It was his roommate’s 21st birthday party and all of his friends were getting drunk to celebrate — everyone but him. Instead, Steven Heger, a U. Kansas senior from Wichita, quietly observed the chaos of the festivities and sipped water. He didn’t dare drink even one beer.
This completely sober lifestyle was unfamiliar to him then, but it was one he was forced to adopt.
Heger found out in March that he was diabetic. He said he didn’t know if he was type 1 or type 2 because he showed signs of both. He could no longer drink alcohol because the risks included more than just a hangover.
“I can’t drink because it will shoot my sugar levels too high and then it will drop my sugar levels really low,” Heger said.
While Heger’s dad and grandparents have diabetes, he said wasn’t prepared for an early diagnosis.
“I figured I was going to get diabetes since it runs in my family, but I thought I would get it much later in life, like at age 50 or 60,” Heger said. “Now I’m a 21-year-old with diabetes and it’s life-changing.”
Heger noticed he was drastically losing weight, dropping 35 pounds between winter break and spring break. He decided to check his blood-sugar level on his dad’s sugar reader; it was four times higher than it should have been. A few days later, a doctor confirmed Heger was diabetic.
Patty Quinlan, Watkins Health Center nursing supervisor, said type 2 diabetes is closely linked to obesity. Both are on the rise in the U.S. because Americans eat too many processed foods. According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetics need to eat a balanced diet, paying special attention to carbohydrates and sugar intake.
For young adults with diabetes, a healthy diet is not the only thing to focus on. Quinlan said younger diabetics were more likely to need insulin, which is a more intensive treatment than oral medication.
“Probably more college aged students would be insulin-dependent than not, due to the age of diagnosis,” Quinlan said. “The fact that a person is insulin-dependent versus not shows how severe their diabetes is, and needing insulin is more severe.”
Heger takes insulin shots for each meal and one at midnight every day.
As an engineering major and volunteer at Jayhawk Motorsports last spring, Heger had a demanding schedule on top of needing to pay close attention to his diet.
“I have to get three meals in every day and at around the same time,” Heger said. “It’s really hard because I have to eat consistently and I have such a crazy schedule.”
Unlike Heger, Kylie Wingate, a junior from Liberty, Mo., said her diabetes didn’t affect her drinking habits. In fact, she said after a night of drinking her blood sugar levels were perfect the next day. Wingate learned she was diabetic at age 12. She said she learned how to control a situation involving alcohol over the years.
“I don’t think you can go out and binge drink. You have to pay attention to what you put in your body,” Wingate said. “But after you’re diabetic for so long you know how to use your insulin to control your sugar and you should be fine.”
When Wingate came to Kansas she said she was worried about living on her own without the help of her family. She said her college experience has been slightly different from most students because she has had to carefully plan her nightlife.
“I’ve been out before where I don’t have the extra insulin I need and my blood sugar goes really high and I feel sick,” Wingate said. “There’s not a whole lot I can do until I get home.”
Wingate uses an insulin pump to control sugar levels. The pump consists of a plastic tube that sticks to her skin as she adjusts the amount of insulin injected into her body by programming the device and telling it how many carbohydrates she’s ingested. She has to move the placement of the pump every three days to avoid scar tissue, but Wingate said this form of medication was relatively low-maintenance.
“Whenever I eat I’ll go into the insulin pump and tell it how many carbs I’ve had and it knows how much insulin to give me,” she said.
Both Heger and Wingate currently face constant-yet-manageable obstacles to control their diabetes, but Wingate said the likelihood of future complications worried her.
She fears that one day she could develop more serious problems typical of type 1 diabetes, including blindness, kidney failure or diabetic neuropathy.
“You hear all these horror stories of these people in their 40s who have these side effects and it scares the heck out of me because I’m not that far off,” Wingate said. “I’m halfway to 40, so what if this happens to me?”