Case reports designed as an aid to professional education A personal experience of brittle diabetes Lessons learned and lessons still to learn

Abstract

Brittle diabetes is rare but imposes huge demands on the Health Service in terms of time and costs. It is almost always due to manipulative behaviour. These ‘nice girls’ behave in a very devious way. It is important to recognise the problem, bring it out in the open and treat it at an early stage. This can avoid numerous unnecessary investigations and admissions, and prevent the development of severe insulin resistance which is very difficult to treat and may lead to death.

A diabetic odyssey: from research to guidelines. The Arnold Bloom Lecture 2002

“…Older age groups are more likely to have a recurrent hypoglycaemic or mixed types of brittleness. Perceived causes of brittleness are usually psychological 17…”