OK, I’m going to either stand on my own here or be speaking as one of the silent many.
I’ve missed a handful of consultant and GP nurse appointments over the years. There’s no excuse that is worthy of the time and money I wasted but I did it because at the time I was afraid of the results and the response. Consultant appointments usually involved me sitting there whilst I was told how my control ‘really wasn’t good enough’ and if it didn’t improve I would die or go blind or lose a limb or all of the above. I’d read enough Balance articles to know that that was happening anyway so why did I need to go to be talked down to?
The nurse was a little different as I truly didn’t believe she had enough knowledge or understanding to interpret the results I was producing even though I wasn’t really doing enough to fix them myself. And every appointment I did go to ended with being told to come back in three months for another blood test and if I hadn’t improved enough I would be referred back to the hospital. As a scared young man threats like that didn’t help to encourage me to engage with my local healthcare teams.
Now, obviously I’ve turned the corner but I’m not sure what could have been done in the system to get me to engage sooner. DNA isn’t big and it certainly isn’t clever but I think it’s wrong to assume and stereotype the people who fit into that category.
The topic, maybe intentionally, relates well to the other thread on contracts for pump users. And I agree to a point. If you’re not willing to engage then why should you gain the benefit of the latest technology that others cannot have? This doesn’t mean I agree with broad brush measurements such as the hugely flawed HbA1c but if you’re not willing to even meet and discuss then, erm, tough.
Oops, that went on a bit. All you lifetime-of-perfect-control people can now return to this thread again.