The crazy world of diabetes !

Imagine my joy a few weeks ago, when I heard a new diabetes forum was starting up. Not only starting up, but wanted me as board member of a planned charity. Normally these days I would have said thank you, but forums are not my thing. My time on various forums is well documented, some say I am the most banned man in the UK. But this time I thought the new forum would be very different. This new forum was being started by a group of staunch lowcarbers, arguably the most pro lowcarb and hardest fighting team in the history of the diabetes.co.uk forum. What could possibly go wrong ?

Well a lot did go wrong, as much of the grief regarding board members, and the direction of the forum was behind closed doors, I’ll leave it that way. But I wanted no part as board member and resigned. Somewhat disappointing for me, but hey this was about helping others wasn’t it ? So, as a forum member I started posting content I thought would be of interest to other members and other diabetics looking in. Well the members seemed to be happy with my posts, the thank you’s and Karma came pouring in and things were going well, not quite. Some board members felt my posts were ‘good stuff and brilliant’ but my style wasn’t up to the required standard. I was making statements, when asking questions was maybe less confrontational. OK I let it go, and noted ‘must try harder’ in my school report book.

Well I tried, but clearly I was a marked man. I had been very critical behind the scenes, and payback was coming my way. On Sunday a new member asked for some basic advice re diet and how to use a meter etc. The member was given a link to here  I posted a link to here which I thought fitted in nicely with the welcome link. My post was immediately deleted. Via an email I was told something along the lines of, as a board member you should not be seen to be going against the general ethos of the other board members. I had resigned three days before. It was not my decision not to inform the members I had left the board. Indeed, I had to issue an ultimatum on Sunday, that if it was not announced  by midnight, I would announce my leaving the board myself. The announcement was made, I could now post as a member. I hoped to generate some debate, in an open forum. I posted up posts that I believe kept within the forum rules. I was not abusive, I have stated on the forum how anyone controls their diabetes is cool with me, but many do not control their diabetes to safe levels. Many are under the illusion that certain BG numbers are safe, when they are anything but. Misinformation, post editing and deletion was not a thing I expected to see on the new forum.

What staggers me is a group of people who fought so hard against the lowcarb antis, and their ludicrous dietary dogma on the diabetes.co.uk forum, have put in place guidelines that would meet with the antis full approval. The Sid Bonkers portion control method, that was so argued against, and dismissed as useless for so many diabetics, is now being pushed as a good start point, but a higher amount of carbs has been suggested.

As an aside, the level of post deletion that was deemed to be unacceptable at diabetes.co.uk, is already a feature at ETYM. This post was deleted twice last night. I received an email stating “Eddie, I have removed your post temporarily. Re posting it is in no ones best interest. If cleared your post will be reinstalled“. Defren.

“Clearly my position is untenable here. So I will leave the forum.

May I take this opportunity to wish all the very best of luck and good health.

Kind regards Eddie”

As of the time of writing this post (20 hours later) it has not been re-instated. Why was a post wishing people good luck and good health deemed to be worthy of deleting ? Even in the Stalinist days of Cugila, I think my post would have stood as posted. Interesting days ahead.

As always, feel free to argue your case over here.

Eddie