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Money Today Reporter Jeong Sim-gyo | 01/27/2024 08:00
[MT리포트] Type 1 diabetes in which tears are wiped behind a needle ①
Editor’s Note | There are people who cry twice when they hear the name “diabetes”. There are 44,552 type 1 diabetes patients in Korea (as of 2022). When diagnosed, you have to inject insulin at least four times a day and prick your finger several times a day in order to survive. There is no medicine or cure, so their bodies are riddled with needle marks. What makes things more difficult for them is the cold look of the people around them and the financial burden. The focus is on patients with type 1 diabetes and their families who wipe away their tears with needles, as well as the ills of our society that they suffer from.
Park Yoon-hee (pseudonym, 8), who came to Seoul with her father Park Geun-yong on the 19th to meet Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo, lowers her blood sugar by eating glucose candies Altitude rapid to sudden symptoms of hypoglycemia. /Photo=Reporter Park Mi-joo “My wife’s cell phone search bar said ‘How to die without pain.’ (Crying) What’s even scarier is that my daughter will grow up and make an extreme decision. The moment I want.” Making that choice is when it comes to… changing parents’ minds by remembering that they were dedicated to their daughters… (sobs) That’s that Goal of my life.” (Mr. A, father of a child with type 1 diabetes) There is a disease that is common but not common. It is “type 1 diabetes”. Everyone knows “diabetes,” but there are many people who are unfamiliar with “type 1 diabetes.” Although the name of the disease is unknown, the number of patients diagnosed with this disease in Korea is 50,000 (44,552 in 2022). △The difference from type 2 diabetes is that the immune system destroys the beta cells of the pancreas, which means the pancreas can no longer produce insulin at all. △The difference from type 2 diabetes is that there are no oral medications and must be treated only with daily, lifelong injections.
Patients and their families are equally confused on the day of the initial diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Park Geun-yong (chairman of the Sejong City Pancreatic Insufficiency Parents Association), the father of his second daughter, Park Yun-hee (pseudonym, 8 years old), also did the same. In July last year, Mr. Park received a call from Yoonhee’s school saying, “There are abnormal findings in a urine test, so go to the hospital quickly.” The next day, he was shocked by the news. It turned out that Yoonhee, who was healthy, had type 1 diabetes.
But Mr. Park, who saw his daughter lying in the hospital ward the next day and receiving insulin injections, didn’t even have time to be sad. This is because they had to be trained by medical staff on how to give an injection, what symptoms occur in hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and what to do in the event of hypoglycemic shock. Mr Park said: “Type 1 diabetes was not recognized as a serious incurable disease or a rare incurable disease, so the length of hospital stay in a tertiary general hospital was only 5 to 7 days. As soon as I was diagnosed, I had no time to grieve.” “I had to get an education first, but I couldn’t think of anything,” he said, expressing his feelings at the time. In the first month after diagnosis, Mr Park suffered from extreme stress, causing him to lose 15kg in weight.
A KakaoTalk conversation between Kim Mi-young, president of the Korea Type 1 Diabetes Association, and her type 1 diabetic son on March 11. This is a text message I urgently sent to my son as he checked his blood sugar levels in real time checked on his smartphone. /Photo=Reporter Park Mi-joo Like Yoon-hee, 3,941 children and adolescents under the age of 19 are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which is 8.8% of the total (as of 2022). When a growing child in a family is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, it usually results in “complete” sacrifice by one of the parents. This is because a child can go into hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia in an instant throughout the day, requiring thorough, real-time treatment. Parents literally have to be on call 24 hours a day because they don’t know when blood sugar levels can change drastically within 24 hours. For this reason, in a dual-earner couple, one of them has no choice but to quit their job or take a leave of absence. Yoonhee’s father, Mr. Park, also takes parental leave and looks after his child. Although Yunhee wears an insulin pump, she checks her blood sugar by pricking her fingertip with a needle and drawing blood at least four times a day, and packs candy and drinks in case her blood sugar suddenly drops. Yunhee, who recently celebrated her winter vacation, wanted to learn Taekwondo but experienced the pain of frustration again. When I told the Taekwondo gym that my child had type 1 diabetes, I was denied registration. Mr. Park expressed his bitterness, saying, “The taekwondo gym would have been overloaded if an emergency situation had arisen.” Ultimately, Yunhee stays at home for the entire vacation. Mr. Park also cried as he looked at Yoon-hee’s diary, in which she wrote, “What did I do wrong to make mom and dad have a hard time?”
According to patients with type 1 diabetes, Yoonhee’s case is “the tip of the iceberg.” There are many cases where parents discourage children from meeting their friends with type 1 diabetes on the grounds that “it is not okay to meet a sick child.” Type 1 diabetes is not just for children, but also for adult patients an eyesore and a scarlet letter. There are many cases where a man’s marriage was broken off after he disclosed his type 1 diabetes before marriage, or a man who was exempt from military service due to type 1 diabetes was rejected after he had given the reason for his military exemption in an interview.
A type 1 diabetes blood sugar monitoring kit that Yoonhee’s father, Park Geun-yong, carries with him every day to monitor his blood sugar levels. /Photo=Reporter Park Mi-joo
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Although 91% of patients are adults, it is mistaken for “juvenile diabetes.”
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One of the reasons it affects adult patients is the popular belief that “type 1 diabetes = juvenile diabetes.” This is due to the belief that type 1 diabetes occurs primarily in children, but in reality, 91.2% of all patients are adults over 19 years of age. Seonghee Lee (34 years old), born in 1990, first developed type 1 diabetes four years ago when she was pregnant with her first child (37 weeks). Due to ketoacidosis caused by high blood sugar, I experienced shortness of breath and was initially misdiagnosed as asthma. About three weeks after giving birth, Ms. Lee went to the emergency room when she found it difficult to breathe and eventually collapsed outside the emergency room. When he came to his senses, his disease was called type 1 diabetes. This was unexpected for him because, like his peers, he enjoyed drinking cola at a young age and had no problems with gestational diabetes. Mr Lee said: “It was the first time I heard about type 1 diabetes, but I decided to accept it positively.” He also added: “There is a societal perception that type 1 diabetes is ‘juvenile diabetes’. is, and so is government support.” The focus is on children, so the financial burden as an adult patient is high.” “He complained.
In fact, Mr. Lee’s monthly expenses amount to over 270,000 won. In addition, I paid 3.5 million won (based on out-of-pocket costs) for the insulin pump device alone, and the amount of insulin injected varies depending on the day’s condition, so my wallet is always tight. Even when I wear an insulin pump, I sometimes slip into hypoglycemia at some point, so I feel like I’m walking on thin ice. Mr Lee said: “As I was driving my child to a supermarket with my child in the pushchair, I suddenly had extremely low blood sugar levels and even after eating all the sweets I had, I stayed put because of it was.” did not recover. Even when my child tried to go to the supermarket alone, “I couldn’t move, so the distance to my child temporarily decreased,” he recalled of the precarious moment. If type 1 diabetes develops in a woman like Lee, who is responsible for pregnancy and child-rearing, it can be dangerous not only for the mother but also for the baby. There are also cases where a mother with type 1 diabetes drops the baby while holding him due to sudden hypoglycemic shock or briefly loses consciousness and leaves the child unattended, which is confused with child abuse. People around me confuse type 1 diabetes with type 2 diabetes and mockingly criticize me, saying things like, “It’s because you don’t exercise and you’re lazy,” “Lose some weight,” or ” This is because you eat a lot of sweets.” There are countless cases where women are pressured into divorce or treated badly by their in-laws.
Seonghee Lee, whom I met at a restaurant in Gwangmyeong-si, Gyeonggi-do on the 25th, checks her blood sugar before a meal, calculates the amount of carbohydrates in a bowl of rice, and injects herself with insulin in advance. Mr Lee was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes four years ago. /Photo=Reporter Jeong Sim-gyo Lee Seong-hee ate while using an insulin pump when she met with a reporter on the 25th, but two hours after the meal, her blood sugar level rose to 283 mg/dL, so she took additional insulin injected. If blood sugar levels exceed 140 mg/dL 2 hours after a meal, it is called hyperglycemia. That day, Mr. Lee noticed oil and sweat forming around his nose and felt extreme fatigue. He realized that this was a sign of high blood sugar and immediately checked his blood sugar./Photo = Reporter Jeong Sim-gyo Even in these cases In certain situations, patients find it difficult to activate the positive circuit. There are a number of people in the type 1 diabetic community who are coping with it with the encouragement of their fellow patients. There are several communities dedicated to type 1 diabetes patients, in the open chat rooms of KakaoTalk and the cafes of Naver. Ms. Lee serves as co-director of an open chat room called Type 1 Diabetes & Pregnancy and Childcare Room, sharing information about symptoms and measures to treat cases like her who develop Type 1 diabetes before and after pregnancy or childbirth. It is said that people who go to a certain area, experience hypoglycemic shock and urgently need insulin-related parts but cannot get them, often post in the community to get help. Mr Lee said: “When you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes you can’t help but feel so hopeless that the sky turns dark. Being active in a community of patients with the same concerns can give you the strength to overcome them.”
[저작권자 @머니투데이, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]
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