Jonathan_15Jan1969
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
To help insomniacs get to sleep or maybe some new T1 diabetics may feel better they have it now and not back then but anyway here goes.
A lot of this info comes from my parents as I have very little memory of it now.
I was born in May 1966 and diagnosed type 1 diabetic on 15th January 1969.
I succumbed to the measles virus in 1968 at just over two years old. I believe there was a measles vaccine back then. Individual and not like the multi MMR vaccines of today. Not sure if it wasn't felt serious or maybe given on request or at an age I hadn't reached but I never had the chance to have it. Though I was too young to know procedures back then and to be honest haven't enquired, maybe too late to worry about that history to really be bothered and it doesn't change anything.
I appeared to recover from measles without any apparent side affects but days onward I began to get constant painful doubling over and hugging my knees stomach cramps. My mother worried she was not cooking food correctly or it was her fault in some way. Eventually with no other option she took me to her doctors and I guess the first GP available (probably more easily available back then compared to today but I digress).
From what I'm led to believe the doctor appeared to be inexperienced, or someone else sat his medical exams for him, he said I was suffering from a vitamin deficiency and gave me a sweet syrup liquid to drink and sent me home.This had the required effect of making me many times worse and I had to eventually be admitted to hospital.
(Note that this was the time of meat and two veg and vegetables were often a staple as there's no convenience food other than fish and chips - what's a KFC? - so I was fed well and would not have been deprived of any standard food groups so vitamin deficiency?).
On a side-note I have since, via the internet, read a university paper online about a connection of an increase in T1 diabetes after a measles epidemic in sections of America - amazing what you can find on the web. So for that reason I'm convinced the likely reason of my diabetes. A shock to the system or attacked my immune system.
It's hard to understand but I was not long for this world. If anyone has seen pictures of the emaciated Belsen concentration camp prison survivors, and the solution to dysentery was not to feed the prisoners, this is how my dad referred to my appearance 'like a Belsen skeleton'. I suppose I would have had ketoacidosis and fat was being shed through my urine left right and center. A GP who happened to be on the ward recognized the symptoms while passing down the ward. Not sure why he happened to be there, perhaps delivering a patient as they sometimes do, but luckily he was and that doctor became my then GP.
I had my first injection and I guess dosage needed to be worked out over time as the first one gave me enough appetite to eat an 8oz steak (was it better hospital food back then or perhaps a lucky coincidence?) so for a two year seven month old to polish off an adult meal portion quickly you can understand 'hypo hunger'. Anyone here ever had a hypo coinciding with dinner time that they've eaten a plateful of hot chips and pie then come round with skin shreds on their roof of mouth because the hungers overtaken the need for burning food caution? Hate that when you're tonguing you upper palate and trying to get rid of them.
I do not recall how long I was in hospital, I have blanked a lot I think. You do tend to recall bad things better than good but perhaps sometimes they are so bad you let them go. I don't remember the nurse who gradually injected me so that my arm injection site spelled a letter 'J' for my initial. The nurse probably thought it was cute, but to me thinking of it today, incredibly cruel and I think if my mum had seen the nurse again she would have punched her lights out and she's not an aggressive parent. I really don't remember it. I guess first memories don't go that far back I sort of have a flash of memory of being on the ward but it's a small insignificant memory more on just being there near a bed and little else but perhaps it's a blessing. Pity my parents were older and remember it.
A time of the glass syringe and stainless steel needles - one needle for many injections - I was on one injection which was perhaps the norm - prior to the basal,bolus regime of today. They were many times longer and thicker than today's beautiful needles. It may seem odd to many but for me as an injector the greatest creation over the years is the new ultra fine needles that are incredibly short and small and makes things so painless and would be second only to them making closed loop pumps free for all or a straight out cure in my opinion.
The above does often make me think of my mum who is and always will be my hero. It's odd that my dad who is strong, fierce and strict and even in late seventies can make young people who cross him tremble could not face doing it. My mum used to pace up and down and had shakes possibly due to my cries and trying to get out of the pain.
These needles went in at 45 degrees, they were the same size for adults and children, there was much under skin bubbling and bruising. My bucking like a bronco causing my mum to have to pin me down with her knee to reduce damage must have added to her trauma.
I am unfortunate to be emotional and have a very strong imagination that I can picture my mum and it does inevitably make me feel sad and a sickness feeling in my chest, but the fact is she is truly courageous and why I'm still here. Thankfully I grew up and got to an age I could inject myself but I can recall how resistant that needle could be and I got the shakes too. Couldn't pin myself down with my own knee unfortunately haha.
The above should not and is not provided for pity or anything like that but I think it shows that although there is no cure and things sometimes seem to be slow moving. I have had it for a long time and appreciate any improvement is a good thing. I never had the false promise 'There will be a cure in 10 years' which is the wrong thing to say. Mine has been 'He has it young so one day it may be cured' so is easier for me to not expect too much and not hang my hopes and if it comes along you are more grateful but if nothing does then you aren't disappointed.
Regardless I take it I'm normal I can do what others do if I want to, just need to take a lot more care of myself than those that don't have it but there are many out there who have to do that anyway even without diabetes.
Are you asleep yet?
Jonathan
A lot of this info comes from my parents as I have very little memory of it now.
I was born in May 1966 and diagnosed type 1 diabetic on 15th January 1969.
I succumbed to the measles virus in 1968 at just over two years old. I believe there was a measles vaccine back then. Individual and not like the multi MMR vaccines of today. Not sure if it wasn't felt serious or maybe given on request or at an age I hadn't reached but I never had the chance to have it. Though I was too young to know procedures back then and to be honest haven't enquired, maybe too late to worry about that history to really be bothered and it doesn't change anything.
I appeared to recover from measles without any apparent side affects but days onward I began to get constant painful doubling over and hugging my knees stomach cramps. My mother worried she was not cooking food correctly or it was her fault in some way. Eventually with no other option she took me to her doctors and I guess the first GP available (probably more easily available back then compared to today but I digress).
From what I'm led to believe the doctor appeared to be inexperienced, or someone else sat his medical exams for him, he said I was suffering from a vitamin deficiency and gave me a sweet syrup liquid to drink and sent me home.This had the required effect of making me many times worse and I had to eventually be admitted to hospital.
(Note that this was the time of meat and two veg and vegetables were often a staple as there's no convenience food other than fish and chips - what's a KFC? - so I was fed well and would not have been deprived of any standard food groups so vitamin deficiency?).
On a side-note I have since, via the internet, read a university paper online about a connection of an increase in T1 diabetes after a measles epidemic in sections of America - amazing what you can find on the web. So for that reason I'm convinced the likely reason of my diabetes. A shock to the system or attacked my immune system.
It's hard to understand but I was not long for this world. If anyone has seen pictures of the emaciated Belsen concentration camp prison survivors, and the solution to dysentery was not to feed the prisoners, this is how my dad referred to my appearance 'like a Belsen skeleton'. I suppose I would have had ketoacidosis and fat was being shed through my urine left right and center. A GP who happened to be on the ward recognized the symptoms while passing down the ward. Not sure why he happened to be there, perhaps delivering a patient as they sometimes do, but luckily he was and that doctor became my then GP.
I had my first injection and I guess dosage needed to be worked out over time as the first one gave me enough appetite to eat an 8oz steak (was it better hospital food back then or perhaps a lucky coincidence?) so for a two year seven month old to polish off an adult meal portion quickly you can understand 'hypo hunger'. Anyone here ever had a hypo coinciding with dinner time that they've eaten a plateful of hot chips and pie then come round with skin shreds on their roof of mouth because the hungers overtaken the need for burning food caution? Hate that when you're tonguing you upper palate and trying to get rid of them.
I do not recall how long I was in hospital, I have blanked a lot I think. You do tend to recall bad things better than good but perhaps sometimes they are so bad you let them go. I don't remember the nurse who gradually injected me so that my arm injection site spelled a letter 'J' for my initial. The nurse probably thought it was cute, but to me thinking of it today, incredibly cruel and I think if my mum had seen the nurse again she would have punched her lights out and she's not an aggressive parent. I really don't remember it. I guess first memories don't go that far back I sort of have a flash of memory of being on the ward but it's a small insignificant memory more on just being there near a bed and little else but perhaps it's a blessing. Pity my parents were older and remember it.
A time of the glass syringe and stainless steel needles - one needle for many injections - I was on one injection which was perhaps the norm - prior to the basal,bolus regime of today. They were many times longer and thicker than today's beautiful needles. It may seem odd to many but for me as an injector the greatest creation over the years is the new ultra fine needles that are incredibly short and small and makes things so painless and would be second only to them making closed loop pumps free for all or a straight out cure in my opinion.
The above does often make me think of my mum who is and always will be my hero. It's odd that my dad who is strong, fierce and strict and even in late seventies can make young people who cross him tremble could not face doing it. My mum used to pace up and down and had shakes possibly due to my cries and trying to get out of the pain.
These needles went in at 45 degrees, they were the same size for adults and children, there was much under skin bubbling and bruising. My bucking like a bronco causing my mum to have to pin me down with her knee to reduce damage must have added to her trauma.
I am unfortunate to be emotional and have a very strong imagination that I can picture my mum and it does inevitably make me feel sad and a sickness feeling in my chest, but the fact is she is truly courageous and why I'm still here. Thankfully I grew up and got to an age I could inject myself but I can recall how resistant that needle could be and I got the shakes too. Couldn't pin myself down with my own knee unfortunately haha.
The above should not and is not provided for pity or anything like that but I think it shows that although there is no cure and things sometimes seem to be slow moving. I have had it for a long time and appreciate any improvement is a good thing. I never had the false promise 'There will be a cure in 10 years' which is the wrong thing to say. Mine has been 'He has it young so one day it may be cured' so is easier for me to not expect too much and not hang my hopes and if it comes along you are more grateful but if nothing does then you aren't disappointed.
Regardless I take it I'm normal I can do what others do if I want to, just need to take a lot more care of myself than those that don't have it but there are many out there who have to do that anyway even without diabetes.
Are you asleep yet?
Jonathan
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