Sometimes I wonder if diabetes hasn't been the cause of all my other health conditions. It's always seemed weird to me that I'm the token "sick" person in my family. No one else seems to have issues, so why me?

Even when I was diagnosed at four years old, I was the only diabetic in my family. They called me the "token" child. The one who just happened to get this random disease.

And in second grade, I got shingles. My brothers never had shingles. And we all had chicken pox at the same time. So why me?

Then in 2006 when my health started drastically changing, I began to wonder again. Was it something that I did? Was it the years of diabetes? What was causing all these issues in my life? When everyone else in my life was in perfect health?

Of course, the other health issues that I deal with have unknown causes. No definitive reason, just sometimes something that happens. Genetic, maybe. Random fluke, probably. Environmental, possibly.

The PCOS really has me wondering lately though. PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome, is an excess of androgen hormones or an androgen absorption problem. It's mainly diagnosed by symptoms (weight gain, male pattern balding and hair growth, acne, infertility, ovarian cysts, and so on). It most often accompanies insulin resistance, even leading to type 2 diabetes in many patients.

So I wonder if my diabetes isn't the cause of all these issues that I have. After all, my own body can't produce insulin. Synthetic hormones generally aren't good...so why wouldn't there be consequences to the synthetic insulin that I have to use? Couldn't it be causing an absorption issue with my androgenic hormones?

Could it be causing the testosterone in my system to convert too often or absorb too much? Couldn't it cause some sort of sensitivity? Couldn't it be throwing the rest of my hormones off because I'm constantly battling insulin and blood sugars?

It probably doesn't matter either way. Diabetes could be responsible, but what can I do about it? Sixteen, almost seventeen, years of diabetes...it's bound to take a toll on something. And at this point, there isn't a cure. So dealing with what I have...diabetes, PCOS, and all...is really my only option.

Yet I can't stop wondering how diabetes has affected the rest of my health. The shingles, the PCOS, the endometriosis, the low cortisol, the low vitamin levels...what exactly is affecting what inside this body of mine? And what else might I be missing?