit nauseas. There is nothing to control today but there was.

 

[bridgediver]

Paulus - what I think we're saying about a second opinon is get another doctor. It sounds like you should be cleared for diving to me.

good luck and happy new year!

 

[cliffdiver]

Okay, PM! Well, that's as I suspected (the was, am not any longer part.)

You say you want your life back? All right, you need to continue consulting with a physician (unless you can gleam from your own medical records to accomplish this) in order to establish the following:

1. You want it in the clearest terms: "I, So-and-So, M.D., do hereby declare that Paulus Magnus is not diabetic. Period. Not controlled, euglycemic Type II, never Type I, not diabetic of any kind. That is, his blood glucose levels and insulin responses are absolutely normal or show no signs intolerance, etc., whatever." Or,

2. "PM experienced a temporary condition which was described as diabetic at the time, but which we now know was not diabetes, per se. He does not have diabetes now."

3. If there exists within your medical records from 1999 any official "Diabetes" diagnosis, then you want some form of offical record that, "while they may have thought he had diabetes back then, he, in fact and in light of new diagnostic techniques/knowledge/whatever, did not and never did." That is, "that 'diabetes' diagnosis was a misdiagnosis or is no longer an accurate diagnosis, in retrospect."

Get the point? If you know you are not just a well-managed type II diabetic today, then you need an official doctor to officially enter that into the record today and now. "Not now and never was" would allow you to officially and honestly respond "No" to a "history of diabetes?" question. Got it?

I am thrilled you are living a much healthier life today. Nonetheless, you need to officially document that you weren't diabetic then and aren't now. Indeed, one can experience very high blood sugars secondary to some other disease state, i.e. a "diabetic" episode, and have never been, accurately stated, diabetic. It could be that that doggone "D-word" should never have been thrown out into the open in the first place.

Again, you need the second opinion/diabetes specialist consultation to officially establish the above for the medical records. You either do that and answer "No" to the history question from hereonin, or you establish at least that you aren't in any form diabetic today, and then you see a dive physician to get cleared, and you give the dive doc the documentation that says you're healthier than ever, i.e. "that (1999) was temporary, I'm not diabetic now. Period." The dive doc might then look at what your other doctor(s) have just determined and say, "Okay, then what're you here for? Go dive!"

Finally, for the record and on behalf of the many diabetics who dive and whose dive buddys have responded to your post:

Diabetics never chose to have their conditions. Ever. Obviously. Yet they have learned and worked through all the difficult food-sugar-insulin/or not-when and how to eat issures, and now many of them have full and healthy lives, with no desire to "get their lives back." While their lives do require more careful management, they can pursue activities as vigorous and technical as can anyone else. They learn to live with the extra steps they have to take to live, and then they ski, run, climb mountains, swim, and... scuba dive.

 

[Paulus Magnus]

Many thanks for the advice CliffDiver.

I just wanted to say that I'd rather be Diabetic than a recovered Diabetic. As a Diabetic you know what the deal is, you accept it and get on with life, as I did for the 9 months I was injecting. And the world knows how to deal with you, you're known and everybody deals with you as a Diabetic. However, I feel that I'm now in some sort of limbo state. I'm not Diabetic and I'm not allowed to be normal because of this history. Therefore the world doesn't know how to deal with me and I don't know how to deal with them, other than by lying and denying the history. At least everybody then knows how to treat and deal with me.

 

[DiverDuane]

I am a type I, insulin dependant, diabetic. I dove at Catalina Island 2 weeks ago. I was on a cruise and signed up on the ship. We dove with one of the local dive operators. I didn't tell them that I was a diabetic. They wouldn't have let me go. Even though I'm aow certified and had my card(s) with me they wouldn't have let me. I told my dive buddy (a guy I never met before) that I was a diabetic and that I would check my sugar before the dive. He had no problem with it. When we were finished I gave the instructor the scenario: "I have a buddy that's diabetic, would you have let him dive?" He said he would let a diabetic dive if they had a DR.'s release. I don't usually carry a dr.'s note, so I would have missed out. Even if I did carry a note with me you never know what kind of operator/instructor you may get. Most just don't want to risk the liability. It's better for them because if I have a problem while under water they can't be held liable if I never told them. I did supply my dive shop with a dr.'s note before starting my training. They have me get a new one every year.

Duane