I am new here, and acquired my LADA diabetes at an advanced age. I am often asked about ways to describe diabetes in simple layman's terms (I worked with many diabetes associations), so I wrote a novel which included analogies and had diabetes as one of the main threads. As it was a time travel story back to the times of war and the plague, you can imagine that the time traveler had to contend with the perils of no insulin. I have to respect the rules of this forum (no advertising), but if anyone wants just those pages, let me know. I guess I will need an email address, I don't know. Or, I can attach as a file.
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- Thread starter Keithf
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rebrascora
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Hi Keith and welcome
Good for you to write about diabetes as that can only help to improve people's knowledge and understanding of the condition.
Would you like to tell us a bit about how you manage your LADA and how your diagnosis came about. There are a few of us who were diagnosed with Type 1/1.5 later in life. I was 56 at the time but it was quite a sudden onset for me, although I managed to dodge a DKA or hospital visit and was initially assumed Type 2 for a few weeks.
Which insulin's are you on and do you have any of the latest tech to help you.... Freestyle Libre or perhaps even a pump? I have to confess I have more interest in your own circumstances and management of your diabetes than the character in your book but I can imagine time travel would pose a few quite significant difficulties with diabetes management because we have such fantastic insulins and tech these days to support us. Maybe a little curious to know how you envisaged the future and did you base your ideas on things which are currently in the research and development stages?
Good for you to write about diabetes as that can only help to improve people's knowledge and understanding of the condition.
Would you like to tell us a bit about how you manage your LADA and how your diagnosis came about. There are a few of us who were diagnosed with Type 1/1.5 later in life. I was 56 at the time but it was quite a sudden onset for me, although I managed to dodge a DKA or hospital visit and was initially assumed Type 2 for a few weeks.
Which insulin's are you on and do you have any of the latest tech to help you.... Freestyle Libre or perhaps even a pump? I have to confess I have more interest in your own circumstances and management of your diabetes than the character in your book but I can imagine time travel would pose a few quite significant difficulties with diabetes management because we have such fantastic insulins and tech these days to support us. Maybe a little curious to know how you envisaged the future and did you base your ideas on things which are currently in the research and development stages?
- Relationship to Diabetes
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Sure, happy to tell you. I think I was about 60 and, like you it was very sudden. I was up near Liverpool on a trip and found myself very thirsty and stopping every half hour for a pee. Classic symptoms. I never got to see a hospital or an endocrinologist, but I was put on insulin quite rapidly. And I have been there ever since.
I have used Freestyle Libre almost from the day it was launched and I am certainly no fan of a pump. FL was, and still is, the best initiative in diabetes since the insulin pen. The mystery for me, is howcome I came to acquire LADA in the first place, because there is no family history and I am fit. Strangely my brother also got it two years after me, at exactly the same age.
rebrascora
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To me, your situation suggests Type 1 rather than LADA but the time scale between symptom onset and needing insulin seems to be undefined in respect of LADA or Type 1. It was 6 weeks for me using a very strict, very low carb diet to try to manage my BG levels along with oral meds which did nothing. LADA tends to be months or more often years I think.
Autoimmune diabetes (Type 1 or LADA) has nothing to do with how fat or slim you are although most of us will lose some weight as a symptom of it initially. I believe there can be a genetic element but not necessarily. I had an uncle who was type 1 and a cousin and half cousin all on my mother's side of the family, but no one closer. My sister has developed a different autoimmune condition though, not long after my diabetes diagnosis, so it may be a genetic tendency of malfunction in the immune system rather than specifically diabetes which is genetic. My mother had a similar autoimmune condition to the one my sister has developed I believe. I think there is still a lot to learn about how and why diabetes manifests.
Do you self fund Libre? If not, just wondering how you manage to get it prescribed when you are not under a consultant as that seems to be the pathway to it for most people and even then some hoop jumping is usually necessary.
Your comment about pumps makes it sound like you have tried one.... or is it just the thought of them that puts you off? Most people here love them and the new closed loop systems are really interesting. Personally I am very happy with MDI and my Levemir enables me to keep things reasonably steady with some frequent tweaking, but Libre makes things so much easier. It really is a game changer.
Which insulins are you using and are you happy with them? Is your diabetes management supervised by your GP or a nurse at the surgery if you don't see a consultant? Are you happy with that arrangement?
Sorry for all the questions. You are obviously very switched on about diabetes so I am guessing you have done a lot of self education both for your own self management and also for the novel, so it is interesting to get an insight into that.
Autoimmune diabetes (Type 1 or LADA) has nothing to do with how fat or slim you are although most of us will lose some weight as a symptom of it initially. I believe there can be a genetic element but not necessarily. I had an uncle who was type 1 and a cousin and half cousin all on my mother's side of the family, but no one closer. My sister has developed a different autoimmune condition though, not long after my diabetes diagnosis, so it may be a genetic tendency of malfunction in the immune system rather than specifically diabetes which is genetic. My mother had a similar autoimmune condition to the one my sister has developed I believe. I think there is still a lot to learn about how and why diabetes manifests.
Do you self fund Libre? If not, just wondering how you manage to get it prescribed when you are not under a consultant as that seems to be the pathway to it for most people and even then some hoop jumping is usually necessary.
Your comment about pumps makes it sound like you have tried one.... or is it just the thought of them that puts you off? Most people here love them and the new closed loop systems are really interesting. Personally I am very happy with MDI and my Levemir enables me to keep things reasonably steady with some frequent tweaking, but Libre makes things so much easier. It really is a game changer.
Which insulins are you using and are you happy with them? Is your diabetes management supervised by your GP or a nurse at the surgery if you don't see a consultant? Are you happy with that arrangement?
Sorry for all the questions. You are obviously very switched on about diabetes so I am guessing you have done a lot of self education both for your own self management and also for the novel, so it is interesting to get an insight into that.
Hi there. FYI, here is a bit of my book where there is an explanation to the main character's kids as to what diabetes is.
Indeed, you could be right. The jury has been out on that for years, but it doesn't really matter, the result is the same - so I don't really worry about it.
And true, T1 and LADA are unrelated to how fat/slim etc. There is potentially a genetic element, but no one knows for sure and indeed a lot more research is required.
I used to self fund FL, but not any more. And, no I have never tried a pump, the thought of it puts me off. I am using lantus and Novo Rapid and it is all managed/supervised by a nurse practitioner and/or my GP.
I have had the advantage of mingling with a lot of international diabetes congresses (EASD, ADA, IDF) so that helps. And as far as the description used in my novel, part is attached, so see what you think.
SB2015
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- Type 1
Welcome to the forum @Keithf , from another late starter. Like you I don’t worry about whether mine I LADA orT1. At diagnosis I was in DKA and put on insulin straight away. No history of any diabetes in the family. Whatever the trigger, cause, speed of development, does not matter to me as the result is the same.
Like you the Libre was a game changer for me, although I was already on a pump when I started to use that. It showed me so much more about the impact of particular foods, such that my ’healthy’ breakfast of porridge was causing massive spikes. Now I make my own with much lower carbs and no oats.
Great that you have used your diabetes in your creativity.
Like you the Libre was a game changer for me, although I was already on a pump when I started to use that. It showed me so much more about the impact of particular foods, such that my ’healthy’ breakfast of porridge was causing massive spikes. Now I make my own with much lower carbs and no oats.
Great that you have used your diabetes in your creativity.
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