“You don’t look like you have type 2 diabetes.”
I heard that a lot in the first few months after diagnosis. A lot of the time it came from medical professionals. It was usually a casual comment. I know what they mean: although at my heaviest I was slightly overweight, I was never fat, and at the time of diagnosis I was actually in my ideal weight range.
The truth is there is no “type 2” look. People with type 2 come in all shapes and sizes, and even if you don’t “look” like you have diabetes, you can still have it.
Risk is something else you have to be careful about. On the World Diabetes Day website there is a type 2 diabetes risk assessment tool. If I go through that and enter my details for when I was at my least healthy, I get a 1 in 100 chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Yet I was lucky enough to develop it. Low risk does not mean no risk.
Anyway, as I have mentioned it, World Diabetes Day is on the 14th November every year. The whole of November is celebrated as Diabetes Awareness Month. Diabetes Ireland encourages us to Go Blue for diabetes awareness, blue being the colour of diabetes, and that is why I have re-dyed my hair blue. I had blue hair before I was diagnosed, by the way. Blue hair is cool.
The Diabetes Ireland Health Awareness Exhibition is on at the Riu Plaza, The Gresham Hotel, 23 Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin 1, on Sunday, 10th November from 12:00 noon to 16:00.