Hello :)

[MummyRose2009]

Hello everyone

In November 2011 doctors diagnosed me with type 2 diabetes, they put me on metformin tablets once a day to start with then put it up to 2 a day after Christmas. I started to get sick on the tablet, throwing up whatever i was eating. I was losing weight, trying too but perhaps losing it a bit too quick. They switched me to the slow release metformin once in the evening and i got even more sick. i lost 3 stone in two and a half months. I came off it after i was violently ill on the weekend. By half way through the week i was as dry as a bone, tired, with a dreadful headache, i wasn't keeping any food or liquids down.
Went to the doctors and was falling asleep in the waiting room, my mum was trying to get fluids down me while we were waiting.
When the doctor saw me she tried to take blood but all my veins were just colapsing i was that dehydrated. i had a huge amount of Ketones in my urine and i was admitted straight to hospital where i was immediately put on a fast drip of liquid and potassium.

Later that afternoon i was diagnosed as diabetic type 1 and was suffering ketone acidosis. i was in hospital for 3 days, 2 nights on a constant flow of liquid and was only just becoming hydrated by the third day. The diabetic nurse let me home on 4 injections a day but the next day i was back in again as my sugar level had shot up again and i needed more fluids.

I am now in the process of trying to get my blood sugar levels under control. I came home from the hospital last night and my sugar levels are still reading high, i'm having to take a dose of slow release at night time and in the morning and a fast release with each meal.

i'm finding it very hard at the moment, my diet has changed radically and so has my life, i'm emotional all the time and i really hate myself. I know my size is one of the leading causes of all this and why i have to take so much insulin and its so hard going from what i used to eat to such a strict diet. My home life is up in the air at the moment with us needing to move, us caring for my blind mother in law who is lovely but is at the moment doing nothing to help us or herself, and a hyperactive 2 and a half year old who is always hyper. The hubby will soon be in work so i'm going to have our 2 year old to look after the house to tidy, food to cook,shopping to do etc etc AND care for a blind lady.

Sorry for the long winded hello but any advice or help on the situation would help.

Thank you

Tia

 

[Robster65]

Hi Tia. Welcome 🙂

Phew. I hope you feel some relief at typing that out. It can sometimes be therapeutic in itself.

You've not had much support from the NHS by the sounds of it. I would imagine you'll be struggling big time to sort yourself out with all that to worry about.

I would suggest that you are going to need some help from somewhere. AS to where and for which aspect I can't really be of much help.

What regime of insulin have you been put on and have they shown you how to carb count ? (ie. vary your insulin doses according to what you eat along with dietary advice).

This is a basic educational need for any diabetic on insulin.

Rob

 

[Northerner]

Hi Tia, welcome to the forum 🙂 Sorry to hear you were misdiagnosed and then ended up so ill before you got a proper diagnosis and the appropriate treatment - I was in a similar state when I was diagnosed so I can really appreciate how awful you must have felt.

You have come to the right place! There are hundreds of lovely, friendly and knowledgeable people here who will help you with whatever questions you may have. It's early days yet on your insulin treatment, so it will take a while for your levels to settle down as you get used to the tpes of food that are kind to your blood sugars and those which are not. To discover this you need to follow a good testing regime, such as the one described in Test,Review, Adjust by Alan S . Make sure you record everything each time you eat - your level before eating, what the meal was, and how much carbohydrate was in the meal. You will then need to test after eating to see how it has affected you, usually at one and two hours after. Don't worry - you can reduce the testing once you have built up an idea of how things will affect you - it takes time and is a bit tedious, but necessary if you are to learn how to manage your diabetes well 🙂

I would highly recommend getting a copy of Type 1 Diabetes in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults by Ragnar Hanas. It will explain everything you need to know about living with Type 1. Well, maybe not everything, but for those things it doesn't, you have us, so please do ask if anything is confusing or confounding you - nothing is considered 'silly'!

Have you been offered a diabetes education course? If not, ask your team about what is available to you. Diabetes doesn't have to take over your life, although it can feel like it in the early stages - once you have learned how it affects you personally then it becomes more of an inconvenience.

You will be feeling very emotional because your fluctuating blood sugars will be affecting your mood - this should ease as you gain more understanding and control. Don't let things overwhelm you, it's not critical that you understand everything from Day 1, just do your best and it will become clearer with time. Your weight will have had absolutely nothing to do with your diagnosis, although it may be a factor in your misdiagnosis as being overweight can be a risk factor for Type 2 - but not for Type 1, which is an autoimmune disease unconnected with weight, so do not feel that you had any control over whether this would happen to you.

Have a browse around and let me know if there is anything I or the members can do to help you and put your mind at ease 🙂

 

[Steff]

Hi Tia,
Wow hun you have alot on your plate not easy, you bring a new meaning to the term superwoman thats for sure,the dignosis of course wont hep but diabetes does not have to be a battle if you keep on the right track and manage it well then theres no reasons why anything will happen, we had a member recently post who has been diagnosed 21 years and has no complications so it can be done.Have you had any offer of educational courses re DAFNE?
Anyway A warm welcome to the forum from me, you dont have to deal with this on your own now you have us ugly lot

 

[Copepod]

Welcome MummyRose2009 - it takes a while to get used to insulin and for it to get your blood glucose under control and to work out the right doses for you, which will vary with the ending of honeymoon period, amount of carbohydrate you eat, amount of activity you do etc.

As others have said, there's no guarantees about complications, but the chances are far lower if you take control and responsibility for your condition eg managing your weight, diet, matching short acting insulin dose to carbohydrate at each meal, being physically active - doesn't have to be sport / gym etc, as walking, cycling etc are great exercise and often easier to fit into normal life.

 

[Mark T]

Welcome to the forums MummyRose2009 🙂

 

[MummyRose2009]

Thank you everyone for the replies, it did feel really helpful getting it all off my chest.

At the moment i take 30 unit of slow release insulin at night time, 20 units of slow release insulin in the morning and 9 units of quick release fifteen minutes before each meal. The nurse has told me if it is still high after a meal then i am to take another 8 units.

My diet has changed Radically i literally have breakfast dinner and tea and check EVERYTHING to avoid sugars. I've recently gone to a site called Avidlite to see what foods i can get from there to help me as i am experiencing realllly bad hunger pains between dinner and tea.

I am waiting for a call from my diabetes nurse she is supposed to be phoning me today for a check up on things so maybe she'll explain more then. I think at the moment the first thing they want to do is get my insulin under control which they said is going to be harder cause i have only just had DKA.

At the moment its driving me mad, yesterday when i was in hospital everything was under control, but i took my dose of insulin and then just as tea was getting served they decided to send me for my scan so i only had a sandwich and ended up having to eat when i got home.

My sugar level last night was at 22 then down to 20 before i fell asleep, 19 this morning and then after brown toast and dairy free butter when back to 20 so i am going to see how it goes over dinner and take my normal dose.

Its so much to take it i know i have to try and stay as stress free as possible cause getting stressed can cause more problems than its worth but its so difficult at the moment to stay calm all the time.

Tia

 

[Northerner]

My sugar level last night was at 22 then down to 20 before i fell asleep, 19 this morning and then after brown toast and dairy free butter when back to 20 so i am going to see how it goes over dinner and take my normal dose. ...

A couple of things to note Tia - do not just think in terms of sugar when looking at food, it is the carbohydrate content you need to look at because all carbohydrates raise blood glucose levels. What is important is how quickly they raise levels, and by how much. Most people use the GI (Glycaemic Index) of a foodstuff to help determine whether it will send levels high very quickly or slowly release its energy. A more useful version of GI is called GL (Glycaemic Load), which takes account of portion sizes. See if you can get hold of a copy of The GL Diet for Dummies for a good introduction to the principles involved. The other thing is that although your levels are high, they do not appear to be rising too much when you eat (depending when you take the reading, of course - best to do this one and two hours after eating). It is the relative rise that needs to concern you when eating, not the final value e.g. a rise from 6 to 12 would be a relative rise of 6, which means the meal 'spiked' your levels high, but a rise from 10 to 12 would mean the meal had a much gentler effect on your levels 🙂

 

[margie]

. I know my size is one of the leading causes of all this and why i have to take so much insulin and its so hard going from what i used to eat to such a strict diet. My home life is up in the air at the moment with us needing to move, us caring for my blind mother in law who is lovely but is at the moment doing nothing to help us or herself, and a hyperactive 2 and a half year old who is always hyper. The hubby will soon be in work so i'm going to have our 2 year old to look after the house to tidy, food to cook,shopping to do etc etc AND care for a blind lady.

Sorry for the long winded hello but any advice or help on the situation would help.

Thank you

Tia

Welcome to the forums.

A couple of things your weight did not cause you to develop type 1 diabetes. Weight can be a source of insulin resistance but thats as far as it goes. Losing weight may help with the resistance.

Stress can produce anti-insulin hormones and you have a whole lot of stress (again you were not to blame for the stress that you have found in your life)

With so much going on it might be worth speaking to a counsellor. You are grieving about what you have lost (due to your diagnosis) and then you have a whole load of other stress on top.

Diabetesuk have a care line where if you feel up to it you might be able to unload some of your worries.

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/How_we_help/Careline/