Newly diagnosed

[yvonnegorvette]

Hi all,
My name is Yvonne from Manchester, aged 65, I have recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. It has come as a bit of a shock, as I assumed you were born with this condition. I was taken into hospital two weeks ago with hypoglycemia - reason I was diagnosed.
It is a whole new lifestyle that I am trying to adapt to and would appreciate any help, support or guidance to help me along the way. I am currently taking insulin in the morning and fast acting before eating (x3 a day). My blood sugars seem to be dipping quite quickly and I was wondering if the fast acting insulin is working too quickly? Or perhaps I am not eating enough. I understand these are all questions for my doctor - I am scheduled in next week but thought I could seek some help here for the time being... thanks!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @yvonnegorvette

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis!

Yes while many people (including some Drs) think of T1 as being a condition that comes on in childhood, half of cases are diagnosed in adulthood, and you can be diagnosed at any age, right up into autumn years.

We have several members here who were diagnosed in later life, and also some who are a similar age to you, but who were diagnosed as babes.

Have you been given any guidance about the amount of carbohydrate you should be aiming to eat at each mealtime? This is usually a helpful component when you are taking fixed doses.

The action of a meal insulin should be to bring your BG levels back to where you were before you ate the meal, by 4-5 hours after injecting. It sounds like your doses might be over-reaching a little? In which case, you can either eat a little more carbohydrate with your meals, or speak to your DSN about reducing your dose.

As an added complication, sometimes the flagging pancreas gets a bit of a second wind when you start helping it with injected insulin. This is sometimes called the “honeymoon phase”, but can make things slightly erratic and unpredictable for some.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on 🙂

 

[SB2015]

Good morning Yvonne, from another late starter with T1 (53 at diagnosis). I am very pleased that you have found the forum, as there is loads of experience to tap into, along with plenty of practical support.

It is a shock, and so much to take in at the start, but it definitely gets easier. I like the analogy to learning to drive. It seems very complicated at the start, it then a lot of it becomes automatic, and you are just watching for the unexpected.

It is good to read that you are already using two different insulins, as this will make life a lot more flexible once you have settled down. As @everydayupsanddowns says it sounds as if you have more insulin than you need to match the amount of carbs that you are eating meals. This fine balance is the basis of our day to day management. If you start to work out how many grams of carbohydrates you are eating at each meal, that will help you and your team to work out a good starting pint for your insulin to carb ratio. I knew absolutely nothing about this when diagnosed but it is amazing how quickly your head fills up with this info.

As questions arise, just ask. Nothing is considered silly on here.
I look forward to hearing of your progress.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome from another late starter. I was 55 and just coming up to my 4th diaversary in Feb and can confirm that the first 6 months are pretty tough but you do gradually get into an autopilot mode for a lot of it. Still takes up quite a bit of brain power/planning but becomes much less intimidating once you get some experience under your belt. And the forum is a goldmine for obtaining practical advice from people who have been there and got the t-shirt. Don't know how I would have survived and kept my sanity without the good people here, filling in the gaps where half the info my nurse told me went in one ear and out of the other 🙄.

Which insulins have you been given and how are you managing with testing and injecting? Have they given you a Freestyle Libre sensor for your arm or are you solely relying on finger pricking at the moment?

Is your appointment with your GP or with a consultant or Diabetes Specialist Nurse (DSN) at the hospital? The reason I ask is that the vast majority of GPs do not know very much about Type 1 diabetes and should not be in charge of your care in this early stage of diagnosis and insulin adjustment. You should be referred to a diabetic clinic, usually at your local hospital and many people are allocated a named DSN to support them with their week by week needs at this time and overseen by a consultant on a 3-6monthly basis initially. I would not personally seek advice from my GP about my diabetes management because they do not have the level of knowledge to make safe decisions about insulin usage in my opinion. There is sometimes a nurse at the GP practice who receives some basic training from the DSNs at the diabetes clinic, but even then they are not qualified to support Type 1 diabetics. They do usually perform an annual review of your diabetes by checking weight and height and blood pressure and doing the toe tickling and foot pulse and blood and urine samples and referring you for eye screening and mine filled in my medical exemption from prescription charges form for me, so that it was just to sign and then they sent it off, but again I would not seek advice from them unless they are getting that advice from a qualified DSN or the consultant. Insulin is a very powerful treatment and doses need to be adjusted by someone who knows what they are doing.

Anyway, I hope you find the forum as beneficial as I have over the past 4 years and do feel free to ask any questions, no matter how basic you think they might be, because we all know that there is a massive amount to take in at first and it is easy to miss key bits of info or pick things up wrong. As Sue say's, the learning to drive analogy is really appropriate and you will gradually find yourself doing injections and being able to calculate the amount of carbs on a plate from 20 paces and knowing which snacks contain exactly how many carbs without looking at the label... etc.

Do make sure to have hypo treatments with you wherever you go, in all your pockets and handbags and by the bed (most important) and I keep some in the bathroom too, because a hot bath or shower can suddenly drop your levels. I use Jelly Babies as they are relatively cheap, contain about 5g carbs each and easy to carry. 3xJBs is a standard hypo treatment of 15g carbs. Other people use glucose tablets or small cartons of fruit juice or small cans of full sugar cola.

 

[Tdm]

Just had my first diaversary, and the first couple of months were a wild ride, (first couple of weeks was sitting on the sofa feeling totally fed up) but then it starts to settle down. The freestle libre was a gamechanger, definitly get some sort of monitor as finger pricks are a pain..with a libre or similar you have the data both to keep yourself safe and to find out what works for you
Do you have a way to check for ketones? Not that you need to do this often but if sick your sugars can go up and you should keep an eye on ketone levels..i had to chase my clinic for this