When you live with diabetes, particularly if you take insulin, there’s always a need to think about safety behind the wheel. You need to ensure that your blood sugar levels won’t dip into a danger zone that could cause you to lose control of your vehicle.
Most people with diabetes (PWDs) are well aware of this, and conscientious about checking their glucose levels before driving. But you never know…
That’s why there’s a market for window decals, seat belt straps and an array of other items designed to flag the fact that the person driving a car has diabetes.
尽管这些物品在紧急情况下可能会非常有帮助，但并不是每个人都“在船上”在车辆上宣传自己的医疗状况以供全世界欣赏。
有利弊可以肯定，我们在糖尿病中通过在社交媒体上查询社区，并在糖尿病领域采访了几位医疗保健专业人员来研究它们。
首先，我们想知道，除了申请驾驶执照以在驾驶时要求披露您的疾病的驾驶执照外，是否还有任何官方规则。
法律关于驾驶和糖尿病随国家而异，但看来，即使在最严格的司法管辖区中，PWD也不需要甚至建议使用的医疗身份证。
但是，请注意，如果您确实有低血糖引起的驾驶问题，您将lose your license立即在大多数州。
Of course there’s always a personal imperative to make sure that police or paramedics responding to an emergency know about your condition in order to treat you properly. That’s often addressed by wearing a医疗ID手镯或其他MED警报珠宝（或tattoo). But there’s no guarantee that first responders or bystanders will see your personal ID.
年代o, on the pro side, some people believe these vehicle decals are an excellent choice to alert authorities in a medical crisis or emergency situation. There’s also a benefit to bystanders or fellow drivers seeing the sticker, who may be able to notify EMTs about an emergency if they notice erratic driving or anything out of the ordinary. These decals also can certainly help avoid having a diabetes emergency being mistaken for a drug or alcohol issue.
但是硬币的另一面是一个敏感的主题：谁想“宣传”他们的病并为可能的判断或污名开放自己的疾病呢？
The cons of choosing to publicly display your diabetes are clear. Why do strangers need to know? Some PWDs worry that police could target them and use that as an excuse to pull them over, or other drivers could point to the diabetes alert even if it’s not a factor in an accident or other driving incident (i.e. “It’s not MY fault I hit her!“).
超过100人对我们的糖尿病社交媒体疑问，询问您在车上显示糖尿病是否是个好主意。大约有73％的评论者说“不”，而只有14％的评论者说“是”。其余的在两者之间提供了一个答案，描述了它如何取决于特定情况或情况。
Victoria Cassedy, who’s lived with type 1 diabetes (T1D) for many years in Virginia, said she has displayed stickers stating, “I’m not drunk, I’m diabetic” ever since she saw a news story about a woman pulled over and forced by police to lay face down on the hot asphalt while being handcuffed. It turned out the woman had T1D and was having a severe hypoglycemic episode.
“(Police) treated her like total trash because they thought she was drunk. She could have died in the time it took them to treat her like a human being,” Cassedy shared with DiabetesMine.
Lauri Salsbury, who lives withT1D和自闭症在阿肯色州，将糖尿病贴在她的汽车上也是“是”。“我愿意！！由于两个原因：1）我为自己是谁而感到自豪，2）如果我发生事故，也许有人会看到贴纸并知道给我葡萄糖，”她写道。
But it’s a strong “no” from T1D Allison Marx in Georgia, who doesn’t see a reason to call out one’s health condition on your vehicle unless it’s required by law.
“While it may be somewhat common to put ‘student driver’ on a car for the safety of others, I don’t see any medical conditions being regularly called out,” she said. “We don’t ask elderly people to badge their car ‘elderly driver,’ so why would we expect diabetics or people with other diseases to? If I want an emergency responder to know I’m diabetic, my medical alert bracelet, phone medical alert, pump andCGM（连续葡萄糖显示器）should be plenty. I don’t need it otherwise advertised on my car for people to judge.”
凯西·马莫洛（Kathy Marmolejo）也反对这一点，写道：“不，因为有些人（已经）认为糖尿病患者应该无法获得许可，因为我们有风险。我有医疗身份证和警报卡。”
糖尿病敏于美国的几位内分泌学家和糖尿病护理和教育专家（DCE）。有趣的是，他们中的大多数人说，这个话题很少在与患者的对话中出现。
They said most conversations with patients around driving had to do with state laws, and they usually advise patients to contact their state driving agency or consult the American Diabetes Association resources available on每个状态的驾驶规则.
著名的DCEGary Scheinerin Pennsylvania (who lives with T1D himself) said it comes down to a personal choice whether patients are comfortable using a car sticker.
Scheiner说，尽管他不是为用糖尿病警报标记车辆的忠实粉丝，但他说，在他的实践中，他们教患者始终在钱包中有医疗身份证的正面和中心，并在可能的情况下穿一辆。他们分发了Ascensia Diabetes Care制作的名片大小警报，上面写着：我有糖尿病” and “请致电911” in big, bold print on the font. The back has one’s personal information for first responders, bystanders, or medical professionals.
在俄亥俄州，儿科内分泌学家Dr. Jennifer Dyersays her state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles asks each person if they have diabetes when applying for a license. If so, they must then have their doctor complete a diabetes history and assessment to sign off on whether that PWD is “adherent” to their particular management routine. Specifically, the doctor is asked on the form if that person should maintain their license and when that HCP believes the patient should be re-assessed.
Dyer says she’s refused to sign a few teenagers’ forms, particularly when they have “recklessly stopped checking their blood glucose, as I am legally responsible for any damage they do while driving related to their diabetes.” She notes that teens are highly motivated to drive: She’s seen many change their behaviors and consent to start wearing acontinuous glucose monitor (CGM)或更频繁地检查他们的糖以使她在表格上签字。“这是一种与青少年相处得很好的议价工具。”
当涉及到使用糖尿病汽车贴花的话题时，戴尔说：“对汽车上的糖尿病有更明显的标志会很有帮助，因此当EMT工人到达现场时，他们会知道汽车中的一个人会有一个人糖尿病。”
Even so, the approach varies by region. Dyer says that in her particular Ohio county, paramedics always assume that any injured or unconscious driver has diabetes and they do a glucose check, unless told otherwise. So, a driver’s vehicle ID might be less impactful there, compared to other places.
I personally have been driving with T1D since 1996, and have gone low and experienced dangerous scares that made me question whether I should even have a license. This happened at two key points in my life:
- The first was in my late teens not long after my high school graduation in 1997, long before I became an insulin pumper. I ended up swerving on the road and eventually getting pulled over by police in a parking lot. Thankfully, no accident occurred and no one was hurt.
- The second incident was in roughly 2009, just before starting on a CGM. As a result of a fast-dropping blood sugar that didn’t show itself with an in-the-moment fingerstick test at work, I had a “sudden” hypo that led me wandering from my office in a daze into the parking garage. I apparently climbed into my red Ford Escape and began driving towards home. I ended up in front of my subdivision in a ditch, after taking out a street sign with my car. Luckily (incredibly so!), no one was injured that time either.
在第二次经历中，当护理人员到达现场时，我被震惊了，但仍在方向盘后面。不确定我的周围环境，但能够看到我的细分入口，我试图逃脱。一名护理人员俯身进入敞开的窗户，从点火开关中拉了钥匙，以阻止我试图逃跑。
那个事件激发了我获得CGM的启发，从那以后，我就没有在方向盘上不知道我的血糖站在哪里。
In addition, that motivated me to start displaying a decal on my front windshield, rear window, and driver’s side window. For years, I also carried a medical alert on my keychain, along with a plastic case for 4 glucose tablets.
作为一个从未被描述或针对性的白人，我对在车辆上显示医疗警报没有任何疑问。但是我认识到自己的特权 - 尤其是在2021年。
Of late, my newest vehicle (and keys) haven’t had any diabetes alerts displayed for two reasons: I’ve been working from home full-time since 2012 and therefore don’t drive often, and as mentioned, I now wear a CGM and automated insulin delivery device that keeps my glucose levels in range more than 60 percent of the time. Those two points lead me to be less immediately concerned about diabetes driving emergencies.
显然，是否使用汽车贴花是个人的选择。我只是提醒我的T1Ddriving is a privilege, and please take precautions to stay safe — with or without a car sticker.
There are many different ways to display diabetes on your vehicle. Some are decorative, some less so. Some resources are:
- “董事会糖尿病”贴花found on Amazon
- a variety of decals, stickers, and magnets onEtsy并继续zazzle，您也可以找到这个安全带带for drivers with diabetes
- vinyl stickers and decals from the文莱商店online
- custom medical alert car decals,可在Shopify上找到