Hello everyone.

[Mark O'Neill]

I was originally diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 16 years ago and for the best part I have managed my condition with diet, exercise and later on medication. As I approach 50 (like with most things as you get older) I have found it even more difficult to control my rising blood sugar levels and I have to admit for the past 2 years I have been living in diabetic denial.

After my latest hba1c test revealed levels in the 80's, I knew I had to gain control before I ran the risk of further later life complications. Although the thought of insulin scared me no end, now I have accepted this fate I can now live life with a positive outlook going forward. It is early days for me, but as I remain type 2 I now have the added control of 30/70% fast acting and slow releasing insulin and I have seen my blood levels drop considerably.

I have been looking into the advancing technology in assisting managing my condition and in time I hope these forums can share peoples experiences, both good and bad.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome.

Good to hear that despite your reticence, you are finding insulin beneficial in managing your diabetes better and hopefully not too many hypos. It is all very much a balancing act.
It sounds like you are on a mixed insulin regime which is now a bit old fashioned and means you have very little flexibility in what and when you eat. insulin is a mix of fast acting to deal with the carbs from food and a slow release insulin to cope with the trickle of glucose the liver produces day and night to keep your vital organs fueled . Many of us have those insulins but in separate pens to inject independently, so we inject before each meal to deal with whatever we are going to eat and then once or twice a day with the slow release insulin. This means that we can skip a meal if we want to or even fast all day if we feel like it. It makes it easier to control weight because we only inject for what we are going to eat and if we are going to do lots of exercise one day we can reduce our doses to match. It means more injections and quite a bit of thought but enables you to have a much more flexible lifestyle rather than the quite regimented regime you need on mixed insulin and better BG management.
Of course, some people are happier living to a schedule with regular meals of a set amount of carbs but often it doesn't fit in with modern life and if you get ill and your levels go high as a result, with separate bolus and basal insulins (fast and slow acting) insulins you can do a correction with the fast acting (bolus) insulin to bring them down. With a mixed insulin, it is a little more tricky.
Anyway, that is something you might want to think about asking your nurse in the future, but it may be that the mixed insulin works great for you. We are all individuals with different tastes in food, different routines and lifestyles and different bodies and that can make for diabetes management also being very varied. Finding what works for you is the key to good diabetes management, but knowing what the options are helps rather than just assuming you have to make do with what you have been given. Self management and becoming the expert in your own particular diabetes is important because you live with it day by day and meal by meal.

 

[Inka]

Welcome @Mark O'Neill 🙂 I’m pleased the insulin is helping you. Sometimes the fear beforehand is worse than the reality. Insulin pens are blessedly easy and short-needled now, which helps a lot.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Mark O'Neill

Glad you have found the insulin helpful. It’s not at all uncommon for people with T2 to be resistant to starting insulin. This can unfortunately be due to the way some healthcare professionals use it as a ‘threat’ in consultations to try to motivate change (which I believe to be entirely counterproductive!)

Hope the improved BG levels continue to make you feel brighter and more well in yourself. As others have suggested, it may be that after a while a more flexible ‘multiple daily injection’ regime will suit you better, where you take your background and meal doses separately - as it means it is easier to miss or delay meals because you don’t need to ‘feed’ insulin you’ve already injected.

Let us know how things go 🙂