Got questions or so spirit with diabetes? So coiffure we! That's why we offer our time period diabetes advice pillar, Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes source and community educator Wil Dubois.

This week, Wil is taking on some well-behaved ol' fashioned questions about sex and diabetes. Whatsoever pillow-public lecture should of class glucinium confining to the bedroom, but when there are vital diabetes OR health-related questions involved then a little public sexual urge-speak up can be a rubicund thing.

btw, next calendar month (April) happens to be Sexually Hereditary Infections Awareness Month, and so in the immortal words of Salt-N-Peppa from their 1991 song: "Let's Talk About Sexuality, Cosset"…

{Got your own questions? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com}

Nikki, type 1 from Nevada, asks: Hey, Wil, are persons with diabetes more or less likely than "typical" multitude to get sexually transmitted diseases?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Because having diabetes raises the risk of sexual dysfunction in both men and women, you might expect that our rates of STD's would be less. Aft wholly, you toilet't catch up with it if your non getting it, right? But you'd be vicious. Woefully, having diabetes seems to make everything worse. Yeah, you guessed it. Information technology turns out the "D" in STD stands for diabetes.

While I couldn't find any "catchy" statics (sorry, I couldn't resist) the folks at Joslin say that STDs are many easily transmitted to masses with diabetes. What the eff's up with that?

Well, your best life aegis from a STD is your skin. (Being troubled and selective about whom you sleep with is your best environmental protective cover; and exhausting a safe is your best engineered protection.) But gage to your skin, which is usually naked when you get a STD. Cutis is really amazingly tough stuff. Uh… unless you have diabetes. In our case, our skin is a great deal compromised. The most ordinary skin damage with PWDs? Dry, around the bend tegument. A crack in your shinny is an open-door policy to an opportunistic microorganism.

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Orgasm followed by organism. Tight.

And of course, if you engender sick, what do we generally know all but the course of any disease within a person with diabetes? Yeah, we get it worse, and IT's harder to treat.

Dark. D-truth hurts.

What can you do? Said as with all our some other D-risks. Keep your shekels down, and keep your pants up in dubious company. Buckeye State, rectify. And keep your skin florid and use a condom. And if all that fails, mystify treatment right away if you suspect an STD.

Mathew, eccentric 1 from ID, writes: I read online that some morons think you can catch diabetes through sex! How on earth does bullshit like this get out into the world?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: When I first read your question I by nature assumed you were either inebriate Oregon stoned (operating theater both) when you wrote it. On the other hand I checkered. Shore 'nuff, thither seem to be a lot of young people earnestly asking if they can get the big D by getting it on with ane of us.

  • In this discussion, a 16-twelvemonth old is freaking out thinking helium'll get diabetes from his girl. Helium's been doing it with her for a year now, and she just came out of the diabetes closet to him.
  • Hera, a young girl knows her boyfriend has diabetes and is afraid to be cozy with him. Because, you bed, you might gimmick IT…
  • There's some confusion over the whole insulin pump thing, look-alike can you get diabetes by hugging a young woman with a heart?
  • Much are vindicatory bluntly asking if diabetes is a STD.
  • This one brings out several interesting culture interplay in India with an arranged marriage ceremony to a D-cleaning lady.
  • Multitude are as wel worried about the risks of acquiring diabetes by having sex with fatty tissue people. No kidding.
  • Oh, and be sure to check out my personal favorite present, which you have to read to believe.

Alright, so some of these people are clearly morons, as Mathew suggested. But what I find alarming is not that the question is asked, but that it seems to be asked so often. On the silver lining, about of the answers seem pretty well balanced, piece wet with some outrage and disbelief from the diabetes residential district.

Only honestly folks, is the state of indiscriminate diabetes knowingness and wellness education really that low? I submit that it is. Generally, I think that most people only if have it off about diseases that affect themselves or those closest to them. Now patc diabetes is at epidemic levels, stats say we type 1's are standing "only" at about 10% of the population here in the good ol' US-of-A; and somewhere around 4 or 5% globally.

If entirely of America with diabetes had leastwise one individual who loved them (sadly, not always trustworthy), we'd impact at best 20% of the population on our own shores. That still leaves 80% of the people in the dark. Eighty percent of the people believing that you get diabetes by being fat, OR past eating overmuch candy, and that everybody with diabetes needs insulin.

Sol why not believe that you can catch diabetes by sleeping with someone who's part of the epidemic? Presumptuous a complete state of D-ignorance, is that really such a moronic question to take?

Now, something to think about before any of you goes bump off happening a rant: How much do you really roll in the hay about Asthma? Creaky Arthritis? Lupus? Parkinson's? Gastroesophageal reflux disease? Conjunctivitis? Chronic hindering pulmonary disease? Psoriasis? Diverticulitis? Gynecomastia? Osteomyelitis? Peyronie's? Alopecia?

I'll bet you don't even lie with what just about of those are, unless you or one of your loved one suffers from one of them.

Heretofore all of these are real problems that affect real populate. And I don't know it for a fact, just I bet they have blogs, encounter-ups, and online communities. Communities nobelium doubt uproarious for people to see their diseases and their issues. Just like us.

The fact that we know little or nothing about most of the diseases and conditions on that list doesn't make us bad or clothed citizens. There's only soh a lot you can learn.

But what does that say about our expectations that everyone else on the planet have a better understanding of our disease?

This is non a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly communion the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still motivation the pro advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical line.