A Visual of Diabetes Burnout

This week I participated in an experiment where I made a mark on my arm each time I thought about diabetes. This began as a campaign during diabetes awareness month, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to join in at the time.

So, this week I had the time and the marker (thanks to my daughter’s school supplies) to do it. It was very telling. I thought about diabetes 41 times.

By noon I only had a few marks but as the day progressed, the marks added up quickly. I’d like to think that my morning routine of centering myself helps with having lower diabetes thoughts. I learned that almost every time I entered the kitchen, I thought about diabetes. This was very interesting because I never made the connection before now.  Also, there are times when I was not thinking about diabetes but my insulin pump, cell phone, or watch vibrated or beeped, and caused me to think about diabetes.

What this experiment does not show is how long some of those thoughts were. When planning lunch for, it took minutes to figure out the carb counts. However, when I checked my blood sugar quickly after eating, it took only seconds to do that.

This is a good visual for helping us understand how diabetes burnout can happen. When you spend so much time in your day thinking about diabetes, it is understandable that you want to take a break. This could also help us discover ways to get through it.

I’d love for you to watch and share my short 3-minute video explaining diabetes burnout and the results of my experiment, here’s the link.

*You can see images from others by following the hashtag #sTr1peD