Wash your hands before you eat.

Most of us have heard this reminder from our parents before. But if you’re diabetic, you might be used to hearing a different phrase.

Take your insulin before you eat. Test your blood sugar.

These phrases are an everyday part of a diabetic’s life. To a person with diabetes, these practices are just as common as washing your hands.

Diabetes is a disease that affects people of all ages. Many college students with diabetes must adjust their lives because of it. The disease can place limitations on those affected, but that doesn’t mean they can’t live a normal life while in college.
__________
Erin Keating, senior consumer affairs major at Ohio State University, has Type I diabetes, which means her pancreas doesn’t make insulin. Keating, 22, has been diabetic for almost two years.

Her diabetes isn’t serious enough for her to take shots of insulin, but she must take four insulin pills a day.

While the insulin pills control Keating’s blood sugar now, her situation could change.

“There is a chance that I’ll need to go to shots,” she says.

But insulin shots aren’t the only way to handle diabetes.
__________
Carissa Crytzer, senior early childhood education major at Hiram College, also has Type I diabetes. She has been diabetic for seven years.

Crytzer, 21, uses an insulin pump to automatically inject insulin into her body.

The pump, which she wears in her bra, is the size of a pager. A small tube runs from the pump, and a Teflon tube runs into the body, usually attached at the arm or stomach.

When the body needs insulin, a needle automatically punctures the skin and injects it. The needle is only in the skin when it’s injecting insulin.

The only time the pump can’t be worn is when showering or swimming, Crytzer says, and it can only be turned off for 90 minutes at a time.

Crytzer still has to give herself a shot of insulin once every three days.
__________

Keating’s diabetes wasn’t diagnosed right away.

“I got real sick with colds and flu-like symptoms for three months,” she says. “I was losing weight, and antibiotics weren’t working. I would feel normal for two or three days, then get sick again.”

Then Keating went out one night to celebrate her friend’s birthday.

“I drank two beers and got real sick,” she says. “I was taken to the emergency room, and they said I had alcohol poisoning. I knew I didn’t, though, because I only drank two beers. For a week, I couldn’t keep anything down, so I went back to the hospital.”
Keating’s diabetes was finally diagnosed after she received a blood glucose screening.

Crytzer found out she was diabetic at her grandma’s house.

“I drank a whole pitcher of lemonade,” she says. “I was really thirsty, which is one of the symptoms of diabetes. My dad has diabetes, so I checked my blood sugar on his monitor. They took me to the hospital after that.”
__________
Diabetes completely changes eating habits.

Keating lives in an apartment in Grandview, which is about a 10-minute drive from Ohio State. Since she doesn’t live in the dorms, she has to know how to prepare the right kind of food and the right portion.

“Diabetes has definitely changed my eating habits,” Keating says. “I used to have a glass of milk for breakfast and maybe McDonald’s later on in the day. Now I eat three solid, healthy meals a day and healthy snacks. I also do a lot more cooking.”
Diabetics especially have to watch their intake of sugar, carbohydrates and protein.

Keating says she never really liked sweets that much, so she doesn’t miss the sugar.

“I’m more of a salt eater,” Keating says. “I don’t have cravings for sweets because I wasn’t big on it before.”
Keating has a few diabetic cookbooks but only uses them on special occasions.

Crytzer also has to monitor the food she eats, but it’s different for her because she lives in the residence halls at Hiram.
“It’s just like eating out when I’m eating in the dining halls,” Crytzer says. “I buy books on nutrition and talk to more nutritionists.”

Crytzer says she didn’t eat as healthy during her freshman and sophomore years of college.
“I was sloppy with food,” she says. “I would eat cake and brownies and just take a little more insulin. It’s easier now with the pump, but it still takes a lot of willpower.”
____________

Alcohol can be a major part of any college student’s life. Diabetics can drink but only in moderation. Most beers and liquors are full of carbohydrates and sugars, which can be too much for a diabetic’s body to process at once.

“It’s not that I can’t go out and get drunk with my friends,” Keating says. “It’s that if I do, I won’t recover for days. I do more social drinking now.”

Crytzer says she wishes she didn’t have to think about her alcohol intake.

“I’ve always lived in the moment and don’t think about it,” she says. “In college, drinking is such a big aspect. I feel like I’m missing out when I don’t drink.”
____________
Diabetes is technically a disease, so it has some detrimental effects.

Keating says she knows when something is wrong.

“My feet feel like they’re falling asleep,” she says. “I know to stop what I’m doing and get my blood sugar back up where it needs to be. Sometimes I have to take a time-out.”

Crytzer also knows when she has pushed her body too far.

“If I get dizzy, I have to sit down,” she says. “I have to stop from my sugar being low. I also get more tired than other people.”
Crytzer’s vision also has been affected.

“Now I have to wear glasses,” she says. “I also have the beginnings of cataracts.”
__________
Most campuses offer services to diabetic students.

The student health center at Ohio State offers free physicals and nutrition classes.

Keating says stress causes her blood sugar to drop. This could affect her studies, but the school helps her out.

“I work with disability services so I can take my finals there,” Keating says. “There’s no time limit, so there’s less stress.”
Keating says she also can make arrangements so that she doesn’t have to take several finals all in one day.

The Central Ohio Diabetes Association has an Ohio State chapter, which is a support group for college students with diabetes.

“They deal with the same things I deal with,” she says. “We can trade recipes and share helpful things with each other.”

Crytzer also utilizes some of the on-campus services at Hiram for diabetic students.

“I’m on a first-name basis with everyone who works at the health center,” she says.

Anne Jannarone, director of Student Disability Services at Kent State, says the university provides individualized services for diabetic students.

“Student Disability Services evaluates each student’s needs on an individual basis, so our services will vary from student to student even within a similar disability group,” Jannarone says. “These accommodations are based on the documentation that the student provides us from their physician and our meeting with the student to discuss their needs.”

Accommodations can include special housing arrangements, referrals to nutritionists or efforts at advocacy with faculty and Dining Services.
__________

Keating and Crytzer say it wasn’t easy at first to tell people they were diabetic.

“I was in denial,” Keating says. “I wasn’t sharing it with other people. I didn’t tell my roommates and friends. They saw me getting sick and weak, and I told them I was fine.

“Now it’s much more easy to accept if I let people in. I was fighting myself with it a lot at first.”

Keating says it’s difficult to tell a guy she’s dating that she’s diabetic.

“It’s not something I want to tell him at first,” she says., “especially if I don’t know how long he’s going to be around. I haven’t found a good way to tell them yet.”
__________

Crytzer says it’s hard for her to deal with people who don’t understand diabetes.

“They worry too much,” she says. “It’s my disease, and I don’t want to put it on anyone. I always wanted to hide it. Now, I’m proud of myself and my accomplishments from it.

“Someone told me once that it’s not normal,” she says, “especially the pump.

“I don’t associate with people who don’t accept it.”

Keating says many young people are uneducated about diabetes, and they don’t know how to deal with people who have the disease.

“People our age don’t know anything about it,” she says. “It’s an issue that needs to be talked about more."

“There are more stories to tell than are being told. The media should do more stories on it to increase awareness. It should be talked about more.”

Crytzer says having diabetes has allowed her to educate people about the disease.

“I’ve opened people’s eyes to it,” she says. “People know at least one person with diabetes. There is a negative connotation associated with it because people are scared of it, and they don’t know about it.”

Education leads to earlier identification of the disease. The number of diabetics has grown, Crytzer says, because more children are being tested for it.

“It’s reassuring to me that I’m not the only one,” she says. “I like meeting other people who have it.
__________

While diabetes commercials are often on television, the majority of people in the ads are elderly. This can lead to the assumption that diabetes only happens when you’re older, Crytzer says.

“There needs to be younger spokespeople and celebrities,” she says.

Keating also says she doesn’t think people like B.B. King and Nell Carter should be selling her diabetic supplies.

“No one my age or a younger kid relates to those commercials,” she says.
__________

While diabetes places restrictions on the lives of those affected, it also has positive affects.

“It’s made me take care of myself better,” Keating says. “I’m in tune to what’s healthy and unhealthy. It makes me live a healthy lifestyle.

“I’m still the same for it. It happened, I deal with it and I’m used to it.”

Crytzer says the disease has made her a stronger person.

“I realized who I am more because of it,” she says. “Some days I’m very weak with it, but I’m not ashamed any more. Now I’m comfortable with it.”