Diabetics can eat sugar

During Biology revision today my teacher had skittles and I had just come into the classroom from doing my French exam. I was doing a past paper for revision and I heard her say "Oh Ellie do you wan-" and she sort of just stopped mid sentence; I knew what was coming so I sat up and I said "What is it?" and she said "Wait, you're diabetic I can't feed you sweets, right?" I laughed and I said "yes you can. I can eat sweets!" and she sort of just giggled and was like "oh okay here!"
In this instance, at least my teacher didn't just assume I couldn't, she made sure of it first. Even though there was nothing to make sure of because for the fifty billionth time Diabetics can eat sweets. 
I don't like that people have this misconception about diabetics and sugar; they don't really understand that we are not allergic to sugar. We didn't get diabetes by eating too much sugar. Sugar will not kill us. Blood sugar doesn't rise from just pure sugar; everything we eat makes it go high. Especially for me being a teenager, I go to school and I know that a lot of the girls I go to school with don't really know that I can eat sugar. Often when they ask me questions about my diabetes they will ask if I can eat sugar. I will always end up giving them some sort of massive explanation for it in the end, only because they get confused about half way through the conversation.

A lot of it stems from literally, lack of understanding of the disease. I get things like "oh I didn't want to make you go high" It isn't understood that my insulin is there to counteract the food I eat to stop my blood sugar from rising too high. Some people believe that my insulin is what makes my blood sugar rise; no. I would probably be dead right now if my insulin pump made my blood sugar rise.

I mean sure, if I didn't have my insulin then eating anything with sugar in it probably wouldn't be a very good idea, but I do and it is the reason that I can eat sugary things when it is offered to me, I mean actually...my insulin is the reason that I can even eat anything; the reason that I am even alive right now.

Carbohydrates, are a form of sugar- every single food has carbohydrate in it- except from meat and cheese. Carbohydrates make my blood sugar rise just as sweets would do. It is no different. I just take my insulin for it and things are all good again...hopefully.

 But everyone has to eat things in moderation; so diabetic or not- never eat too much sugar!

-Ellie
[Peace&Insulin]