New Type 1 diabetes

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Lily.D

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Type 1
Hi, I'm newly diagnosed (yesterday) type 1 diabetes in my forties. Been feeling pretty rough so i'm relieved to have a diagnosis and some help to sort myself out. Any other type 1 diabetes folks, how long did it take to get sugars under control?
 
Welcome to the club.
I felt a bit like you - relieved to find out what was causing the roughness.
Regarding how long it takes to get sugars under control, I am sorry to say that diabetes is something you will learn to manage but if you try to control it you will be fighting a losing battle as there are so many things which can affect our blood sugars.
And that is probably the biggest and hardest lesson I had to learn: don't expect perfection.
 
It took me a couple of months to feel i was starting to get the hang of it and to tame the peaks. Hang on in there, it gets easier!
 
Hi and welcome from me too, another late starter at 55yrs old, 4.5 years ago.

It is actually better to bring your levels down slowly, rather than getting them down into range too quickly, much as we all wanted to do that. The fine blood vessels in the eyes are particularly vulnerable to changes in glucose levels and when they have been very high.... I am guessing your HbA1c is probably in or near to 3 figures.... then slow and steady progress is best, so don't be in too much of a rush. Diabetes is a marathon not a sprint as we like to say here, so slow steady progress is what you are aiming for. I think it took me about 6 months to get down to about 60 from 116 and I now average about 50mmols.

Which insulins have you been started on and do you have a sensor to monitor your levels or are you just finger pricking for now to get your Blood Glucose (BG) readings.
 
Welcome to the forum @Lily.D

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but glad it has come as something of a relief, and I hope the insulin helps you to feel better soon.

We have a fair few members who were diagnosed with T1 in later life along with @rebrascora

I’ll tag-in @SB2015 @Robin @Pattidevans - and I‘m sure you’ll ‘meet‘ many more here too!
 
Welcome, @Lily.D, glad you’ve found us, but sorry you have to be here! I was misdiagnosed as Type 2 because of my age, so it took a while to get onto the right treatment, and get a proper diagnosis, so I only managed to get my levels down somewhere less scary over about six months, and then spent the next six months fine tuning when I finally got short acting insulin. It meant that I assimilated it all slowly, which was probably an advantage.
Do expect to have wobbles along the way, nobody's blood glucose behaves itself consistently all the time, it changes with the seasons, with holidays, with stress, etc, but over time it becomes second nature to think, Oh, that’s not working as well as it used to, need to tweak my insulin, Ah that’s better..
 
Welcome @Lily.D 🙂 I felt a lot better once I was started on insulin and I hope you do too. Within a few days, I felt more like myself. It was almost 30 years ago so I don’t remember exactly how long it took to get some basic control of my blood sugars, but I think it was a few weeks.As said above, it’s best to bring them down gradually. The annoying thing about Type 1 is that we have to try to do the job of a pancreas. You don’t realise how clever the whole system is until you try to replicate it! Type 1 isn’t like other conditions where they calculate a dose and off you go. So many things can affect blood sugar, and so our doses will vary. I second what @helli said above - perfection is impossible.
 
Welcome to the forum @Lily.D from another late starter (53 at diagnosis)
I am glad that you have found the forum, and find it as useful as I do.

i certainly felt a lot better once I had insulin in me again, as I had been very poorly up to diagnosis. I know that they wanted to bring my levels down slowly at the start, and then over time Igradually bought my levels in range, but they are never going to be perfect. The job of a pancreas is not easy, and there are so many factors that impact our glucose levels, but we each do the best that we can.

There is loads of experience to tap into on here, so fire away with any questions that arise. Nothing is considered silly on here. Just ask.
 
Lily.D said:
Hi, I'm newly diagnosed (yesterday) type 1 diabetes in my forties. Been feeling pretty rough so i'm relieved to have a diagnosis and some help to sort myself out. Any other type 1 diabetes folks, how long did it take to get sugars under control?
Click to expand...
Hello Lily. I was diagnosed February this year with Type 1. A huge shock at 57! I still make some insulin for myself, so getting my levels down is proving tricky. It took a good 6 months just to get my head around everything. For now get used to your diagnosis, as you indicated you have only just been diagnosed. Be kind to yourself. Diabetes.org.uk are fab, you can read what you need, when you need it. Don't be frightened of talking to your diabetes team, no matter how trivial you think your question is. Now, 8 months on for me, I use a Libre Sensor and I am beginning to see some triggers. its not just food, but stress, illness or exercise can cause high blood sugars. I can also recommend the carbs and Cals book/app. Finding your food triggers will be trial and error, but don't beat yourself up if you make a mistake.
 
Robin said:
Welcome, @Lily.D, glad you’ve found us, but sorry you have to be here! I was misdiagnosed as Type 2 because of my age, so it took a while to get onto the right treatment, and get a proper diagnosis, so I only managed to get my levels down somewhere less scary over about six months, and then spent the next six months fine tuning when I finally got short acting insulin. It meant that I assimilated it all slowly, which was probably an advantage.
Do expect to have wobbles along the way, nobody's blood glucose behaves itself consistently all the time, it changes with the seasons, with holidays, with stress, etc, but over time it becomes second nature to think, Oh, that’s not working as well as it used to, need to tweak my insulin, Ah that’s better..
Click to expand...
Very wise words, thank you.
 
HV57 said:
I'm on Levimer and Novorapid.
Click to expand...

Are you carb counting and adjusting your Novorapid as needed? Apologies if you are and that sounds like a bit of an insulting question, but a few hospitals don’t teach it until quite a way after diagnosis.
 
Inka said:
Are you carb counting and adjusting your Novorapid as needed? Apologies if you are and that sounds like a bit of an insulting question, but a few hospitals don’t teach it until quite a way after diagnosis.
Click to expand...
Yes i do my best. I've always cooked from scratch (mostly) and have found the carbs and cals app very helpful. I genuinely do have a very good Diabetes team and they a guiding me well.
 
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome from me too, another late starter at 55yrs old, 4.5 years ago.

It is actually better to bring your levels down slowly, rather than getting them down into range too quickly, much as we all wanted to do that. The fine blood vessels in the eyes are particularly vulnerable to changes in glucose levels and when they have been very high.... I am guessing your HbA1c is probably in or near to 3 figures.... then slow and steady progress is best, so don't be in too much of a rush. Diabetes is a marathon not a sprint as we like to say here, so slow steady progress is what you are aiming for. I think it took me about 6 months to get down to about 60 from 116 and I now average about 50mmols.

Which insulins have you been started on and do you have a sensor to monitor your levels or are you just finger pricking for now to get your Blood Glucose (BG) readings.
Click to expand...
Hi!
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome from me too, another late starter at 55yrs old, 4.5 years ago.

It is actually better to bring your levels down slowly, rather than getting them down into range too quickly, much as we all wanted to do that. The fine blood vessels in the eyes are particularly vulnerable to changes in glucose levels and when they have been very high.... I am guessing your HbA1c is probably in or near to 3 figures.... then slow and steady progress is best, so don't be in too much of a rush. Diabetes is a marathon not a sprint as we like to say here, so slow steady progress is what you are aiming for. I think it took me about 6 months to get down to about 60 from 116 and I now average about 50mmols.

Which insulins have you been started on and do you have a sensor to monitor your levels or are you just finger pricking for now to get your Blood Glucose (BG) readings.
Click to expand...
Thankyou for this. HbA1c was 91 a couple of days ago. Im on Lantus and novarapid, and I have the librefreestyle CGM. I'm a bit obessed with the app at the moment!
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Welcome to the forum @Lily.D

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but glad it has come as something of a relief, and I hope the insulin helps you to feel better soon.

We have a fair few members who were diagnosed with T1 in later life along with @rebrascora

I’ll tag-in @SB2015 @Robin @Pattidevans - and I‘m sure you’ll ‘meet‘ many more here too!
Click to expand...
Thanks!
HV57 said:
I'm on Levimer and Novorapid.
Click to expand...
Thanks everyone. I'm not carb counting or adjusting insulin. I'm pretty reliant on the diabetes care nurses to tell me what to do at this stage. I'm going into hospital next week, maybe they'll talk about that then. I think the priority was to get my sugars and ketones down this week?
 
It is very common to take things step by step and to bring your levels down slowly at the start. The data from your Libre will help you and your team to make appropriate adjustments to your doses, and then to set you on the path to making these decisions for yourself, alongside carb counting. This will form the basis of the decisions you make about your bolus for each meal, and will give you the flexibility to choose what you want to eat.
keep the questions coming and let us know how you are getting on.
 
Feeling a bit sorry for myself today . The knowledge that I will die without taking insulin is tripping my brain out somewhat. I’m guessing this is normal at this very early stage, and I’ll come to term with it eventually.
Some good news is that my sugars are in the green zone on the app
 
Perfectly normal to fill like that @Lily.D It does take a while to get used to. A Type 1 diagnosis is a big shock. Be kind to yourself, go along steadily and take one day at a time.
 
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