I’m addicted to DKA

[BysonFury]

Hi, I’m 17, and I’ve experienced issues with my type 1 diabetes in recent months. I don’t take my insulin or test my blood sugars and although I know how dangerous this is, and the risks that ensue, but I can’t stop. It’s an addiction pure and simple, and it’s landed me in hospital many times in the past. I want to break the cycle but I’m not sure how. Does anyone experience, or have experienced this, and could give me some tips? I’m seeing a mental health team but it isn’t helping.

 

[mahola]

Ok, you're 17, practically an adult so I'll be blunt. What you're doing is self-injurious behaviour. It is not an addiction. You are gambling with your life. If your current MH team are no good you need to go back to your GP and ask to be referred elsewhere.

You have diabetes, diabetes does not have you. Having type 1 only becomes an issue if you allow it to become one.

You're better than this. Go see your doc

 

[Antje77]

Sounds like a mental health problem to me. You don't give much background to your reasons for not doing what your diabetes needs. From your post it could be anything from plain old depression, to diabetes burn out, or diabulimia, so it's hard to suggest helpful things except for the most general.
My first suggestion would be to speak to your diabetes team, they should have experience with diabetes related mental health problems, it's pretty common.
Is the mental health team you're seeing specialized in diabetes?
Your GP wouldn't be a bad place either to ask for help.
If you feel in any way that not looking after your diabetes has something to do with wanting to lose weight, please have a look at the DWEDD website, they're specialized in this problem.

Good luck, I hope things will get better for you soon!

 

[Jollymon]

The hard part is that the only one that can change you is you. You need do do something to make yourself better; others won’t be able to do it for you.

Taking insulin is a first step. Testing blood sugar is a second step. I’m t1. I know. I have to do it too. And there are others. The others maybe be few and far between, but we are out there. You just need to find a support group of people like you. And learn from them

 

[Diakat]

Hi @BysonFury
Just get through today. Then on Monday call your team and be totally honest. You may not undrrsunde why you are doing this, but they can help you work through it.
Testing is key, and high sugars make things worse. Hang on, and keep chatting.

 

[Jaylee]

Hi, I’m 17, and I’ve experienced issues with my type 1 diabetes in recent months. I don’t take my insulin or test my blood sugars and although I know how dangerous this is, and the risks that ensue, but I can’t stop. It’s an addiction pure and simple, and it’s landed me in hospital many times in the past. I want to break the cycle but I’m not sure how. Does anyone experience, or have experienced this, and could give me some tips? I’m seeing a mental health team but it isn’t helping.

Hi @BysonFury ,

Welcome to the forum.

What can I say.. There is a correlation regarding the higher the BG, (prolonged periods.) the lower emotionally one can feel.
So the incentive is managing you diabetes to the best of your ability. You already have the "weapon" in your fridge & meter pouch to do this..

This is the start. The climb to the summit can be arduous, but the view from the top is exhilarating..

Do by all means ask questions regarding the "why's" & "WTFs" with T1.

Wishing you well.

 

[HICHAM_T2]

Hi, I’m 17, and I’ve experienced issues with my type 1 diabetes in recent months. I don’t take my insulin or test my blood sugars and although I know how dangerous this is, and the risks that ensue, but I can’t stop. It’s an addiction pure and simple, and it’s landed me in hospital many times in the past. I want to break the cycle but I’m not sure how. Does anyone experience, or have experienced this, and could give me some tips? I’m seeing a mental health team but it isn’t helping.

If you are type 1 of diabetes, I do not think there is an alternative to insulin
The hormone insulin is important for everyone and can not live without it even if not dealt with any carbohydrates
Just let me know why you do not want to use insulin
In the absence of insulin, your body will be forced to break down fat and this is a risk
The liver may fail to oxidize the ketones and this may cause the accumulation of ketonic acids
This is likely to cause blood poisoning
I am sorry because I say this, but this is the truth
I hope to hear from you a good news of success

 

[JAT1]

You are being self-abusive. I sincerely wish you the strength to get off this destructive path.

 

[donnellysdogs]

My simple words....

Why???

Learn to love your body and get away from this attention seeking mode..... because that is what it is effectively.

Mental health teams have to be politically correct and are unlikely to actually address what you are needing to know directly....or what and why you are doing this to yourself.

Please can you tell us a little bit more about you?
Have you family around you?
Are you aware that you are attention seeking?
Are you aware that DKA can kill you?
Have you got friends? Or anybody that you can talk to honestly about your self destruct mode?

 

[Antje77]

Learn to love your body and get away from this attention seeking mode

Not looking after yourself is not necessarily an 'attention seeking mode'. I'm not too good at looking after myself, with the exception of looking after my diabetes. I usually don't talk about it and I don't see how having trouble to look after yourself is attention seeking.

 

[Member496333]

This sounds very very serious.

OP if you are being genuine then you’ll probably die. Please seek help.

 

[philchap1]

They are making great leaps in finding a cure and getting better control in type 1 don't damage yourself as with good control you can lead a full life, but you have to put the effort in, when I was a teenager I thought I was invincible and at times buried my head in the sand so you're not alone, but there's only so much your body can take, seek professional help take care and good luck.

 

[jpscloud]

I think the fact that you're here and have obviously searched about your condition is a good sign, so is your knowledge of dka.

Your feelings of addiction suggest that you feel to some extent that things are out of control so it's time to act on that and seek help. Keep seeking until you find the help that works.

I engaged in self destructive behaviours at your age, but like most older people I wish now that I hadn't.

I wish you every success with taking control of your condition and overcoming this phase in your management of it.

 

[alohanicky2009]

I experienced the same behaviour as you it was self destructive and I am sorry to say I have the complications . In my part I choose this behaviour because I was very unhappy in another part of my life until I accepted and acknowledge and changed I could then focus on the help needed to address the dka. Look very deep and see what is making you so sad the neglect of ur diabetes is a symptom of overwhelm somewhere else , the neglect is a shout that you need help , hope u find it xx

 

[endocrinegremlin]

Maybe see if there is an app that you have to put your results into. Give a parent or dr or mate access and let them have at you if you don't put that result in? Sometimes simple accountability helps. It helped me many moons ago.

 

[NicoleC1971]

Oh that's is hard to hear - brings back to many memories.
There is hope because you are young and resilient; you've reached out here so it sounds as if you do want to stop pushing self destruct. You are type 1 so that just happens to be the easiest way to hurt yourself and also a horribly risky one as you already know. I assume you do not enjoy any aspect of this or am I wrong there?
There is clearly emotion behind your lack of self care. Is it anger, a cry for help, despair/depression or what?
My own experience as a young diabetic was abuse in the form of full blown bulimia with very little care for the resulting blood sugar swings. I felt deep shame at the behaviour and family worried for me but I had to (cheese alert here) find some value in my life to make it worth dropping the binge habit.
I certainly took it 1 day at a time and was a bit stubborn at beating it then felt great pride when I was mainly healthy again though the occasional bad days continued a decade on.
I think you do have some power over this (it isn't a phyical adication after all but is a habit of omission not commission) but you need an effective guide through your feelings and not a lecture so I hope you will be able to find the right mental health professional that you can trust preferably one specialised in diabetes. It is really common for young diabetics to face the kind of issues described and I certainly got help from a psychologist at Newcastle hospital whilst studying for my degree.
Please come back and tell us how you are doing!

 

[BysonFury]

Thank you everyone for your comments, they are all greatly appreciated. A recurring theme seems to be that you want more background information. Well, I grew up in care and have next to no family, which makes times like Christmas very difficult. I was also bullied for many years for being the “gay one” in the school I was in, even though I’m only bisexual. I used to do drugs regularly and binge on sugar for fun, but stopped those things about a year ago. I’ve lived in 14 different care homes and foster placements all over the country, so I don’t have many friends I can turn to for something so personal, mostly because I know they won’t understand. That’s enough about me. You will be pleased to hear that I’ve managed to regain some kind of control over my insulin, although it’s still very rough. I’ve managed to do my background insulin once a day for the past week, and I’m feeling more confident within myself, despite still being very emotionally unstable, due to my depression and PTSD.

Thank you everyone for engaging and giving me hard, but realistic comments. Updates to follow xx

 

[Member496333]

Thank you everyone for your comments, they are all greatly appreciated. A recurring theme seems to be that you want more background information. Well, I grew up in care and have next to no family, which makes times like Christmas very difficult. I was also bullied for many years for being the “gay one” in the school I was in, even though I’m only bisexual. I used to do drugs regularly and binge on sugar for fun, but stopped those things about a year ago. I’ve lived in 14 different care homes and foster placements all over the country, so I don’t have many friends I can turn to for something so personal, mostly because I know they won’t understand. That’s enough about me. You will be pleased to hear that I’ve managed to regain some kind of control over my insulin, although it’s still very rough. I’ve managed to do my background insulin once a day for the past week, and I’m feeling more confident within myself, despite still being very emotionally unstable, due to my depression and PTSD.

Thank you everyone for engaging and giving me hard, but realistic comments. Updates to follow xx

Well you have friends on here now so you can’t let us down. Keep it up!

 

[Jaylee]

Hi @BysonFury ,

Good to hear back from you.. & that your making moves in a better direction..

looking forward to hearing more from you in the future.

 

[DCUKMod]

Stick with us here, @BysonFury . You have quite a back story there. We have people of all sorts here, from all manner of backgrounds and preferences for living their lives. As sure as eggs are eggs, it'll be quieter on here over the holidays, but there'll still be folks around, and similarly, following the hols there'll be a bit of an influx of those who've got a bit lost along the way, who are hoping to do better in the New Year.

I always try to remind myself that those of us who are on track, or in range, or however you choose to express it, are only on track today. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring that might knock us off balance. It's quite a human trait.

On a general note though, really well done on hauling your basal doses back on board in recent times, that'll make such a difference to all manner of "stuff" from your blood glucose to your mood and so on.

As someone who was able to recover from a pretty horrible time with an eating disorder, I get, to an extent how these things generally work. Sometimes, when we feel our lives are out of control, the one thing we identify, at that time, that we can control - in my case it was eating (or rather not eating!), and in your case, it's insulin - is the thing we will manipulate, and control, even when deep down we know there's really no good to come from it.

It's taken you a while to get to where you are, so do allow yourself some time to get back to where you want to be.