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Cry for help.

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N

NICNAK

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi all, I am a newbie on this support network, so first I must apologise for jumping in at the deep end with my problem.
I have had type 1 diabeties for nearly 30 years, I am a 42 mother of two grown up chrildren who works full time and has a wonderful husband.
I have had lazer treatment in both eyes and suffer from a small last of sensation in my little toe, I have sleep apenea and suffer from depression and high blood pressure. My bloods sugars run about 10 - 15 most of the time but do go down to 2.9 about once a week.

I dont want this anymore, i dont want to feel euxhausted all the time, I want to have the energy that my husband who is 50 has. I am scared of dying in ten or so years time, I get so upset about it a lot now, I just dont know what to do.

Please help xx
 
Hi Nicnak, welcome to the forum 🙂 It sounds like the key to more energy for you would be to gain tighter control of your blood sugar levels. What insulin regime are you on, and have you been on a carb counting course such as DAFNE? How often do you test and have you had any advice from your healthcare team? From reading the experiences of many of our members who have had diabetes for a long time, it often happens that they become 'forgotten' by the healthcare professionals, who assume that you must 'know everything'. Of course, treatments change and different approaches are devised, but it may be that you have not been kept up to date with the latest discoveries.

I would suggest getting a copy of Type 1 Diabetes in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults by Ragnar Hanas. It's not just for young people and children, but all Type 1s and is a very comprehensive reference guide that will bring you right up to date.

You are amongst people who understand how you are feeling, so please do feel free to let out your frustrations or ask any questions you may have 🙂
 
Hello Nick Nack and welcome to the forum.

Not sure I can help much as I am tablet controled, but I hope telling us has helped. Asking for help is an important step in feeling better.

What is your routine with the insulin? Have you been on a dose adujstment for normal eating course as it might help.

You can post here as often as you like. It helps to have a sympathetic ear and someone who understands. Have you spoken to your DSN or doctor and told them how you feel? What you are feeling happens to everyone at some time or another, but they may be able to advise froma medical standpoint.
 
Hi Nicknak Welcome to the forum. I'm also 42 and have had diabetes for 40 years. I have problems with my eyes and nerve damage to my stomach so can understand how you feel. You will get a lot of support on this site. It's definitely not good that your BGs are running that high, as you know that will contribute to your tiredness. Do you have a diabetes specialsi nurse? Have you spoken to them about carbohydrate counting and dose adjustment for normal eating (DAFNE). If you are not already doing this it will help a lot. Also have you been considered for an insulin pump as a lot of people on this site have found pumps to be very helpful. Please try not to be scared because with the right strategies in place many many diabetics from our age group can go on to live very long and relatively healthy lives. I must admit that cutting hours at work helped me a lot with the exhaustion, although it meant a cut in salary it helped me to start living a near normal life again, including studying for an OU course. Please let us know what we can do to help. Big hugs to you
 
Looks like Northener, Caroline and I were writing our posts at the same time hence the similar suggestions:D
 
Welcome to the site.........

Feel at ease to ask any and as many questions as you like as the knowledge and experience of our members is unrivaled..........

What insulin(s) are you using?

How do you feel the support from your Diabetic Team is?
 
Hi NicNak

You have come on here and asked for help, that is a big first step to getting things sorted out. Blood sugars running high will lead to exhaustion, and I also find that my mood is lower when my blood sugars are high. Do you keep a diary of your blood sugar results, injections and food, that might be a good starting point, to working out where you need to make adjustments.
 
Hi NicNac and welcome to the forums, if you are not car counting you may find it a big help. Now I don't know what access you have to a DSN or when your next review is, it may be someway off.

There is an online course that you can do which can teach you the basics of carb counting. You can find it at

http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/

Depression and tiredness can go hand in hand and high sugars will lead to tiredness. Constant tiredness can make you feel fed up.

However, as you have a lot of other medical issues its possible that your medications are adding to your tiredness - they can be a side effect of some meds. How about you see if you can get your GP to review your meds, or failing that some pharmacies can look at your meds and answer questions over side-effects etc. That may be easier for you as you could pop in late evening or a weekend.
 
Thank you all so much for the replies 😛

In answer to some of your questions, I take 50 Lantas at night with three doses of novorapid of anything from 6 - 20+ during the day.

I have asked to be put on a DAFNE course but all I was offered was a one to one with the diabetic nurse who vaugely told me to take 7 units of insulin to 1 gm of carb.

What should my BS run at then to improve my state of wellness ( is that a word ?) and how on earth do you start to get them down.

Once again, thank you all so much xx
 
Try the online course from bdec that was linked.......

you need to learn how to count carbs properly as opposed to being told by someone, the best person to take control is you.....

there are different targets for each time of day, before driving and if your trying to regain hypo awareness, but between 4-7 mmol/l is the guideline targets....

The most important thing in my opinion is to test before each meal, write down your result, how many grams of carbs you are eating and how much insulin you took for that meal......

Do you know about correction doses?
 
It doesn't sound like you have been given sufficient training with carb counting - certainly not to the extent that a full DAFNE course would do. I'd suggest having a look at the online course that margie mentioned in her post and that should give you a much better understanding. Most people find that the amount of insulin they need to cover a certain amount of carbs will vary through the day so have different ratios to deal with this e.g. 2 units for 10g carbs in the morning, but only 1 unit per 10g for the evening.

Ideally, your blood sugar levels should be in the range of 4-7 pre-meal and no higher than 9 two hours after eating - although this is an ideal and not always attainable! What you need to do is to start regular testing before eating, and then one and two hours after so that you can build up a picture of how different foods affect you and how you might need to adapt your diet. Do you inject before or after eating? Many people find that injecting 15 minutes before eating helps with levels as it gives the insulin time to get working as soon as the food starts digesting.

Try not to be overwhelmed by it all! You need a lot of patience as you gradually build up a picture of areas that you can improve on. With us nagging away at you though, I'm sure you can do it! 😉
 
Hi Nicnak

Sorry you are feeling so burnt out by D at the moment. In addition to the good advice you have had already.

Don't want to overwhelm you at this stage, but once you've begun to get your head around matching insulin dose to carbs eaten (carb counting) I'd also suggest you look into these:

1. Basal testing. A systematic way to check what your basal (background) insulin is doing at various times of the day. More detail here: http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120. If my basal is out even just slightly then I find my meal doses MUCH less 'reliable'
2. Carb moderation. Reducing the amount of carbs you eat can make successful dose adjustment (though does not guarantee it!). In general terms reduced carbs = reduced insulin dose = smaller margin for error.
3. Low GI/Low GL. Good MDI control is easier to achieve if you try to match the action of the insulin with the action of the food. Eating foods which tend to have a fairly gentle effect on BG can help. The difficulty is finding out what these are for you. There are general guidelines (eg foods higher in fibre and lower in simple sugars) but as with most things D-related everyone is different.

Good to have you here. Stick around and ask all the questions you have as they crop up. Chances are someone around here will have been through the same things and might have some ideas you could consider/talk through with your Doc.

M
 
Hi Nicnak. Welcome 🙂

It looks like everyone has given you plenty to consider for now.

Other things to consider are the effects of exercise, stress, rotation of injection sites (avoiding fatty lumps), timing of bolus before meals plus a million and one other things that can affect your blood glucose.

I know how difficult it is to try and change old habits and catch up with latest thoughts and regimes but it can be done and you will feel better for it.🙂

Rob
 
Gosh, you all so know much about the dreaded "D". Where do you get all your information form? xxx
 
Mostly it's from places like this :D

Here you get not only the wisdom from your own D clinic, but 100s of others all over the world, and the practical day-to-day experience of all sorts of diabetics with countless years of experience between them!
 
NICNAK said:
No I dont know anything about correction doses.......
Click to expand...

Well, a correction dose is a shot of insulin on its own or in addition to the dose for your meal that will bring your pre meal glucose reading down to target levels even before the insulin for the meal is used.....

Learning how much 1 unit of insulin drops your blood glucose by is a valuable bit of information, but the effectiveness of 1 unit can change throughout the day and depending on your blood glucose level....

I hope I am not making it sound scary, as its really quite straight forward....🙂

How often do you test your blood?
 
Hi, Welcome! I guess this all sounds a bit scary at the moment. I would start by keeping a diary of your sugar levels before and 2 hours after eating so that you can see what adjustments to make.

Its definitely worth checking out the online carb counting course but it seems to me that you need more support from your diabetes team. If they are not giving you enough support it might be time to go to a different hospital. We now get the choice of which hospital to go to and who to see for our care. You could try ringing the diabetes uk careline, they are brilliant and have advised me on good local consultants, courses etc that are all on the nhs and in my local area. They really are very knowledgeable 🙂
 
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