Your biggest diabetes hurdles?

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everydayupsanddowns

everydayupsanddowns

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While I am a fan of a positive and upbeat post, sometimes I think it is good to recognise that living with and managing diabetes can be hard work, frustrating, and at times bewildering and confusing.

So here’s an opportunity to vent about the thing that you are finding most difficult about your diabetes at the moment?

It could be something specific… or just the grinding slog of it all.

A trouble shared, and all that…
 
For me I think it’s a bit of hypo creep. HAL (tSlim) isn’t so good at hypo-avoiding as Threepio (MM640G) was for me, so I have to do things more manually. Plus there’s either something different about the way my body is responding, or about the way Dex G6 tracks BG levels because my glucose seems to be flat then drop off a cliff such that even setting an alarm in the 5s doesn’t always give me enough time to prevent a dip below 4.

My incidence is still low… especially with the hybrid loop, but more frequent than they were by some margin, and more nasty ones in the past 12 months (though thankfully still none that needed 3rd party help)

Having spent so long carefully resharpening my awareness I really don’t want all that work to be scuppered.
 
The erraticness. I think it’s vastly under appreciated just how hard it is being a t2 on insulin. Whilst my insulin production is very low it’s not zero and some days my pancreas may decide to do a lot less than usual and I’ll be high all day others the opposite and ill have crashing hypos. It’s not even a day at a time it could be one meal. Yesterday it did both in one day.

Its been more erratic lately and it’s hard to manage whether to wait to take insulin to see if my pancreas covers it, or to take extra in advance because my pancreas isn’t going to be doing anything useful.
 

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I feel your frustration @Lucyr :(

If only we could get consistent responses from the same input. It‘s so draining to constantly have to chase around ‘fixing’ things, when we have worked hard to develop careful dose strategies, ratios, timings, and meal choices attempting to reduce the variability.

Bah!
 
The relentlessness of it all. For me personally that’s easing off a bit now, as daughter does almost everything on her own. The bit she does let me still do though is basal adjustments, and since June we’ve been constantly having to lower it, lower it a bit more, then again a week later and so on, and are still getting a few too many Dexcom low alerts. Sometimes though there doesn’t seem to be much pattern to them, going back to college has probably made a difference but I haven‘t quite figured out how best to adjust it! But when she was little and I had to do everything, then it’s just constant, remembering to take all the required equipment with you when you go out, checking sugars at the right time, carb counting, pump refills, etc etc etc.

The other thing I found hard was finding the right balance, at first I tried to manage everything perfectly and of course that isn’t possible, it took me quite a long time though to learn to relax a bit, without completely ignoring the condition!
 
I too would say it is the relentlessness. I used to describe it like having a toddler but you can give a toddler to the grand parents for a day off.
I try to give myself a rest and let it do it's own thing (whilst taking my insulin, obviously) but they I realise I have been running too high or too low for a few days and I need to tweak my basal or carb ratios or realise my carb guestimations have been drifting and I need to get the scales out again.

The other thing which I try to ignore but is always there is the "threat" of other issues. This could be complications which I do my best to minimise risk by not letting my BG creep too high. But then there is the fact that auto-immune condition seem to socialise so I feel I can do nothing to minimise my risk of getting coeliacs or pernicious anaemia or ...
I don't live my life worrying about this but it is always there at the back of my mind.
 
I am not someone who reads loads of research papers or watch endless reels of videos and listen to hours (days?) of podcasts. But I do appreciate those who do and give me the potted highlights.
I am someone who keeps a close eye on my blood sugars and tries to tweak my management to minimise highs and lows.
I find the two approaches come together in harmony on a forum - you have members who read the text books and share the working hypothesis they are following and members who love the graphs. Coming together the former answers the question "why are my BG higher every morning?" with an explanation of Dawn Phenomenon for the latter who has tried changing their diet, sleeping patterns, exercise, ... to still see the morning rise. Between us, we learn about Dawn Phenomenon in theory and practice.

So, thank you to the text book nerds and data nerds. Without you, I would be in the dark despite the numbers and graphs I stare at.
 
Being newly diagnosed type 2 the biggest thing I'm having trouble with is the minefield of diet change and the cravings for the food I used to love.

Switching to a low carb diet, discovering what foods cause spikes in blood sugar, knowing what foods to avoid, what you can have more of and what to have in moderation.

Then there is the food cravings, wanting to eat lots of pizza, crisps, biscuits, cakes etc because that is what you are used to eating but having to cut back on or even cut out the food to manage the blood sugar levels and in my case try to loose the extra weight.

I know there are alternatives to some things and you can eat most things in moderation but that doesn't stop the cravings and the big mindset change required when managing diabetes.
 
My problem is keeping on top of everything, I’m type 1, I have AF ( atrial fibrillation) and a wife who has a disability. It’s very difficult on your own, being full time worker, carer and housekeeper. I’ve no time to look after myself, I like a bit of a moan sometimes but won’t bottle everything up, I have a great team to talk to about my diabetes which is great. It’s just finding time to put my feet up but I like being a member of this forum.
Thanks for the encouragement to continue to try and lead a normal life, take care everyone.
 
I find its the constant unpredictability of D that can be hard to deal with. For example, eating a meal one day and your BG stays well in target, but eating the same meal another day and you can spike or hypo.

My job can make levels hard to deal with as well. My timetable can say that i'll be in one place all afternoon with children or groups coming to me so i bolus at lunch for the fact that i'm not going to be moving much. However, sometimes that happens and things change quickly eg. I'm called for first aid/need to mop the toilets, cover in a different class/es, all of which are more active so my levels drop and i'm needing glucose so that i can drive home.

I would love to be able to go out with a small bag as well. I went out at the weekend with a friend who had a lovely small handbag. Me?..i had a large (heavy) bag with all my kit, hypo treatments etc.

However i'm so grateful for this forum where i can rant and people understand and encourage. Thank you to those who read all the info and to those who speak from their own experiences.
 
Like others I find the inconsistency of my D the worst thing, leading to unpredictable events.

Also I find it frustrating having to explain that I can eat, I can do things, … I just need to plan for what we want to do.
 
Yep, the variability of it is, I think, the most frustrating thing. It means you can never relax mentally. When I was first diagnosed, I found that very hard to deal with at first - that I could do everything exactly right and still have ‘wrong’ results. If we could just do all the diabetes chores and have things work all the time, it would be fantastic. It’s the constant uncertainty and perverseness that wears you down.

At the moment, I’m also hating the whole absorption thing. It’s not just that some areas have worse absorption, some spots have mad super-absorption so I have to avoid those. That limits me to small amounts of body ‘real estate’. Short of growing an extra couple of legs, there’s no answer to it. It would be a b****r for choosing trousers though! :rofl:
 
freesia said:
My job can make levels hard to deal with as well.
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Same here. Eg today in my 10am-12noon class my BG stayed flat; last week it spiked into the stratosphere; sometimes it gets too low...how on earth am I supposed to prepare for that?! I've set up TBRs in readiness, but at the moment I have now idea which one to use LOL. It's a hurdle wrapped in a rock and stored in a hard place. o_O 😎 Anyone got a crystal ball? :rofl:
 
The total unrelenting nature of it made much worse by the diabetic gastroparesis. My Libres never being reliable enough for me to dose or correct from (and yes I know the guidance about 15 minute lag and plenty of liquids). Fighting so hard to try to be anywhere near target Because of the impact of the gastroparesis. Rant over, I have been near to diabetic (and total) burnout the last few months but because the Libre results look so good the medical professionals think I’m doing so well.
 
The having to deal with it all the while, there's no day off or going to do something nice without it. It's there whatever and I find that pressure to have to deal with it and not make an absolute mess of it overwhelming sometimes. Other things I can walk away from & do something different but diabetes is always there and unless I want to get very ill very quickly I have to deal with it as best I can.

The added pressure of having serious complications and trying to keep myself as well as possible to limit further damage has made the diabetes tightrope feel so much narrower.

I'm with you @Inka in finding absorption and reliable places for cannulas really challenging and time consuming. However much I try to have a good day things can go haywire quickly when cannulas fail and I feel so frustrated and guilty at not being able to manage diabetes as well as I want to even though they are generally factors beyond my control.

Bloden said:
It's a hurdle wrapped in a rock and stored in a hard place. o_O 😎 Anyone got a crystal ball? :rofl:
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Yep that's my diabetes too @Bloden ! I am a Meg but definitely not a mystic one! :D
 
I am struggling with lack of sleep, only a couple of hours a night if i am lucky, i have very dry sore skin at the moment too and lack of appetite. The problem os knowing if these are due to the diabetes or something else. Skin is sore in certain places but doesn't look red or anything but is so bad some days that it makes me cry x
 
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