The Role Genetics Play in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes

Guilt can take a toll on parents who feel like they’ve passed down “the diabetes gene” to their children. Go down memory lane with Brittany and Kim as they discuss their struggles with type 1 and type 2 and learn how they’ve grown to own it.

Transcript

00:00

I heard you talk about how they kind of made you feel like you carried some level of guilt

00:06

or responsibility in my diagnosis, just through your genetics. I carried a lot of guilt.

00:14

From the mom standpoint, what do you wish they had done different or told you different? I think the one thing that helped that some is when your doctor come into the hospital room,

00:24

and he could tell that I was having these feelings. And he wanted to know the family background. And I kept saying, well, all of my family has type 2 diabetes.

00:34

And he looked at me and he said, OK, you're comparing apples and oranges.

00:42

What your family has is not what your daughter has, and you need to quit beating yourself up over it. Like, I had talked about how much I

00:49

have to plan every choice I make, like as far as meals. And you remember having to meal plan

00:55

before it was the thing to meal plan because you had to know what we were going to have. But how much do you do that now for you,

01:03

or do you feel like you have the freedom to kind of choose on the fly? I choose more on the fly.

01:09

Before you were diagnosed, we might have dinner at 6 o'clock one night. We might have dinner at 8 o'clock one night.

01:16

I remember it. And you know what else I remember? I remember stopping at the gas station every afternoon after school and getting a soda and a ZERO bar.

01:24

And I really miss those ZERO bars too. We went from being a typical, we ate when we ate,

01:33

we slept late, we did this, we did that, to being very regimented. I didn't know we could do that until we actually did it,

01:41

I mean-- Until we had to. Until we had to. How'd you feel telling my friend's parents what was-- or is that like, the point that you realized that I really

01:49

had to learn to do this for myself, because at some point you were going to have to let me go out? Yeah, there was no way.

01:56

It was either sit on you at home and keep you home and never let you go anywhere. How would've that worked out?

02:03

Would not have. In this case, that has worked to your advantage. So would you tell that as advice both to diabetics

02:12

in your situation and diabetics in my situation, but the parents too, that you have to--

02:19

Everybody has to learn to do it. To own it. Yeah, you have to own it. You have to know it's yours. 'Cause nobody's going to make you go to the gym, are they?

02:26

No, no matter how much you try. But if you own it, then that's going to play to your advantage.