Love my Levemir and would fight tooth and nail if anyone tried to take it off me. I have learned to live with Fiasp but it took a long time to learn how to make it work for me.
My symptoms started after a meal out at a pub and I suddenly started to feel really thirsty. I had had steak and ale pie and chips and assumed the pie must have been a bit saltier than usual but by the time I got home I was gasping for water. First pint didn't touch the sides and I spent all night drinking water and weeing. Next day the same and the thirst was unquenchable and I realized this wasn't caused by a pie with a bit too much seasoning (which it hadn't tasted like anyway). Google lead me to a possible diabetes cause so I stopped all sweets and sugar for 2 weeks but I was still drinking and weeing for England and up 5 times a night to go to the loo and was a walking zombie as a result. That is when I contacted the doctor and had a blood test and was diagnosed diabetic.... the day after my birthday and the day before Valentine's day so very easy to remember each year although obviously I had been diabetic for 2 weeks prior to that. In the next 3-4 weeks I was losing weight at a very significant rate and what struck me was that my arms and legs no longer looked like mine.... I had always been muscular/stocky and strong but my thighs were getting really thin (loved that initially as I had always hated my thunder thighs) and even my wrists which you would think were mostly bone and sinews went like sparrows ankles. It really was quite surprising just how quickly the weight dropped off. 6 weeks from getting the diagnosis I was started on insulin as HbA1c had gone up to 114 instead of down, despite whittling my carb intake down to almost nothing and I was referred to the hospital clinic.
It was a shock to the system as I was a self confessed sugar addict and also loved bread and potatoes but having started on a low carb diet I decided to stick to it despite being to told t eat normally when I started on insulin. Just over 4 years now and I am still happily mostly low carb although I allow myself the odd shared fish and chips with my partner or a piece of cake if it looks really really nice but mostly I am not tempted and I now have my sugar addiction under control, mostly by abstention other than the occasional jelly baby for hypos.
I think I was so mortified and guilty that "I had done this to myself" though my sugar addiction (not the case as it turns out) that I used those negative feelings to motivate me to avoid the carbs until I had got into a habit of eating low carb and found new foods and treats that would not spike my BG. I feel fitter and healthier now than I did before thanks to the dietary changes I have made, so in some respects I see my diagnosis as making me healthier rather than being an illness, as it was the kick up the backside I needed to cut the sugar and be healthier. Interestingly I no longer suffer regular and very debilitating migraines and significanty reduced joint pain, so there have been other major positives to come with it too. Not saying it hasn't been difficult and it isn't frustrating sometimes but we have some great technology these days which makes life with diabetes so much easier. On the whole I see no reason to complain of feel sorry for myself and there are certainly far worse ailments that I could have got. In fact, how jammy am I, that I get a condition that made me slimmer and fitter and healthier. Yes it has taken some effort and I have had a few scary moments but mostly it is just understanding how my body and insulin and food works and experimenting until I have found the best way to manage it with the tools that I have. I also think being retired helps enormously because I have time to spend learning how to manage it. I really feel for young people who are diagnosed younger and have all of life's other trials to deal with as well as juggling their diabetes management.
Anyway, that is my story.
How did your diagnosis come about? Hopefully you didn't DKA. I was lucky to avoid that and intend to continue to avoid it. Don't mind the odd hypo but defo don't want to experience a DKA.
