Hey there! Healthyrex is independent and reader-supported. Some links on this page are affiliate links which means that, if you choose to make a purchase, We may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We greatly appreciate your support!

Is Diabetes Considered A Disability?

For years diabetes is increasing as a serious threat all over the world. Endocrinologists become very conscious about the disability rate of people with diabetes. Despite such advancement, the disability rate with diabetes has increased day by day due to complications.

It’s a tough task for diabetic patients to live every day with a disabled pancreas that could not make enough insulin to perform normal body function, like allowing body cells to absorb glucose from the blood and convert glucose to useable energy form. Before understanding the main topic that is “Is diabetes considered a disability?” we all must know answers to these questions:

  1. What is diabetes?
  2. What are its types?
  3. Do you know what disability is?
  4. Is diabetes a disability?

Diabetes mellitus is commonly known as diabetes, is a disease in which blood sugar level is elevated. When we eat food, carbohydrates present in food are broken down by our body, converted into glucose particles, and sent to the bloodstream.

In our bodies, the pancreas (an organ that is present behind our stomach) releases a hormone, insulin (an organ present behind our stomach). Insulin allows our body cells to absorb glucose from the blood. The amount of insulin in our body determines the glucose level in the blood; as higher the level of glucose in the blood, the higher will be the amount of insulin.

In diabetes, the appropriate level of insulin is not released from the pancreas. Thus, glucose is not absorbed by cells and blood glucose level increased.

What Are Types Of Diabetes?

There are many different types of diabetes, but here are the three main ones.

  1. Diabetes type 1
  2. Diabetes type 2
  3. Gestational diabetes

Diabetes Type 1:

Diabetic type 1 mostly starts in early ages (childhood). That’s why it is often called juvenile-onset diabetes; it is an autoimmune condition in which an insulin-producing organ is damaged and unable to produce insulin.

Genes and some other factors like viruses or attacking the pancreas by antibodies mistakenly cause diabetic type 1. In this condition, insulin is not produced enough in my body, and my blood sugar level has increased. About 10% to 15% of individuals are affected by this type of diabetes.

Symptoms of diabetic type 1

  • Feeling tired and sleepy
  • Excessive urination
  • Strong thirst
  • Weak and blurred eye side
  • Increased appetite
  • Dry throat and mouth
  • Nausea and vomiting

Treatment

Despite advancements in science, diabetic type 1 has no cure. This type is only managed by injecting insulin into fatty tissues present below the skin to diabetic patients. It is also called “insulin-dependent type.”

Diabetic Type 2:

Unlike diabetic type 1, pancreatic cells make enough insulin for body requirements, but our body cells become unable to use this hormone efficiently. Our body cells become resistant to insulin, which results in more production of insulin by pancreatic cells.

Later on, due to insulin’s overproduction, the pancreas starts to damage and becomes unable to produce insulin. Glucose level elevates in the bloodstream, and body cells become deprived of energy.

Factors like genes, being overweight, heart diseases, low blood cholesterol level, and prediabetes can cause diabetic type 2. This type mostly affects middle-aged people and is also called “adult-onset diabetes.” This type of diabetes affects about 80 to 90% of people.

Symptoms

  • Strong thirst
  • Slow healing of wounds
  • Excessive urination
  • Blurred vision
  • Numbness of hands and feet
  • Dry mouth and throat
  • Fungal infection, itching on skin and genitals
  • Feeling tired and sleepy

Treatment

A better lifestyle leads to a healthier life. Changes in lifestyle like walking, exercise and natural food eating improve our health in a better way. Avoid salty, fried, processed food, dairy products, white rice, and beef, and skip smoking if anyone does.  But medications are also important to treat chronic diseases.

Gestational Diabetes:

Gestation diabetes is a type of diabetes mellitus that occurs only during pregnancy in women with older age. Many factors like overweight of baby, overweight of mother, expecting more than one baby, family diabetic history, heart disease, or high blood pressure can cause gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

In this condition, our pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin for the body to absorb enough glucose from the bloodstream. As a result, glucose level increases in the blood.

Symptoms

  • Urinate more than usual
  • Thirst more than usual
  • Infection in bladder, vagina, and skin
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Tommy looks bigger
  • Fatigue and blurred vision

Treatment

A pregnant lady must repeatedly test her blood sugar level during her pregnancy period. If gestational diabetes is diagnosed, proper medication, exercise, and diet are essential for both mother and baby. Different safe drugs and injections are prescribed for gestational diabetes.

What Is A Disability?

A person is mostly considered to disable if his disability is visible to others, like if he is in a wheelchair or walks with a stick. In my opinion, no one is disabled, but he is differently able. In the dictionary, disability is considered any physical, mental, or developmental condition that reduces or interferes with one’s attention towards its tasks or daily activities. According to WHO, disability is described as the physiological state restricting or limiting daily routine activities or tasks.

Is Diabetes Considered A Disability?

Personally, I think diabetes should not be considered a disability as many diabetic patients did a lot of tremendous work. Diabetic patients can play games, participate in racing cars and manage their daily routine work with precautions easily.

But according to the definition of disability, a person is unable to do something. Because of the disabled pancreas, many people considered diabetes a disability as the body cannot make enough insulin for body cells. In many countries, diabetes is also considered a disability to relax a diabetic patient.

It’s tough for a diabetic patient to engage with tasks or activities as he has to repeatedly check his blood sugar level throughout the day, especially before going anywhere that limits his daily activities.

Diabetes And Disability Risks:

Studies have found that a diabetic patient has 50% to 80% more risk to any disability, including loss of physical functioning, especially daily activities. To understand the relationship between diabetes and disability risks, we have to know about its all aspects. For diabetic patients, loss of mobility to any body part may be more damaging than other complications like retinopathy (blurred vision due to retinal damage caused by abnormal blood flow) or neuropathy (numbness, muscle weakness due to nerve damage).

The presence of disability makes diabetes self-management more problematic because of the physical requirements of functions such as physical activity, food preparation, taking medications, and monitoring blood sugar. Disability can also take a profound emotional, physical, and economic impact on family and caregivers.

For employers, disability affects work productivity and health insurance costs. Finally, at the population level, rates and trends in disability are important global indicators of public health programs’ progress towards the goal of increasing the number of healthy years of life and reducing the average number of years of morbidity in the population.

The association between glucose classification and disability risk was commonly continuous, with successively higher disability prevalence across those with normal glucose level, prediabetes, undiagnosed diabetes, and diagnosed diabetes with type1 and 2.

The exception was young and middle-aged adults (ages 20–45 and 46–65 years), among whom those with prediabetes had prevalence rates of mobility and work disability that was approximately twice as high as among those with normal glucose level, but only about one-third as high as persons with undiagnosed and diagnosed diabetes.

Factors:

Many factors are involved in mediating disability risks for diabetic patients. Some factors like hyperglycemia, extreme heart or blood diseases, and uncontrollable insulin resistance malfunctioning of the body may lead to disability risks for diabetic patients. Undiagnosed diabetes in adults or aged people mediates more complications and risks towards immobility.

In women, obesity and hyperglycemia during pregnancy are many factors that lead to disability risks. On the other hand, factors like coronary heart diseases, hyperglycemia in old ages, and sarcopenia (natural loss of muscles with age) increase the risk of disability in males. Kidney diseases, atrial diseases, hypogonadism, or vitamin and mineral deficiency may associate sarcopenia with diabetes that results in loss of physical mobility.

Diabetes Type 1 And Disability:

Diabetes type 1 is most common in children. It’s tough for any child to cope with its complications, and later on, if it remains undiagnosed, then disability is related to it. At the stage of prediabetes, proper medication, diet and exercise are very important to avoid disability. Children with weight more than their age may cause diabetes. Eating too much sugar or dairy foods results in diabetes and complications like immobility of any body part.

Proper care by parents and other family members is crucial in coping with a disability with diabetes and performing daily tasks. Appropriate guidance on diabetes should be provided at school, colleges, and university levels in children and adults.

A person with diabetes that is taking regular insulin injections, if he needs it, may have no obvious signs of disfigurement. However, if that person stops taking their injections, their diabetes may hurt their ability to perform daily activities.

For this reason, while the disability test should still be considered in each case, it will often be straightforward for an insulin-dependent or type 1 diabetic to meet the test for disability.

Diabetes Type 2 And Disability:

Diabetes type 2 is chronic than type 1. If you don’t know about it, it can prove to be a threat to your future. Traditional complications are common in this type and malfunctioning of body parts that mediate towards disability.

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease associated with a wide range of comorbidities and complications, including retinopathy and loss of vision, nephropathy, end-stage renal disease, peripheral neuropathy, cardiovascular diseases, and lower extremity amputations due to diabetic foot.

All these long-term medical complications shorten the life expectancy of the affected people and cause physical decline, which leads to disability. The importance of the problem also results from the prevalence of the disease. According to the estimation, diabetes can increase from 135 million to about 3.5 million from 1995 to 2025.

In Poland, according to the estimation, there are about 2 million inhabitants who have diabetes, and half of this population is unaware of the condition. These literature reviews aim to show all positive associations between diabetes and its complications leading to limitations and disability.

The prevalence of the disability in the population of people with diabetes is the sum of all diabetic complications and the process of aging. The diabetes epidemic affects the entire age range, and the greatest absolute increase is occurring among the elderly.

This information suggests that the number of people at risk for physical limitations and disability caused by diabetes will increase dramatically. If this process were not stopped, it would erode the health status and quality of life of a great proportion of society.

Gestational Diabetes And Disability:

Diabetes during pregnancy is the most complicated diabetes that may result in disability in both babies and mothers. By taking preventive measures, you can avoid diabetes complications.

  • Take a proper diet rich in vitamins and minerals.
  • Avoid too much physical exercise.
  • Drink a lot of water.
  • Check sugar level repeatedly.
  • Avoid sugar and dairy products.
  • Walk regularly.

How To Prevent Disability With Diabetes?

Many effective approaches are proven very helpful in reducing disability risks with diabetes. Weight loss by 2% to 5% reduces disability risk in diabetic patients of any type. Proper treatment of diseases like kidney diseases, Arial and coronary diseases, high blood pressure, and liver diseases prevent our body from mediating a disabled pancreas.

Using pain killers consistently leads to kidney and liver diseases. Smoking and depression are also main factors of disability during diabetes. Antidepressants are also played an important role in reducing depression that results in reducing disability risks.

  • Insulin injections prove very effective in insulin-dependent diabetes. Other prescribed medicinal drugs like Metformin (lower glucose level in the bloodstream and improve body response towards insulin).
  • Dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 inhibitor (reduce blood sugar level).
  • Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (prevent the kidney from absorbing sugar).

Disability Benefits

Many advanced countries give diabetic patients a disability benefit that easily helps them perform their daily office tasks. Life is full of challenges, but for any patient, it becomes too hard. Social life is one of the important tasks for a person, and everyone wants to perform his tasks properly so that a healthy environment could achieve. But any disability that restricts them should be normalizing so that they also can do their work appropriately.

To get disability benefits, a diabetic patient must qualify for them.

First, a person gives a sugar test to diagnose any diabetes. Following are tests that are done to diagnose diabetes.

  • Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Test:

In this test, the sugar level of one’s blood is tested after overnight fasting. A blood sugar level less than 140 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L) is normal. A reading of more than 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) after two hours indicates diabetes. A reading between 140 and 199 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L and 11.0 mmol/L) indicates prediabetes.

  • Glucose Tolerance Test:

In this test, the sugar level of a person’s blood is taken before and after drinking a liquid containing sugar. The blood sugar level is checked repeatedly after regular intervals as after 1 hour, 2 hours, etc.

  • Random Glucose Test:

Doctors recommend this test every month. This test measures your blood sugar level at that time. You do not need to fast. A random glucose test gives you the exact value of your blood sugar level. Prediabetes, type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes can be easily diagnosed through this test.

  • If anyone is diagnosed with prediabetes, he/she has to take precautionary measures to avoid complications of diabetes.
  • But if anyone is diagnosed with diabetes type 1 or 2, he/she should take precautionary measures. The only diagnosis cannot give you the benefit of disability. Complications like retinopathy, neuropathy, and any chronic disease qualify you for social security disability.
  • If gestational diabetes is diagnosed at any time during pregnancy, the pregnant lady should be more careful than before. She must ask for benefits, take insulin if required.
  • Contact your boss or head of the department, submit papers and reports to them to ask for disability benefit.

Conclusion

To understand completely “is diabetes considered a disability?” we must know that all disabilities related to diabetes have appeared after diabetic complications if we control all the complications through proper exercise, diet, medications, and by taking precaution measures. All the above discussions yielded useful conclusions.

Above mentioned disabilities like loss of movement of body parts associated with diabetes result from many factors like smoking, genetic diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes timely, depression, any chronic disease, kidney or heart diseases, too much uptake of sugar or dairy products, etc.

Complications of diabetes include retinopathy, neuropathy, weight gain, extreme thirst, and appetite. Diabetes is heightened throughout the world as an alarming sign due to associated disabilities. Diabetes should be diagnosed at the time so that complications and disabilities should also be avoided. Proper diet, care, exercise, weight loss, and medication reduce the risks of disabilities associated with diabetes.

Social security benefits are given to disabled diabetic patients to ease them in performing their daily tasks. Most diabetic-associated disability risks have appeared in young and middle-aged people. To give an overview on “is diabetes considered a disability?”

We must understand that a person with some disabilities can do anything whatever he wants but differently. That’s why we can say a person is not disabled. Instead, he is differently-abled. Calling anyone disabled will have negative effects on that person, so we should avoid it. Diabetic patients did a lot of tremendous work all over the world.

FAQ’S

  • What benefits are given to Diabetics?

If your diabetes is out of control and you have been continuously prevented from your work for about a year or according to your condition you think you won’t be able to work for about 12 months, then you can be eligible for (SSD) benefits that is Social Security Disability or maybe for (SSA) that is the Supplemental Security Income.

  • Can type two diabetes claim disability?

SSA doesn’t include type 2 diabetes as a separate disability in their list, so if you have type 2 diabetes, then that doesn’t mean you qualify for the benefits. But, if you are facing the complications that fall on the criteria of some other disability listings, you might be considered eligible for the benefits. The most common cause is Diabetic peripheral neuropathies.

  • How do we know that we have high blood sugar levels?

Here is a list of few common symptoms that are generally shown in high blood sugar levels.

  1. Fatigue
  2. Frequent urination
  3. Fruity breath odor
  4. Dry mouth
  5. Stomach pain
  6. Increase in thirst
  7. Shortness of breath
  8. Vomiting and nausea
  • How can I reverse my diabetes permanently?

The remission of diabetes has been shown by the normalization of fats inside the pancreas and liver. The only way to achieve this remission is by the major weight loss. Generally, the next three people can put their diabetes into remission: a low-calorie diet, a low-carbohydrate diet, bariatric surgery.

  • Is type 2 diabetes your fault?

No having type 2 diabetes is not your fault because it is a genetic disease. But if you know that you have these genes from your family and still don’t care about it, then to some extent, you are also responsible. As if you are overweight and have these genes, then there are maximum chances to get type 2 diabetes.

  • Can I get rid of my type 2 diabetes permanently?

Though there is no cure or treatment for type 2 diabetes, some people can reverse it, according to studies. By adopting positive changes in your diet and having weight loss, some people reverse their diabetes. But that doesn’t mean you are fully cured, as it is an ongoing disease.

Related Reading:

Rabia Sehar
Rabia Sehar

My name is Rabia Sehar, a passionate writer and blogger. I always spent the greatest part of my time in the library reading books. Have done a bachelor's in life sciences. I am a writer who always wants to explore things and spread awareness with my words. Health article writing is my passion, as my main focus is to help others deal with their health issues and struggles. Writing has always been one of my most reliable strength. When people ask me did you always want to be a writer, I have to say no! I always was a writer.

Healthyrex.com- Healthy Living Tips
Logo