I'm a newbie and a carer

[Louise B]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie and have come on here in search of support. My hubby has type 1 diabetes. We've lived with it since I first met him 25 years ago. The first 20 years haven't been too bad but it's been getting steadily worse. Control is impossible and night time hypos and ambulance call outs are all too regular. This week I've been woken up every single night, he goes to bed with a sugar over 23mmol and at 3am it's 2.3 or lower...Is anyone else in the same boat? Do you think it's time we asked for a pump?

Sorry alot of questions I know!

 

[grovesy]

Welcome.
You can ask.

 

[Martin Canty]

Hi Louise, welcome.... Sorry I can't help with your question but there are people here who can

 

[Robin]

Hello, Louise, and welcome to the forum. It certainly sounds like your husband needs help sorting out his levels. Does he still attend reviews regularly, either at the hospital,or a DSN ( specialise nurse) at his doctors? Does he have the contact details for a DSN?
Also, what sort of an insulin regime is he on? I just ask because if he's been diabetic a long time and started on mixed insulin, and has never upgraded to basal/bolus, this won't be helping. If he is on a basal/bolus regime, ( long acting insulin once a day and short acting at meal times ) when did he last check whether his basal was set correctly? (It sounds like he's dropping massively overnight, so could,have too much insulin on board, when what he needs is more during the evening and less overnight)
Does he carb count for mealtimes, and has he been on a course recently, either to teach him how, or refresh his technique?
Sorry for all the questions, but it helps us think of solutions if we have the full picture.

 

[Ginny03]

When you get to the stage where you're having that many hypos, any change in treatment has to be worth a try. A pump would allow him a greater degree of control - hopefully avoiding getting up as high as 23 in the first place and then plunging down to hypo level. Is your hubby on a basal bolus regime with carbohydrate counting?

 

[trophywench]

I want to know the answers to all the questions Robin and Ginny have asked too - cos half the problem is when we've been diabetic for yonks, especially when everything has just simply been OK - the NHS tends to believe we already know absolutely everything we could possibly know - and the truth is - we don't know everything (no one person can ever know everything) - BUT we only know what has affected US, don't we? So then when it goes haywire - we're stymied and we think we shouldn't be stymied, WHY isn't it all just working like clockwork any more?

There's no shame in not knowing exactly what to do - nobody can be expected to deal with NEW problems unless they've been TAUGHT how to deal with them - so get and ask to be taught asap!

I'd been Type 1 for over 30 years when I finally got invited to go on a 'Carb Counting and Dose Adjustment' course. WOW - at the end of that - I only semi jokingly said, I wondered how the hell I'd even survived for the previous 30+ years, not knowing all I'd learned in the last week!

 

[Flower]

Hello and welcome Louise 🙂

It's time to ask for medical help to get stability back into your husbands life. As the others have said often long servers are assumed to know what's available and what to do but unless you are kept up to date with different insulins etc you can find there are better ways of managing that have passed you by.

Is he keeping his bed time levels deliberately high to try and overcome the night hypos? I know I went down that route when I started going too low in the night when using Lantus. It doesn't need to be so frightening for you both and there are things to try.

The Libre system by Abbotts provides a way to scan a sensor and give a recording of glucose levels and trends or his diabetes team may be able to lend him a continuous glucose monitor that records 24 hr glucose levels to establish when his levels are starting to rise and fall.

There are different things to try to get back control and stability so I would urge him to contact his diabetes team or his gp to refer him to a team.