rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think one of the most important lessons with diabetes is that perfect control is not possible. You have to accept that despite your very best efforts and whatever your Health Care Professionals say about ranges or aiming for particular numbers, there is only so much you can do and sometimes your levels will swing quite wildly regardless of what you eat or calculate carbs etc.
I am delighted that you have Libre because I think that gives you huge benefits not only with seeing what is happening between readings and being able to take readings so much more frequently than finger pricks, but also giving you more realistic goals. Do you use the "Time in Target" feature where you set your target range.... usually to 3.9 to 10 and you are aiming to keep within that range 70% of more of the time. For me this really helped change my outlook on success and gave me more reasonable targets to achieve rather than worrying about individual readings being too high or too low.
Do you have the Libre 2 version which has alarms which warn you when you are going high or low? If you haven't been advised on doing corrections when you are going high there is not a lot else you can do about those except worry about avoiding it with the next meal, which I think can lead to eating disorders and it sounds like you might be developing that, so I think learning to do corrections after meals is an important next step for you. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to eat normal meals and occasional chocolate and puddings etc but you need to devise techniques to cope with those meals and doing corrections after meals is an important tool in developing those techniques, especially if bolusing insulin with those meals is causing a problem. Also if the Libre is telling you that you are going high but there is nothing you can do about it, I can imagine that must be a bit scary but occasional highs of mid teens or more in the early weeks and months are perfectly normal and will not do you any real harm. It is more permanent long term highs which cause damage or long term swings from high to low and back but hopefully you will get this ironed out in a few weeks or months and be feeling much better about your control once you have the right insulins and the knowledge and confidence to use them well.
I found that not being frightened to experiment was something that really helped me. I would have liked my HCPs to have encouraged this more. Obviously you need to keep a close eye on your levels when you experiment in order to keep safe but rather than following the advice I was given rigidly, it was really helpful to try things for myself. Reading this forum regularly and hearing what others were doing really helped me to understand what was going on and gave me ideas about how I might change what I was doing to try to improve my management. I have surprised my consultant with some of the things I have found out about my diabetes but he cannot argue when he can see that those things work for me.
You will get the hang of this soon. Try not to be frightened of food because it is not the food which is the problem, it is just that you currently don't have the right information, experience or tools to balance things. Keep pushing your nurse or consultant for help and be prepared to keep experimenting, even if you have failures, because you often learn more from those than successes. Maybe experiment on days off from work when you perhaps have more time to monitor things and keep yourself safe. Many people have a period of several weeks or even months off work when they are first diagnosed in order to get their head around it all in a safe environment, so maybe some time off work might be a possible option too.
I am delighted that you have Libre because I think that gives you huge benefits not only with seeing what is happening between readings and being able to take readings so much more frequently than finger pricks, but also giving you more realistic goals. Do you use the "Time in Target" feature where you set your target range.... usually to 3.9 to 10 and you are aiming to keep within that range 70% of more of the time. For me this really helped change my outlook on success and gave me more reasonable targets to achieve rather than worrying about individual readings being too high or too low.
Do you have the Libre 2 version which has alarms which warn you when you are going high or low? If you haven't been advised on doing corrections when you are going high there is not a lot else you can do about those except worry about avoiding it with the next meal, which I think can lead to eating disorders and it sounds like you might be developing that, so I think learning to do corrections after meals is an important next step for you. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to eat normal meals and occasional chocolate and puddings etc but you need to devise techniques to cope with those meals and doing corrections after meals is an important tool in developing those techniques, especially if bolusing insulin with those meals is causing a problem. Also if the Libre is telling you that you are going high but there is nothing you can do about it, I can imagine that must be a bit scary but occasional highs of mid teens or more in the early weeks and months are perfectly normal and will not do you any real harm. It is more permanent long term highs which cause damage or long term swings from high to low and back but hopefully you will get this ironed out in a few weeks or months and be feeling much better about your control once you have the right insulins and the knowledge and confidence to use them well.
I found that not being frightened to experiment was something that really helped me. I would have liked my HCPs to have encouraged this more. Obviously you need to keep a close eye on your levels when you experiment in order to keep safe but rather than following the advice I was given rigidly, it was really helpful to try things for myself. Reading this forum regularly and hearing what others were doing really helped me to understand what was going on and gave me ideas about how I might change what I was doing to try to improve my management. I have surprised my consultant with some of the things I have found out about my diabetes but he cannot argue when he can see that those things work for me.
You will get the hang of this soon. Try not to be frightened of food because it is not the food which is the problem, it is just that you currently don't have the right information, experience or tools to balance things. Keep pushing your nurse or consultant for help and be prepared to keep experimenting, even if you have failures, because you often learn more from those than successes. Maybe experiment on days off from work when you perhaps have more time to monitor things and keep yourself safe. Many people have a period of several weeks or even months off work when they are first diagnosed in order to get their head around it all in a safe environment, so maybe some time off work might be a possible option too.
