I’ve been saying this for quite a while, now I’m writing about it: You cannot control blood sugar or diabetes. Yes, you can manage it, influence it, navigate it, wrangle with it, bolus rage it, but you cannot “control” it. You cannot do x, y and z and get the precise number you want. There are a multitude of interacting factors why. If you’ve had diabetes long enough for the shock to wear off, I will go out on a limb and say you agree, as everyone does once I explain this. Surely you’d think after having type 1 for 51 years I’d know every trick to control it – geez, hasn’t happened yet.

So here’s my Christmas present to you – you’ll learn why you can’t control it and what to do instead : “The Myth of Controlling Blood Sugar, And a Better Way to Manage It.” It’s in DiabetesSisters’ newsletter this month.

It’s truly amazing that this falsehood has been told to us for decades, by our health professionals, the media, and now device companies. Is it wishful thinking? Our love of speaking in sound bites? Medical training for acute conditions that fails miserably for chronic conditions.

Whatever it is that causes us to repeat this myth, without scientific or anecdotal evidence, or much thought at all, causes people with diabetes to expect the impossible from themselves, and then feel bad, sad, frustrated, disappointed, angry, shamed, burned out you name it when they don’t ace it.

So steal away sometime today and have a read. The reward is immediate. And need I say, will be a gift that just keeps giving each and every day.