What is diabetes burnout? Feeling burnout because of diabetes can be different for everyone, but it can mean you stop taking care of yourself and your diabetes. For some people, this means skipping insulin doses or not taking your tablets. Some describe it as hitting a wall or giving up.
Diabetes burnout is the term given to the state of disillusion, frustration and somewhat submission to the condition of diabetes. Burnout can be characterised by a person's complete disregard for their blood sugar levels.
This feeling of burnout has a clear and definite impact on the lives of people with diabetes. Over half of respondents (57%) reported a strong or overwhelming impact that takes the form of lack of sleep, feelings of depression and anxiety and neglect of blood glucose management.
People with diabetes are 2 to 3 times more likely to have depression than people without diabetes. Only 25% to 50% of people with diabetes who have depression get diagnosed and treated. But treatment—therapy, medicine, or both—is usually very effective. And without treatment, depression often gets worse, not better.
Diabetes doesn't just affect you physically, it can affect you emotionally too. Whether you've just been diagnosed or you've lived with diabetes for a long time, you may need support for all the emotions you're feeling. This could be stress, feeling low and depressed, or burnt out.
Among diabetic, higher blood glucose, or hyperglycemia, has historically been associated with anger or sadness, while blood sugar dips, or hypoglycemia, has been associated with nervousness. Persons with diabetes are not the only ones vulnerable to mood disturbances as a result of blood sugar fluctuations.
Managing diabetes can be hard. Sometimes you may feel overwhelmed. Having diabetes means that you need to check your blood sugar levels often, make healthy food choices, be physically active, remember to take your medicine, and make other good decisions about your health several times a day.
In diabetes, irrational behavior happens because glucose levels that are too high (hyperglycemia) or, especially, too low (hypoglycemia) impede self-control.
Diabetes burnout is a state in which someone with diabetes grows tired of managing their condition, and then simply ignores it for a period of time, or worse, forever. Unfortunately, diabetes burnout is common, and most people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) have experienced it at some point in their lives.
According to Laura Hieronymus, MD, vice president of health care programs at the American Diabetes Association, “Fatigue is a symptom of hyperglycemia (high blood glucose). When blood glucose levels are too high, the body is not processing glucose as energy; therefore, tiredness or fatigue may occur.”
If stress doesn't go away, it can keep your blood sugar levels high and put you at higher risk of diabetes complications. It can also affect your mood and how you look after yourself, which can start to affect your emotional health.
If you have type 2 diabetes, your risk of developing heart disease, stroke, foot problems, eye and kidney disease is increased. To reduce your risk of developing other serious health conditions, you may be advised to take other medicines, including: anti-hypertensive medicines to control high blood pressure.
As blood sugar levels rise, the pancreas releases more insulin. Eventually the cells in the pancreas that make insulin become damaged and can't make enough insulin to meet the body's needs.
Brittle diabetes is diabetes that is especially difficult to manage. Severe, unpredictable swings in blood glucose cause frequent episodes of hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia. Talk to your healthcare provider if you're having trouble managing blood sugar.
Effects of diabetes on relationships
Having type 1 or type 2 diabetes may place strain on relationships due to the factors we describe above. Also, having any chronic condition can increase the need for emotional support and the potential for frustration and tension, which can lead to conflict.
Then, when blood sugar is uncontrolled because diabetes is poorly managed, clear thinking is impaired and mood swings can ensue, exacerbating bipolar symptoms.
Low libido, or sexual desire, is a real problem—and one that affects people with diabetes more than those without. Men and women experience low libido as a result of poorly managed diabetes. If your sex drive is stalled, first look to your diabetes management and take steps to lower your blood glucose levels.
More than 37 million people in the United States have diabetes, and 1 in 5 of them don't know they have it. 96 million US adults—over a third—have prediabetes, and more than 8 in 10 of them don't know they have it. Diabetes is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States (and may be underreported).
Because glucose is a brain food that increases self-control, those who have difficulty metabolizing glucose should have less self-control. Low levels of self-control are linked to high levels of aggression [Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990]. Diabetes is a disorder characterized by the inability to metabolize glucose.