I am a type 1 diabetic, i was diagnosed aged 8 (now 19) and have always done it all myself and never known anybody else personally with diabetes, none of my family or friends have it and im struggling.
I cant seem to get the motivation to do what im supposed to be doing for long enough to make a change to how i feel. i have no support at home and cant see a way out.
i have been in hospital 6-8 times this year with ketoacidosis, i now have an enlarged liver despite not drinking alcohol at all and possibly a heart problem. and cant seem to concieve either
any support or advice would be appreciated greatly!!!
Mel xx
Hi Mel,
welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that you're struggling and feel that you're on your own. I only know family members with diabetes and they're all miles away, none of them would make the changes to their lives that I and a lot of members of this forum have made. The great thing is that you recognise there is a problem, medics will want to throw more drugs at you, there's other things to try.
Lowering carbs is a great way of helping to control your BG levels, I just cut bread/potato/rice/pasta, which I found very easy because I was following a calorie restricted diet anyway. I'm not a doctor but I'd like to think that in your case lowering carbs would help you control your BG and in turn help diminish the incidence of ketoacidosis.
As for the enlarged liver, you'd have to do a lot of alcohol to damage the liver, it's very resilient, not drinking alcohol is a great way of keeping carbs/sugars down. I think it's the BG levels that creating havoc with the liver. My liver was knackered after taking Rosiglitazone, sadly never really recovered, send any new GP into a spin when she sees the numbers from my annual liver function tests.
As for not being able to conceive, it's not my place to comment on you personal life but you have made the comment on an open forum. I don't want to offend, so I'll apologise now. You're 19, have been admitted into hospital 8 times for ketoacidosis (pretty serious stuff), you have an enlarged liver and a possible heart problem. May I respectfully suggest that now may not be the best time to have children and healthy children at that. At 19, you have time on your side and my experience (I'm 62 so been knocking around a while) would suggest that you can't have everything at once, sort out the insulin/BG battle that's going on (low carb really is the best option, despite what the medics advise), the liver thing is reversible and I wouldn't be at all surprised that as a result of sorting out the BG a healthy liver would follow.
I can't comment on the heart thing, the heart echo cardiogram that I had 4 weeks ago is still sitting in the cardiologist's office and all I get is "There's nothing to worry about". So, I'm not worried, where's the next Triathlon for me to compete in (in my dreams LOL).
You've come to the right place and I hope that you will find the advise helpful, at least you have the opinions of others, you can go with the ones that you can achieve and like the best.
All the best. I hope we hear from you soon, there's a lot to take in really.
