100+ Things that Won’t Cure T1D

There’s a saying in the diabetes community. “Your diabetes may vary” (YDMV). It means what works for one person, may not work for another. You see, almost every aspect of T1D will vary from person to person. But there’s one thing that everyone dealing with T1 will experience at some point. Well-meaning friends, family, and even strangers will tell you all about various “cures” for T1.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing on this list will actually cure T1D. And please, please, do not try to stop insulin therapy to follow any of the advice you receive from people.

Almost everyone has heard about the cinnamon and okra water cures. Those are the main ones. But, over the years, some crazy ideas have been thrown around.

I figured I would ask some people in the diabetes community what was the weirdest “cure” they’ve ever heard. I got a lot of the tried and true answers. But I also got some that I had never heard before.

Some are gross, some are unbelievable, some sound downright pleasant.

Whoever you are, however long you’ve been living with T1D, this list is going to make you laugh, cringe, and ask yourself… what in the world are these people thinking???

It probably won’t cure T1D, but it’s worth a shot

Let’s ease into this.

Here are the things that won’t cure T1, but at least they’re tasty! There’s no harm in giving it a try right??

• Cherry tarts
• 40 tsp of sugar
• Honey
• Agave nectar
• Ladyfingers (dipped in water)
• Peaches

Maybe we’re trying to overload the pancreas and kick start it into working properly again…?

Um, no thanks. I’ll stick to injections

As yummy as some of the suggestions seem, people will also suggest the grossest things imaginable. Even if it did cure your T1, you’d have to ask yourself, is it really worth it?

• Soak okra in water overnight and drink the sludge every morning
• Camel’s milk (I hear it’s quite hairy)
• Whale oil
• Soak banana peels in water overnight and drink it in the morning
• Drink camel urine (and you thought the milk sounded bad)
• Eat 20 lemons in the span of a few hours
• Drink your own urine

Everything but the kitchen sink

This next part may seem more like a grocery list than potential cures to anything. I guess no one has tried the correct combination yet?

• Cinnamon
• Pickle juice
• Cucumber
• Cucumber infused water
• Guava
• Elderberry
• Tequila
• Kale
• Avacado
• Vinegar
• Karela
• Jalapeno marinated in olive oil
• Laxmi Calonji (onion seeds)
• Chia seeds
• Spinach
• Coconut oil
• Reverse osmosis water
• Aloe vera juice
• Sweet onion
• Tumeric
• Black cumin oil
• Bananas
• Lentils and chickpeas
• Cayenne pepper

People won’t usually give you any instructions with these items. It’s more like a game of charades where everyone is shouting out produce items and spices.

Thanks “What the Health”

What’s that? You have access to Netflix and you watched a documentary? Or, even better, you heard about a documentary, didn’t bother watching it, and are now going around telling everyone there’s a cure for everything?

Yeah…

So, big thanks to “What the Health”, “The Magic Pill”, and other similar “documentaries” (and I use that word loosely) for making people think eating the right things will cure everything.

Whatever diet or food variation you are thinking of suggesting, it won’t cure T1D. Guaranteed someone has been diagnosed while on that diet and that people have tried that diet to cure T1D and it didn’t work.

Here we go:

• Stop eating red meat
• Become a vegan
• Do the Keto diet
• Try the Paleo diet
• Cure your gut and your T1 will get better

Speaking of diets

Since diabetes is viewed as a lifestyle disease, it’s not surprising how many people will suggest various diets to cure it. But the suggestions??

Let’s just say some of these aren’t your average calorie counting, limited portions diets:

• Cut out sugar.  Yeah, big surprise there. Except sugar consumption has nothing to do with developing, preventing, or curing T1D.
• Lose weight. That’s not how T1D works.
• Exercise. If only it were that simple.
• Extra fiber and water in your diet. It’ll keep you “regular”, but it won’t bring back the fuction of your beta cells.
• Alkaline diet. Eating foods that will make the pH in your body more alkaline. Don’t even get me started…
• Cleanses. Ah yes, detoxing your body will help. Nevermind the liver and kidneys you have. In case you didn’t take biology… their purpose is to naturally detox your body.
• Raw diet. It is what it says. You eat everything uncooked. If you look it up, you’ll likely get results for “raw diet for dogs” and “raw diet for cats” before anything for humans. That should tell you something.
• Carb-free diet. <— This is not a thing. It’s impossible to have a carb-free diet. Even cucumbers have carbs in them. And if you manage to find a way to not eat carbs? Fat and protein also convert into glucose in your body. You’ll still need insulin.
• Intermittent fasting. Well, fasting will definitely decrease the amount of insulin you need. But it’s not going to kick-start your beta cells.
• Gluten-free diet. That’s for people who have celiac disease. Gluten-free doesn’t mean sugar or carb free.
• Snake diet. A mixture of fasting and “eating windows”. You eat your meal in a certain time frame and then fast for as long as possible. Like a snake?
• Atkins diet. A variation of a low carb diet.
• Beverly Hills diet. A very complex fad diet from the 80’s.
• Juicing. Can we agree that this will likely increase carb/ sugar consumption?? Without getting the fiber? Anyone?
• Water diet. Yes, that’s a thing…
• The Zone diet. Sigh

Right, so, I’m kind of done with diets. Looking them up is making me mad. Bottom line, diets may help with blood sugar control, they might help with weight loss (though lots on this list are not sustainable and you’d probably end up gaining back more weight than you’ve lost).

But

None of them will cure type 1 diabetes. Which, by the way, is an autoimmune disease… not a lifestyle disease.

When “friends” sell a product for a living

Everyone wants to be their own boss these days. Work flexible hours, make an income while staying at home with the kids.

Enter: Multi-Level Marketing!

You probably won’t even know that your friend works for one of these organizations until you get the dreaded message that starts with, “Hey, I heard about your/ your child’s diabetes. I have the best news for you…”

They might be selling:

• Plexus
• Juice plus
• Thrive
• Arbonne
• Essential oils
• Supplements
• Enzymes
• Organic *insert random thing here* (apple cider vinegar for example)
• Protein powders

Whatever they’re selling, it will not cure type 1 diabetes.

The best part?

When you say, “no thanks” they won’t stop pushing. Often, they’ll accuse you of being a bad parent for not buying their product.

It’s actually illegal for these companies, or any companies like them, to claim to cure anything.

Positive vibes?

Mind over matter folks. The problem is clearly your state of mind, not your immune system or your pancreas or your beta cells…

• Pray harder. Telling anyone (whether they’re religious or not) that they’re not praying hard enough is really insulting
• Positive thinking. Oh, of course! “If you build it, they will come”… right?
• Healing Hands. Um… cool? Can you hook me up with a hand healer? (Is that what you call them?)
• Yoga. I… I don’t understand.
• Forgiveness. To be clear, this is not meant as asking for forgiveness. It means you need to forgive. Apparently, your grudges are manifesting as your immune system killing off your beta cells.
• Hypnosis. I’d like to meet the hypnotist who can pull this off.
• Acupuncture. Because T1D doesn’t deal with enough needles already.
• Chinese herbs. They cure everything else right?
• Magnetic bracelets. Decide for yourself… “Believers thought that magnets possessed a living energy, and they would wear a bracelet or piece of metallic material in the hope of fighting disease and infections or to relieve chronic pain.” Sounds legit to me.
• Extra love. Got T1D? You weren’t loved enough as a child. Sorry.
• Just believe. Ah yes, mind over matter and all.

It all seems a bit like using happy thoughts to fly in Peter Pan. Maybe we just need some pixie dust…

I’m sorry… what?!?!

These are, well, I’m just going to leave these here:

• See an iridologist. This is a person who examines your iris for information on what ales you. Based on what your iris says is wrong with your pancreas, they can figure out a cure.
• Foot zone therapy. Similar to iridology, foot zoning is a close examination of your feet to determine what is wrong with the body. Massaging certain areas of the foot will help the affected tissue and/or organs.
• “Check YouTube”. Yes, people suggest looking up T1D cures on YouTube. The sad thing is, you’ll find some. Not legitimate cures of course, but there are many, many people who claim to be able to cure T1D if you buy their products.
• T-tapp hoedown. Look it up. You won’t be disappointed. Or you will be disappointed… in humanity.
• Put onion on the soles of your feet. Yes, slices of onion. In your socks. Isn’t laundry bad enough without adding this to it?
• Chiropractic adjustments. Many chiropractors will claim that your bg will level out after having an adjustment. I have yet to come across someone with T1 who has had this happen. Weird.
• Tapping. This is my favorite! Someone who doesn’t have T1D lays down on the floor. The person with T1 lays down next to them. The first person starts tapping their body, particularly around their healthy pancreas. This will cause vibrations that will send energy from the healthy pancreas to the non-healthy one. The second person’s pancreas will absorb the energy and start working again.
• No need for a cure, they’ll grow out of it. Yes, it was called “juvenile diabetes” for a reason. That reason was that it was usually diagnosed in childhood (this is no longer the case), not because it magically went away when people turned 18, or 21, or whatever you think “adulthood” is.

Sure, why not?

What to say about these ones? You might have to look some of them up. One thing you won’t find… the cure for T1D.

• Probiotics
• Water from a river in the Sacred Valley in the Andes mountains
• Homeopathy
• Go to *insert random country here* and the doctors there will cure you
• Eat cactus
• Ayurveda
• Colloidal silver
• Coral calcium supplements
• Yunani medicine
• Mushroom powder capsules
• Gum trees
• Siddha medicine
• Garlic oil on the soles of your feet

That’s a treatment, not a cure

There are some things in the above lists that can help with symptoms of T1D. Some actually do help level out or lower blood glucose numbers. Don’t get me wrong, you still need insulin, but some can assist in T1 management. Most of them are pretty useless though.

Sometimes, the suggestions people come up with are based on treatments they’ve heard about. They just blow it way out of proportion and claim it’s a cure:

• Pancreas transplant. Yes, this is a treatment for T1D. It is used as a last resort (if there is another organ failure or if you’re allergic to all forms of insulin for example) because organ transplants come with a host of their own problems. And there’s still a chance that the immune system will attack the new pancreas and you’ll become T1 all over again.
• Dialysis. This is a treatment for kidney failure. Kidney failure can be a complication of T1D, but like a pancreas transplant, it’s only used when absolutely necessary.
• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This is used mostly for decompression sickness in scuba divers. It has been used to help with wounds that won’t heal due to diabetes. This can happen to people with T1D, but is much more common in T2.
• CBD oil. This one is becoming more popular, but it’s basically a method of pain management. Some people use this to help with pain caused by diabetes complications, like neuropathy. Some people with T1 also find that it helps lower the amount of insulin needed.
• BCG vaccine. Clinical trials are currently underway to see if the BCG vaccine could potentially cure T1D. The research is fascinating and promising, but it’s in early stages right now. It is a different variation from the TB vaccine, so no, getting vaccinated for TB will not cure your type 1 diabetes.
• Insulin pump. An insulin pump is a method for administering insulin. It is not automatic. You still need insulin. It is simply one of many tools that people with diabetes can use to help manage their disease.

There is no cure for T1D

Nothing on this list will cure type 1 diabetes. Some of these things can help with management. Some can help a bit with evening out blood sugar levels. But there is nothing that will eliminate the need for insulin.

I cannot stress that enough.

Many of the suggestions on the above list come with “advice” to just stop taking insulin. Please don’t do that. And please don’t suggest doing that to someone with T1D.

If someone with type 1 stops taking insulin, they will die. Without insulin, the body will eat away fat because it can’t process the food you eat. As a result, ketones are produced. They will go into diabetic ketoacidosis. That makes the blood acidic. If left untreated, it is 100% fatal. It can take several days and it is very painful.

We can have a laugh at the suggestions people think up, but it can be incredibly dangerous to give advice like this.

Always talk to your doctor before trying something new!!

Happy carb counting!

~ Leah

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Have you heard any “cures” that aren’t on this list? Leave a comment and tell us about it! And don’t forget to head to the Carb Counting Mama Facebook page and “like” it.