When I became a diabetic in March 2001 my hospital team suggested I join Diabetes UK which I did for a year. Back then there was no forum & the only form of contact & advice was “Balance” magazine. Whilst helpful in my early days it was only one way communication. I also, noticed & felt that it was mostly about T1’s & not enough about T2’s. I was a new T2 on tablets, the new one then, of Novonorm, generic is repaglinide, I think as I’ve stopped taking it a long time ago when I moved onto insulin. So, all the carb counting stuff didn’t really apply to me & went over my head! Although, I carried the DUK phones numbers in my tel/address books & then, my various mobile phones’ contacts list, I always felt reassured to have those phone numbers in case I ever needed it for advice etc, especially the international number when abroad on holidays, I wasn’t a member anymore & had no contact. It was like me always having an asthma inhaler on me in case of an attack even though I grew out of asthma from my teens into my mid/late 40’s: it was reassuring to have it to hand; but, actually periodically dumped unused & replaced as the dates expired! Ironically my asthma has returned now, since 2017, & I actually really do need to have that inhaler on me & to hand!
I knew from the start of the DUK charity but, had no idea at all of an online forum. I only discovered that when all of a sudden my GP practice started imposing a blanket change of test strips & I didn’t have the meter that would take those test strips. My chemist didn’t have the meter either, I asked, so I looked online to buy the test strips for the meter I’d been using for 15+ years. I was horrified by the prices & the best price I found was on the Diabetes UK online Shop. So, I bought 2 boxes of 50 strips each which didn’t last me very long as I was going through a series of hypos then, Jan/Feb 2018 & had to drastically reduce my insulin doses. At first I felt the hypos but, lost that awareness as they continued & I was testing a lot more since I was relying on the meter to tell me of a hypo! I couldn’t get any more of my test strips from my GP & I didn’t know what to do as I knew ai couldn’t afford to keep buying my test strips! I had to buy more from the DUK Shop but, in process discovered a small, in text size, link to a forum that I never knew existed!
I started reading & got to know what the forum was like: my only experience before was message boards for tv shows I liked; was badly hurt by personal comments made by “trolls” & never joined joined another one again. I was very wary of forums & message boards & avoided them all! For me, in the absence of all person to person contact & all the things that the senses, instincts etc tell you, there are only thoughts left through the text written. So, having my thoughts attacked by derogatory comments was deeply personal & extremely hurtful to me: more than anything else, outward appearances etc; what I think is what I am!
But, it wasn’t long before I started posted myself: got to know you lot for the supportive, kind, helpful & even funny, humorous lot you are! Also, got my test strips problem sorted out thanks to the advice I received here.
I read as much as I could the first few weeks & months, soaking everything up like sponge. I actually learnt more from these forums than I did in 17 years, back in March 2018, of being diabetic: was given a meter to test my blood sugars as they had to give me one, I learnt from a lot of T2’s that aren’t given meters, because I was started on blood lowering medication right from the start. Other than checking for hypos & not letting BS go too high when ill, I, & I learnt from here like a lot of T2’s left mostly on their own, didn’t learn how to use meter readings to change & adapt what I eat: learnt a very valuable & useful lesson, from here, to “eat according to my meter”! I also learnt a lot about insulin use. I had only been on insulin for a few years before discovering these forums & was very dependant on the fixed doses I was given. I learnt, from here, what each of my insulin’s, Levemir & Novorapid, did, how they worked, how I could change my own doses to suit my needs, (shush, don’t tell on me, when being deliberately naughty in eating something I KNOW will raise my BS), & how to tell which insulin I needed to adjust (when & how)! Not that I’m in perfect control all the time, even now, but, have a much better understanding of my own diabetes & manage it better.
I really like the mix of everybody across the board of diabetes & I actually find now, not the case back in 2001, that T1’s advice relevant, & helpful, to me as I’m on insulin: not every aspect as I still have insulin resistance that’s not so much the case with T1’s; also, don’t carb count & still have more or less fixed doses that change when my needs change.
But, there was something that really concerned me when I first joined these forums & has now changed that I put forward. The labels attached to each member could be deceiving & gave others, especially newbies like I was, the wrong impression: eg, new member, up to experienced member, which I found, to my surprise & dismaying concern, very quickly after I’d posted over 100 posts. I used those labels to assess & judge how experienced members are & how much I could trust the knowledge behind the advice given. I was REALLY concerned not to wrongly advise someone when I don’t really know myself: just because it said experienced member attached to my name. I like the new labels of “well known member” much better as it’s less indicative in the implications of the expert knowledge, or not, of members.
