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Type 1 and living alone, is it safe?

E

ellendoher

Member
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5
Hello Everyone,

I would like to know if anyone has opinions and advice about the safety and possible challenges of someone with Type 1 Diabetes living alone. I am thinking of the issue of hypos in the middle of the night or early mornings, also the difficulty of staying motivated to manage the condition as successfully as possible, perhaps feeling discouraged and needing support, the worry and stress about going into a coma and having no-one there to phone for an ambulance.

Please let me know what you think or have you yourself had experience of living alone and managing Type 1?

Thanks,
Ellen
 
I've been living on my own for roughly 11-12 years now and yes there has been a couple of scary moments when I'd hypo'd on my own, however my liver always came to the rescue.
Now I'm using the libre I feel more confident as well cos I'm scanning a lot lot lot more often than I ever did blood tests so it's easier to keep an eye on things
 
I live alone and have no motivation problems. My support when feeling discouraged is right here on this forum, and sometimes with close friends. I'm lucky in that I've never had a hypo that I couldn't handle myself. The one time I accidently took quick-acting instead of long-acting I've woken one of my neighbours and told them I was very sorry but could they spend the next hours watching me eat. They did.
 
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Antje77 said:
I live alone and have no motivation problems. My support when feeling discouraged is right here on this forum, and sometimes with close friends. I'm lucky in that I've never had a hypo that I couldn't handle myself. The one time I accidently took quick-acting instead of short-acting I've woken one of my neighbours and told them I was very sorry but could they spend the next hours watching me eat. They did.
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Great neighbours - great guy!
 
Grant_Vicat said:
Great neighbours - great guy!
Click to expand...
It was a bit worse, I actually had two different great neighbours that night. The first sat with me for three hours until I felt I was safe. The second I woke up at four in the morning because my sugars kept dropping after I went home from the first neighbour and I was advised to pop into A+E to be safe. First neighbour had been drinking, hence the waking up of second neighbour. He sat with me in A+E, where they checked my sugars twice in three hours (don't worry, I checked more often and instructed my patient neighbour in what to do should I become unconscious, seemed much more reliable than the people who worked there) and then sent us home.
The moral of this story: I'm fine living alone as long as I don't mix up my insulins, and should I do so again I'll just pop over to one of my neighbours, armed with a glucagon set and play board games or so until I'm safe. And bring them a bottle of whatever they fancy next day.
 
Antje77 said:
It was a bit worse, I actually had two different great neighbours that night. The first sat with me for three hours until I felt I was safe. The second I woke up at four in the morning because my sugars kept dropping after I went home from the first neighbour and I was advised to pop into A+E to be safe. First neighbour had been drinking, hence the waking up of second neighbour. He sat with me in A+E, where they checked my sugars twice in three hours (don't worry, I checked more often and instructed my patient neighbour in what to do should I become unconscious, seemed much more reliable than the people who worked there) and then sent us home.
The moral of this story: I'm fine living alone as long as I don't mix up my insulins, and should I do so again I'll just pop over to one of my neighbours, armed with a glucagon set and play board games or so until I'm safe. And bring them a bottle of whatever they fancy next day.
Click to expand...
I've drunkenly effed up my injections before bed and as a result woken up several hours later than intended, but the human body has amazing ways of fixing itself.
 
I live with ill partner and is often on sleeping tablets so once he's off, very little wakes him. A young child needs me at night so I have had to ignore his none urgent needs for my hypo.
So even thou on insulin and a type2 with a house full. I'm often on my own, hypo wise.
I have to force myself out of bed for treatment. I have to open jars of jam on purchase incase I'll need it in times of a very bad hypo. Too weak and no one to help. The mess made in spreading on slice of bread can be easily tidied in times of clarity and not in hypo phases. Luckily I live in a bungalow so no stairs to the kitchen.
 
ellendoher@gmail_ said:
Hello Everyone,

I would like to know if anyone has opinions and advice about the safety and possible challenges of someone with Type 1 Diabetes living alone. I am thinking of the issue of hypos in the middle of the night or early mornings, also the difficulty of staying motivated to manage the condition as successfully as possible, perhaps feeling discouraged and needing support, the worry and stress about going into a coma and having no-one there to phone for an ambulance.

Please let me know what you think or have you yourself had experience of living alone and managing Type 1?

Thanks,
Ellen
Click to expand...
I have been living alone since my wife and I split up. It is frightening and 2 or3 weeks ago I had a bad hypo after going to bed. I next awoke in A & E. someone had phoned the police after hearing a lot of bumping and banging on my floor above them. I was lucky I had good neighbors.You have to watch your sugars carefully. Keep them up between 8 and 10 maybe even twelve. It's not easy but it can be done with thought and care.
 
Packs of dextrose everywhere. Even under my pillow. In the bathroom, in case I’m in the bath. In my shed. Every single coat, jacket, handbag and even my dressing gown pocket. Basically, I’m never more than ten feet from a pack!
 
Bob991 said:
Keep them up between 8 and 10 maybe even twelve.
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I think it's different for every diabetic what safe numbers are. If you have to aim for between 8 to 12 you might want to see if there's a possibility to get a cgm with an alarm . I hope things will get better for you in the near future.
 
ickihun said:
I have to force myself out of bed for treatment. I have to open jars of jam on purchase incase I'll need it in times of a very bad hypo. Too weak and no one to help. The mess made in spreading on slice of bread can be easily tidied in times of clarity and not in hypo phases.
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Why not keep an easy hypo treatment beside your bed? Preferably something not involving jars with sticky stuff?
 
Mel dCP said:
Packs of dextrose everywhere. Even under my pillow. In the bathroom, in case I’m in the bath. In my shed. Every single coat, jacket, handbag and even my dressing gown pocket. Basically, I’m never more than ten feet from a pack!
Click to expand...
You have just reminded me I need to stock up. Forgot today, again. I will write it on my hand tomorrow for Friday shopping trip. ;)
 
Night hypos are an understandable worry for us singletons.

Cgm is a brilliant safety blanket for it, phone ringing at 4.4, which is why I hope health authorities will start being a bit more liberal funding it.

I've had some pretty lousy night hypos, that whole dripping cold sweat, who, were, what am I gig, but I've always taken some comfort from the fact that the reality is that, for the vast majority of us, the insulin will wear out, the liver will do it's stuff, and we wake up.

The very young and very old are more vulnerable: again, an argument for cgm funding.

I spent a bit of time trying to persuade my gp to fund a 25 yr old Swedish au-pair for me, but didn't get very far...
 
I've had some tangles as a singleton, but no real 'bad' ones since test strips became freely available, sleepers usually wake me in a pool of sweat but I've Glucogel & glucotabs to hand, as a single dad my eldest (8 at the time) rang an ambulance when she couldn't wake me one morning, but fed me a tube of sherbet while we waited for it but couldn't understand why she struggled to get it in my mouth :/

In the late 80s I can remember my dad taking a sledgehammer to my flat door to let the ambulance people in, I'd disappeared and he'd come looking, put a ladder up to the window and seen me on my back on the bedroom floor minus my clothes :p but for me the older insulins caused more problems than those I've got today and before glucose meters. modern management works well, if finger pricking >8x you have a reasonable spread of data indicating what's happening, don't go to bed with active bolus, if 'hypo prone' read up on what Scott-C uses with his Libre as an alarm (if your CCG is funding them).

@Scott-C, I can't find a Swedish au-pair on my local CCG formulary at all, maybe an individual funding request is required until they commission them :p
 
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