Hi, and welcome to the forum. You have my sympathy, I too support a young man with learning disabilities and other health issues who developed type 1 only 2 years ago. I am just starting to relax about it and you will too in due course. I understand the enormous sadness, I felt that too and spent many nights snivelling and wishing it had happened to me, and not him. However, the positives, knowledge is everything. There is a lot to learn and most of it you won't get from the NHS, not because they are defective, but because you need advice on a day to day basis, from the start and this forum is excellent for answering questions very quickly. The other thing that I would say is read everything you can, the Ragnar Hanas book recommended is excellent. And one thing I was told early on (and which I didn't quite follow) was that when you do tests, they are not a judgment of how well or badly things are going, they are there to advise you what to do next, what insulin is needed or what food. I used to get quite shaky when doing bloods as I was always worried that they would show something unexpected. They often do, diabetes is an unpredictable beast and all sorts of things can make a difference, stress, heat or cold, exercise as well as too much food, too little or too much insulin or too little. You honestly do start to get a feel for things after a while and will relax. Finally, finally, have heart that treatment of diabetes is improving all the time with some real developements that look as if they will lead to very effective treatment or a cure in the not too distant future. I know that everyone says that they have been saying that for years, but we have the internet (for better or worse) and it is easy to follow what is happening and to be kept up to date about the availability of new insulins and new testing techniques. Hang on in there, you will be fine and it is perfectly normal to feel so sad.
Unfortunately, Coeliac is common amongst Type 1s as it is another autoimmune disease. It does present an extra challenge, along with the diabetes, but please be encouraged by the fact that people do live well with both conditions, the key is knowledge and planning.
