Hi, I'm Lyn!

[lyn]

Diagnosed T1 in Aug 1970. Discovered then that the medical community had no idea how to deal with diabetics, their directions made me put on two stone in two months!! Luckily I was very skinny on diagnosis. So have been trying to look after myself and now reached ten stone so time to relearn things!
Married with one son, three grandchildren and one gorgeous great grandson.
We travel a lot in our motorhome since retiring early.
Doctors have branded me a brittle diabetic because with the new 'human' insulin I have lost all sense of hypo's. My husband knows the signs and can sort it out. It's only recently the doctors have admitted this happens to diabetics on these insulins.

 

[Mikep73]

Diagnosed T1 in Aug 1970. Discovered then that the medical community had no idea how to deal with diabetics, their directions made me put on two stone in two months!! Luckily I was very skinny on diagnosis. So have been trying to look after myself and now reached ten stone so time to relearn things!
Married with one son, three grandchildren and one gorgeous great grandson.
We travel a lot in our motorhome since retiring early.
Doctors have branded me a brittle diabetic because with the new 'human' insulin I have lost all sense of hypo's. My husband knows the signs and can sort it out. It's only recently the doctors have admitted this happens to diabetics on these insulins.

Hi Lyn

Welcome to the forums of the big D club.

I'm looking forwards to hearing more about your adventures in the motor home (I'm a big vw bus fan).

Mike

 

[Ljc]

Hello @lyn , welcome to the forum. I know what you mean , I spent about a year educating my nurse when I went onto Insulin , the people here helped me far more than she did .
Sorry having T2 I am not going to be much help to you . I hope they are not leaving you to cope alone with loss of hypo awareness. Have they suggested a CGM that could alert you .
Others with far more experience than me will be along later today.

 

[SB2015]

Hi @lyn and welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear that you have had so little help. Am I right in thinking that your care is managed at your GP practice rather than the specialist team at a hospital? Like you I realised that those at the GP Practice and very little knowledge of T1, but I was fortunate to get referred to the hospital at the start ( I didn’t develop T 1 until I was 53). If you are with your GPyou might find it helpful to ask for a referral.

If you the HCPs are telling you that it is the Humalin that is causing you the problems with hypo awareness, have they offered you any of the other insulins available? Have they discussed ways in which you might be able to recover your hypo awareness?

As @Ljc has said, the loss of hypo warning signs is one of the criteria for being given a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) which would automatically turn off the insulin and alarm you when your BG is giong too low. However I know that these are hard to come by as they are so expensive and the running costs of the cannulas etc are costly.

Even though I am in the care of the specialist Diabetes team at the hospital, I still know that I have learnt most of what I know from others on here who are living with the condition every day. Keep in touch and ask any questions that you have. There are plenty of people on here happy to help.

 

[Northerner]

Diagnosed T1 in Aug 1970. Discovered then that the medical community had no idea how to deal with diabetics, their directions made me put on two stone in two months!! Luckily I was very skinny on diagnosis. So have been trying to look after myself and now reached ten stone so time to relearn things!
Married with one son, three grandchildren and one gorgeous great grandson.
We travel a lot in our motorhome since retiring early.
Doctors have branded me a brittle diabetic because with the new 'human' insulin I have lost all sense of hypo's. My husband knows the signs and can sort it out. It's only recently the doctors have admitted this happens to diabetics on these insulins.

Hi Lyn, welcome to the forum 🙂 I've heard quite a few long-term diagnosed people have similar problems with lack of hypo-awareness when changing from the old insulins, doctors are always the last to admit things happen 🙄

Good advice from @SB2015 about potential CGMs. Are you on injections or a pump? There are pumps that link to CGM to suspend insulin if levels fall below a certain threshold - might be helpful if you don't already have this. There's lots of information here:

https://www.inputdiabetes.org.uk/

 

[Stitch147]

Hi Lyn and welcome to the forum.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Welcome to the forum Lyn from a T2 who's 3.5 years in.

 

[HOBIE]

Diagnosed T1 in Aug 1970. Discovered then that the medical community had no idea how to deal with diabetics, their directions made me put on two stone in two months!! Luckily I was very skinny on diagnosis. So have been trying to look after myself and now reached ten stone so time to relearn things!
Married with one son, three grandchildren and one gorgeous great grandson.
We travel a lot in our motorhome since retiring early.
Doctors have branded me a brittle diabetic because with the new 'human' insulin I have lost all sense of hypo's. My husband knows the signs and can sort it out. It's only recently the doctors have admitted this happens to diabetics on these insulins.

Welcome Lyn. Tell your hubby to look after you . Your lovely family will I am sure 😉

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Hello again, Lyn, thanks for introducing yourself! I struggle with hypo awareness too, though sometimes I'm more aware than others - I'm on the waiting list for a pump but they'll only lend me a CGM for a week to see if they can see any patterns to my hypos (I will be very surprised if they can, I am sensitive to everything, not just insulin, so all sorts of things make me hypo). But if you've completely lost all hypo awareness, you might qualify for one in the longer term, as others have said. It's definitely worth asking!