Suffering From Diabetes
Participants discussed their experiences of living with diabetes as suffering. The suffering from
diabetes was perceived not only as physical suffering, but also as emotional suffering, and the
suffering was considered an obstacle/barrier to diabetes self-management. The physical
symptoms participants discussed being associated with the disease were primarily pain and
vision changes:
From what I know about diabetes, diabetes it is a disease that hits hard, like a touch of blindness
or pain in the bones and you just stay stiff. (Female, 65 years old)
I get pain in my knees. It is not tingling. It is pain, and since I walk a lot, it’s noticeable. I hurt
when walking, working. (Male, 66 years old)
The hardest part for me is the pain in my hip and knees, well it could be something else because I
have osteoporosis too. But, it could also be the diabetes since it’s hard to control. When I walk a
lot my knees hurt severely. (Female, 56 years old)
I feel weak. I can’t walk and the pain in my bones prevents me from standing. I got shots but
some of them really hit the bone. Now my arm hurts. Six months ago all of my back began to
hurt. (Female, 59 years old)