Katie Williams
New Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hi all,
Have been diagnosed with type 1, about a month after having my first son. He came a month early with complex health issues, and spent the first month of his life in intensive care at the hospital. He has a condition where he makes too much insulin, so is constantly at risk of having hypos. I have struggled getting my head around this and the fear surrounding it, but have been comforted by the fact that it shouldn’t last forever.
After being home with him about a week, I was diagnosed with diabetes, it was all a big mess, being missed by the GP at an appointment, and then being sent to hospital by the doctors at 111. I was finally sent home once my ketones had started to go down (they were 6.8!), armed with insulin pens, needles, lancets, a new blood sugar machine (I had only just learnt how to use my sons new one!) and a few leaflets. That week I had a few appointments with nurses, dieticians, specialist nurses and consultants. Everyone was very helpful and seemed to know exactly what to do, the first week I felt amazing, having lost the ketones I suddenly fould so much energy and I had an appointment every couple of days with someone or other who could help me with any queries. Then it started to get harder to contact anyone from the clinic, the phones were often engaged, so I would leave 5-10 messages a day trying to get in touch with a nurse, even sometimes with the receptionist, but no one ever got back to me. All the while I had my partner, mum and dad on at me to try harder to contact someone for advise. In the midst of trying to look after a 2 month old baby, makking a phone call every hour just doesn’t work!
So I started trying to alter my own insulin, after all, I was getting high blood sugar and hypos anyway so what was the harm.....
I had remembered the dietician tell me that most people have 1 unit for every 10grams of carbs, so I tried that; wasn’t enough. So I tried 1 unit for every 5 grams, sometimes it was enough, sometimes too much so I tried 1unit:7g and I started having hypos.
I was completely confused but mostly scared. I had been caught a few times while I was out in the car with my son. I had to pull over in a car park and scramble for something to eat, I had been trying to keep a small carton of orange juice near me at all times but by the third or fourth time I hadn’t re stocked and so didn’t have anything, I used the glycogel I had in my kit. Then they say you have to wait 45 minutes to drive, and having a baby in the back I wanted to eir on the side of caution. By this time my sugar had dropped back down again. I couldn’t walk to the shop, I had my son in the back, and I couldn’t take him with me, I was so weak and shakey I wasn’t even sure I could walk let alone carry him! So I squeezed the last half of the tube of glucogel out and waited for it to kick in then drove straight home.
After that week, I think I subconsciously became afraid of the insulin. I kept forgetting to take it with my meals and some days I would get to bed time and have my first shot of insulin. A few days went by like this and it seemed to be working, I had massively high sugars at bedtime and sometimes a small amount of ketones but I was doing okay, at least I didn’t have any hypos right?! And that’s kind of where I am now, I’m scared of having hypos in the day (when I’m alone with my son) and so I’m mostly just having insulin at night. But I know this is not the way forward and my partner and parents have only just found out this is how I’m “managing” it, they’re all angry and worried. They are all very quick to judge that I’m not doing it properly and that I’m not trying hard enough, but I’m finding it all really hard and I don’t think they understand how it feels to be so vulnerable but need to be completely responsible for your child.
I’m not really sure what my next move needs to be, but I’m hoping it starts to get easier as I can’t keep on like this.
Have been diagnosed with type 1, about a month after having my first son. He came a month early with complex health issues, and spent the first month of his life in intensive care at the hospital. He has a condition where he makes too much insulin, so is constantly at risk of having hypos. I have struggled getting my head around this and the fear surrounding it, but have been comforted by the fact that it shouldn’t last forever.
After being home with him about a week, I was diagnosed with diabetes, it was all a big mess, being missed by the GP at an appointment, and then being sent to hospital by the doctors at 111. I was finally sent home once my ketones had started to go down (they were 6.8!), armed with insulin pens, needles, lancets, a new blood sugar machine (I had only just learnt how to use my sons new one!) and a few leaflets. That week I had a few appointments with nurses, dieticians, specialist nurses and consultants. Everyone was very helpful and seemed to know exactly what to do, the first week I felt amazing, having lost the ketones I suddenly fould so much energy and I had an appointment every couple of days with someone or other who could help me with any queries. Then it started to get harder to contact anyone from the clinic, the phones were often engaged, so I would leave 5-10 messages a day trying to get in touch with a nurse, even sometimes with the receptionist, but no one ever got back to me. All the while I had my partner, mum and dad on at me to try harder to contact someone for advise. In the midst of trying to look after a 2 month old baby, makking a phone call every hour just doesn’t work!
So I started trying to alter my own insulin, after all, I was getting high blood sugar and hypos anyway so what was the harm.....
I had remembered the dietician tell me that most people have 1 unit for every 10grams of carbs, so I tried that; wasn’t enough. So I tried 1 unit for every 5 grams, sometimes it was enough, sometimes too much so I tried 1unit:7g and I started having hypos.
I was completely confused but mostly scared. I had been caught a few times while I was out in the car with my son. I had to pull over in a car park and scramble for something to eat, I had been trying to keep a small carton of orange juice near me at all times but by the third or fourth time I hadn’t re stocked and so didn’t have anything, I used the glycogel I had in my kit. Then they say you have to wait 45 minutes to drive, and having a baby in the back I wanted to eir on the side of caution. By this time my sugar had dropped back down again. I couldn’t walk to the shop, I had my son in the back, and I couldn’t take him with me, I was so weak and shakey I wasn’t even sure I could walk let alone carry him! So I squeezed the last half of the tube of glucogel out and waited for it to kick in then drove straight home.
After that week, I think I subconsciously became afraid of the insulin. I kept forgetting to take it with my meals and some days I would get to bed time and have my first shot of insulin. A few days went by like this and it seemed to be working, I had massively high sugars at bedtime and sometimes a small amount of ketones but I was doing okay, at least I didn’t have any hypos right?! And that’s kind of where I am now, I’m scared of having hypos in the day (when I’m alone with my son) and so I’m mostly just having insulin at night. But I know this is not the way forward and my partner and parents have only just found out this is how I’m “managing” it, they’re all angry and worried. They are all very quick to judge that I’m not doing it properly and that I’m not trying hard enough, but I’m finding it all really hard and I don’t think they understand how it feels to be so vulnerable but need to be completely responsible for your child.
I’m not really sure what my next move needs to be, but I’m hoping it starts to get easier as I can’t keep on like this.
