Newly diagnosed T1 and finding it hard to adjust

HLC2017

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21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Insulin
Dear DOC,

Two weeks ago I learned that I have Type 1 diabetes. I'm feeling everything you'd expect, and the confusion and sadness is compounded by the fact that I have been diabetic in the past (gestational diabetes) and am struggling to adjust to a completely different paradigm. I've come to this Forum many, many times in the past: usually at 3am, as I sat in the dark breastfeeding my daughter, worrying about my weirdly high blood sugar levels, with no-one to talk to. Now the diagnosis is official but I've hesitated to post on here. Where to begin? But I guess everyone feels that way. Thanks in advance for reading, and for your solidarity.

I'm an historian of science and medicine. Historians like investigating causes and origins, and make sense of these by constructing narratives. So here's my story. It begins officially with gestational diabetes in both of my pregnancies. (Although thinking about it lately, I developed dysglycaemia in my early 20s: I regularly fainted while waiting to be seated in restaurants, which is handy for making a table appear as if by magic, and in church, where I was asked a few times whether I had been overcome by Holy Spirit--people were disappointed when I said no, I'm just hypoglycaemic). My GD was picked up in my first pregnancy by a routine glucose tolerance test. It came as a surprise to everyone as I didn't have any of the risk factors. A diabetic specialist midwife told me the ways my child would die if I didn't control my blood sugars. I am a perfectionist by nature and very disciplined, and so threw myself at the diagnosis by following a strict dietary and exercise regime. I hesitated to undergo a second pregnancy because of all this, but at least was prepared when GD reared its head. (I should add that GD seems to be a poorly understood condition: this time round my midwife kept stating that I must have brought GD on myself by eating sweets!). I managed my bg levels immaculately during both pregnancies, ignoring NHS eatwell guidelines and following a lchf diet, using food combining and aggressive exercise (4 hours/15 km speed walking per day) to keep my levels within a 4-7 mmol/L range. After I gave birth, I ate all the treats in my hospital bag and was confused when the hospital team tested my bg and started freaking out because I had a reading of 20.5. Surely this was to be expected, as my hormones return to normal, I thought? Realising that I was never going to get 'normal' bg readings on a hospital diet of carbs, and needing to get home to my older child, I self-discharged. A month ago, I had an episode of hyperglycaemia and an HbA1C showed I had become diabetic. My GP told me I was Type 2 and recommended a low carb diet but ordered further tests, as I didn't fit the typical profile. Just as in the past, I threw myself into diet and exercise. A fortnight later I got a call from the Hospital telling me to come in immediately to begin insulin, which is how I learned I have Type 1 diabetes. During the intervening 2 weeks my body was unable to extract enough glucose from my starvation diet, seeing how I have few functioning beta cells left, and so I lost a lot of weight, my infant daughter lost weight, I developed vertigo, numbness in my face, and started to have out-of-body experiences. You would think I would have been worried about all of this but I was so out of it with starvation ketones that it's only now that I've started to get treatment that I realise how crazy it was.

So much for history, now back to the present. I was very 'good' at being a gestational diabetic. Illusory as this surely was, I felt in control of the condition for those 3-4 months. I felt similarly 'in control' during that fortnight when I believed I was Type 2: I know what I can do to help my bg levels, my thinking went, so I should get on with it already. But this paradigm has just imploded. My team have not yet put me on basal insulin (I suspect because I am breastfeeding on demand, esp. many times through the night, and they are concerned about hypos) but have instructed me to take Novorapid with meals. Before I inject I stare at the needle for what seems like hours. Even my five-year old tells me, 'Hurry up Mummy, you've done this before! As a gestational diabetic my bg had to be below 7.8 at 1 hr and below 6.4 at 2 hrs. So when I check at 2 hours after eating half a sandwich and salad and see a 16.6, I feel like I failed! and then within 3 hours I am dealing with a hypo and feeling completely rubbish. I used to consider myself a pretty stoic person, good in a crisis etc., but now I keep dissolving into tears.

As a graduate student, I loved 'The Normal and the Pathological' by French philosopher of medicine Georges Canguilhem. Canguilhem argued that biological normativity is life’s adjustment to its internal and external environment. Put another way, it is normal to get sick and for our body to change. Pathology is when we can no longer adapt to fluctuations. He meant this in a biological sense, but it seems to me there is a huge psychological dimension to this, for managing diabetes at least. Right now sadness infuses each day and I can't go through a meal without feeling tremendous anxiety. I guess I'll have to let go of the illusion of being in total control. I'm hoping though that with practice, experience, and study, I will find a new normal. Along the way, I'm planning to read up on all your experience for clues, tips, good humour, and the occasional whinge. I'm grateful for your camaraderie.

All the very best, and be well
Hannah
 

noblehead

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Welcome to the forum Hannah :)

That is quite a story, but try not to stress as things do get easier as time moves on, by far the first weeks and months are the worst, but once you get use to injecting, carb counting and adapting to life with type 1 normality will resume.

Highly recommend the book Think Like a Pancreas if you want to learn more about type 1 and how to manage it, it's a book that comes highly recommended by the type 1 members here. Best wishes.
 
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HLC2017

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Thank you for the welcoming message, while I will try to take to heart, and the book recommendation--now on order. Be well, and thanks.
 

azure

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@HLC2017 Hi :)

My thought (as a non-medical layperson) is that you had Type 1 all along. There are a number of women here who,were told they had GD but turned out to have Type 1. It seems to be quite common.

So my advice is to put the GD out of your mind. Type 1 is a pain but it can be controlled. You don't need to eat very low carb to control it. Most Type 1s eat moderate carbs and find their own level :)

I highly recommend the book Think Like A Pancreas too. It's written in a chatty style but has a lot of really helpful info.

For help coming to,terms with Type 1, I think the only real answer is time. I felt angry, upset, confused, depressed - any number of emotions - but it does gradually get easier.

You're not alone :)
 

azure

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About your sandwich high you described - that could just be the erratic sugars of the honeymoon period, or it could be you need to look at basal insulin or/and to bolus more in advance of eating.

You'll sort this :)
 
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librarising

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Hi Hannah

Welcome to the forum. As a guy, I'm anxious to see what other female T1s post. I've only been on basal/bolus for a year now, but don't get how I'd cope without basal. It seems that means asking your bolus to do too much, and possibly causing hypos.
Are you already high before a meal ?
Sounds like you're being asked to deal with this, with one hand tied behind your back !
You'll sort this out in the end,
Geoff
 
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Claire007

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Hi Hannah,

I was diagnosed two years ago and I still remember quite clearly the feelings of despair/anger/sadness. I still get them too, but they're less frequent now. It really is like grief, you're grieving for the way you lived your life before, but! It does get better.
I didn't have a new born to cope with though and I hope you are getting plenty of support? I wouldn't want to attempt an armchair diagnosis but I think your vulnerable to PND when you experience something life changing so soon after birth.
I have had counselling with a clinical psychologist since my diagnosis, maybe this is something you could discuss with your DSN/GP? even if you don't feel you need it right now (or have time! :)) it might be worth getting the ball rolling just in case due to waiting lists.
 
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Diakat

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It is hard to adjust but it will work out. I too had GD then found out I was type 1.
You are during with a lot, new child, changing dynamicfor older child and a tough diagnosis. You need to let go of the perfectionism though - for a while just take each day as it comes.
 
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Scott-C

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2,474
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Hi @HLC2017 , it takes time to get used to it. You'll go through a riot of emotions, but after a while, you'll learn the rules, what works, what doesn't, and it eventually becomes just a bit of a nuisance which you can handle.

I see you're an historian of science. There's a book which is maybe a bit too pop-science for your level but read it anyway: Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the discovery of insulin, and the making of a medical miracle, by Thea Cooper and Arthur Gainsberg. Their editors should really have shortened the title a bit (!), but I took a few points from it:

First, this is a savage disease which killed pre-discovery of insulin. T1s before 1922 would be overjoyed to have the facilities we have now, so I'm never going to complain about the odd hypo/hyper here and there when I know that the pre-1922 alternative was death.

You only need to look at some before and after pics to appreciate that, all things considered, we're remarkably lucky:

markdown_lightbox_b7851ccd275675c6150b01cf181f56e807991197-c3dc5.jpg


Second, the girl in the title, Elizabeth Hughes was one of the first people in America to get insulin. The authors found a letter she wrote to her parents when she was 14. She'd been looked after constantly by her nurse on a starvation diet, but decides she is going to do it herself. She writes about doing her first injection. She says she is going to be, "the captain of her own ship". It's a bit cheesy and 14 yr old pretentious, but she then goes on to describe how she has decided to "manage the target practice", "boiled the gun", "fired the first shot heard around the world (my world that is)". That kid stepped up to the plate in days when needles had to be manually sharpened, syringes boiled, glucose measuring was more or less guesswork, as was the potency of insulin. She called hypos, "the feels", and sorted them with molasses, "a kiss". She died in her seventies, unrelated to diabetes.

Also, google Eva Saxl. Bit more history for you. Made her own insulin from water buffalo pancreases in a make shift lab in a Shanghai basement during a war. As opposed to us, who just need to go to the chemist!

I've had spells when I've deeply resented T1, but I think of it now as my immune system having done a bit of accidental friendly fire on my beta cells, mistake forgiven, so I just need to pick up the slack, and do the work myself instead. Instead of looking at it as an enemy, it's something I co-operate with, even if it can be a bit unruly at times. Sure, it's a coping mechanism, but we all need those at times. I just find it gives me a lot of peace of mind to think about it that way, instead of the idea that I'm in a constant war.

Best of luck, you'll figure it out.
 
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Hi @HLC2017. Our stories are quite similar. I was diagnosed as Type 1 a month ago after going in to DKA after experiencing no symptoms leading up to the event. I too was treated with gestational diabetes last year from when I was 28 weeks pregnant with my first baby. Again, like you I was an absolute perfectionist with my levels and ignored NHS advice and went LCHF. I delievered my daughter safely and healthily at 38+3 weeks and stopped insulin immediately. My levels went back to normal and I felt fine for 6 months until going in to DKA literally over night. I was told at 29 weeks pregnant that I was developing Type 1 because I had ketones despite my sugars being in range. However when I saw my consultant he said they were starvation ketones and I was just a gestational diabetic. He said I was only likely to develop Type 2 in the future, not Type 1 due to my age and normal bmi - (I'm now 28.) Well so much for that! I'm still waiting to see my consultant following diagnosis.
Anyway, I totally get what you mean about seeing high numbers. My numbers were so much better when I was pregnant and I'm told they are meant to be worse with the resistance! I think I must have been in the early stages and was still producing insulin of my own. I was eating a very low carb diet too but I'm choosing not to do that at the moment - I want a bit of normality!
Sorry for the long post - but you are not alone with how you feel!
 
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HLC2017

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Type 1
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About your sandwich high you described - that could just be the erratic sugars of the honeymoon period, or it could be you need to look at basal insulin or/and to bolus more in advance of eating.

You'll sort this :)

Dear Azure,

Thank you very much indeed for your reassurance and solidarity. I needed to hear it.

Re: the sandwich highs... It feels like each day is a science experiment--what effect will the insulin have today? I hadn't realised that blood sugars were erratic during the honeymoon period, that made me feel much better. And reading around the site I saw that some people wait a little between injecting and eating. I was told to eat *immediately* but no later than 10-15 minutes. The last two meals I summoned up my courage and waited for 10 minutes. I didn't keel over :) and it made a perceptible difference. Certainly the novelty of MDI is helping push GD from my mind.

Thanks again, and take care. Onwards!
 
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HLC2017

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi Hannah

Welcome to the forum. As a guy, I'm anxious to see what other female T1s post. I've only been on basal/bolus for a year now, but don't get how I'd cope without basal. It seems that means asking your bolus to do too much, and possibly causing hypos.
Are you already high before a meal ?
Sounds like you're being asked to deal with this, with one hand tied behind your back !
You'll sort this out in the end,
Geoff

Dear Geoff,
Thank you very much indeed for your welcoming message.

I am not entirely sure why I am not on basal yet. I think it is because the fasting and pre-meal readings are considered okay by my team's standards (6-9) and I'm guessing this is because breastfeeding demands a lot of carbohydrate substrate. Some nights my daughter nurses a lot, which seems to lower my fasting levels, and sometimes she doesn't and I enjoy blissful sleep but higher numbers on waking. What you are saying--that the basal and bolus need to work in concert--makes total sense.

I look forward to the day when I have it 'sorted' and in the meantime am grateful to you all for the support.

Take care, Hannah
 

HLC2017

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi Hannah,

I was diagnosed two years ago and I still remember quite clearly the feelings of despair/anger/sadness. I still get them too, but they're less frequent now. It really is like grief, you're grieving for the way you lived your life before, but! It does get better.
I didn't have a new born to cope with though and I hope you are getting plenty of support? I wouldn't want to attempt an armchair diagnosis but I think your vulnerable to PND when you experience something life changing so soon after birth.
I have had counselling with a clinical psychologist since my diagnosis, maybe this is something you could discuss with your DSN/GP? even if you don't feel you need it right now (or have time! :)) it might be worth getting the ball rolling just in case due to waiting lists.

Dear Claire,

Thank you so much for your astute message. Since my diagnosis, I have been trying to get on with things and my husband and other family members have been trying to jolly me along, for example by recollecting that 96-year old diabetic great-aunt of Whatshisname who died peacefully in her sleep (!). Your message and others here made me realise that it's okay to admit to being devastated by this right now. I'm definitely going to pursue your counselling suggestion.

Thank you again. Take care, Hannah
 

HLC2017

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
It is hard to adjust but it will work out. I too had GD then found out I was type 1.
You are during with a lot, new child, changing dynamicfor older child and a tough diagnosis. You need to let go of the perfectionism though - for a while just take each day as it comes.

Dear Diakat,
The young lady in your profile picture looks fabulous, and I love the anti-diabetes t-shirt she is wearing! Thank you very much for your message. As you suggest, I am taking each day as it comes. Perhaps Type 1 is life's way of teaching me to let go of pointless perfectionism and I'll be a happier person for it. Thanks so much, be well. Hannah
 

HLC2017

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi @HLC2017 , it takes time to get used to it. You'll go through a riot of emotions, but after a while, you'll learn the rules, what works, what doesn't, and it eventually becomes just a bit of a nuisance which you can handle.

I see you're an historian of science. There's a book which is maybe a bit too pop-science for your level but read it anyway: Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the discovery of insulin, and the making of a medical miracle, by Thea Cooper and Arthur Gainsberg. Their editors should really have shortened the title a bit (!), but I took a few points from it:

First, this is a savage disease which killed pre-discovery of insulin. T1s before 1922 would be overjoyed to have the facilities we have now, so I'm never going to complain about the odd hypo/hyper here and there when I know that the pre-1922 alternative was death.

You only need to look at some before and after pics to appreciate that, all things considered, we're remarkably lucky:

View attachment 22684

Second, the girl in the title, Elizabeth Hughes was one of the first people in America to get insulin. The authors found a letter she wrote to her parents when she was 14. She'd been looked after constantly by her nurse on a starvation diet, but decides she is going to do it herself. She writes about doing her first injection. She says she is going to be, "the captain of her own ship". It's a bit cheesy and 14 yr old pretentious, but she then goes on to describe how she has decided to "manage the target practice", "boiled the gun", "fired the first shot heard around the world (my world that is)". That kid stepped up to the plate in days when needles had to be manually sharpened, syringes boiled, glucose measuring was more or less guesswork, as was the potency of insulin. She called hypos, "the feels", and sorted them with molasses, "a kiss". She died in her seventies, unrelated to diabetes.

Also, google Eva Saxl. Bit more history for you. Made her own insulin from water buffalo pancreases in a make shift lab in a Shanghai basement during a war. As opposed to us, who just need to go to the chemist!

I've had spells when I've deeply resented T1, but I think of it now as my immune system having done a bit of accidental friendly fire on my beta cells, mistake forgiven, so I just need to pick up the slack, and do the work myself instead. Instead of looking at it as an enemy, it's something I co-operate with, even if it can be a bit unruly at times. Sure, it's a coping mechanism, but we all need those at times. I just find it gives me a lot of peace of mind to think about it that way, instead of the idea that I'm in a constant war.

Best of luck, you'll figure it out.

Dear Scott,

Thank you so much for this wonderful message. You figured out exactly how to engage my interest and boost my morale: now I have legendary women to look (and live) up to! I also love the way you have reframed your diagnosis to make peace with it. Military language seems to be all-pervasive in much historical and contemporary literature about diabetes and disease in general (probably since the emergence of germ theory from the 19th century, I should think) and while I can see why it might be helpful for rousing public interest, drawing funding, etc, you are right that it can't be good to feel 'under siege' or on the battle lines everyday. Henceforth I shall be co-operating with my diabetes ;-)

Thank you again, and take care,
Hannah
 

Freema

Expert
Messages
7,346
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Type 2
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Diet only
welcome here Hannah , this is a great forum to get support so if you stay here you´ll always have some dibetics type 1 people to ask for advice ...
wish you all the best.. <3
 

HLC2017

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi @HLC2017. Our stories are quite similar. I was diagnosed as Type 1 a month ago after going in to DKA after experiencing no symptoms leading up to the event. I too was treated with gestational diabetes last year from when I was 28 weeks pregnant with my first baby. Again, like you I was an absolute perfectionist with my levels and ignored NHS advice and went LCHF. I delievered my daughter safely and healthily at 38+3 weeks and stopped insulin immediately. My levels went back to normal and I felt fine for 6 months until going in to DKA literally over night. I was told at 29 weeks pregnant that I was developing Type 1 because I had ketones despite my sugars being in range. However when I saw my consultant he said they were starvation ketones and I was just a gestational diabetic. He said I was only likely to develop Type 2 in the future, not Type 1 due to my age and normal bmi - (I'm now 28.) Well so much for that! I'm still waiting to see my consultant following diagnosis.
Anyway, I totally get what you mean about seeing high numbers. My numbers were so much better when I was pregnant and I'm told they are meant to be worse with the resistance! I think I must have been in the early stages and was still producing insulin of my own. I was eating a very low carb diet too but I'm choosing not to do that at the moment - I want a bit of normality!
Sorry for the long post - but you are not alone with how you feel!

Dear Hollie,
It was lovely to receive this message, and please don't apologise for length--I'm so glad you wrote. I think I may 'know' you from the GD group on FB. If you are the Hollie from that group, then I have to tell you that you saved me from a spell in hospital. You may even (sounds a bit dramatic, but who knows) have saved my life. I read your post about going into DKA and being hospitalised. I hadn't been feeling myself and it occurred to me that I ought to dust off my testing kit. I had blood ketones of 1.5 and was seen immediately by my GP and by the diabetes/endo people 2 weeks later. (In the interim I went back on the LCHF diet and became very ill with starvation ketones, which was grim, but at least I wasn't hospitalised, which would have been very difficult for my children, especially my daughter who is ebf). I'm sorry for your diagnosis but at the same time I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling to get my head round the high numbers. Take good care, enjoy your sugar baby, and I hope we can stay in touch. Hannah
 

DiabeticDadUK

Well-Known Member
Messages
336
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dear DOC,

Two weeks ago I learned that I have Type 1 diabetes. I'm feeling everything you'd expect, and the confusion and sadness is compounded by the fact that I have been diabetic in the past (gestational diabetes) and am struggling to adjust to a completely different paradigm. I've come to this Forum many, many times in the past: usually at 3am, as I sat in the dark breastfeeding my daughter, worrying about my weirdly high blood sugar levels, with no-one to talk to. Now the diagnosis is official but I've hesitated to post on here. Where to begin? But I guess everyone feels that way. Thanks in advance for reading, and for your solidarity.

I'm an historian of science and medicine. Historians like investigating causes and origins, and make sense of these by constructing narratives. So here's my story. It begins officially with gestational diabetes in both of my pregnancies. (Although thinking about it lately, I developed dysglycaemia in my early 20s: I regularly fainted while waiting to be seated in restaurants, which is handy for making a table appear as if by magic, and in church, where I was asked a few times whether I had been overcome by Holy Spirit--people were disappointed when I said no, I'm just hypoglycaemic). My GD was picked up in my first pregnancy by a routine glucose tolerance test. It came as a surprise to everyone as I didn't have any of the risk factors. A diabetic specialist midwife told me the ways my child would die if I didn't control my blood sugars. I am a perfectionist by nature and very disciplined, and so threw myself at the diagnosis by following a strict dietary and exercise regime. I hesitated to undergo a second pregnancy because of all this, but at least was prepared when GD reared its head. (I should add that GD seems to be a poorly understood condition: this time round my midwife kept stating that I must have brought GD on myself by eating sweets!). I managed my bg levels immaculately during both pregnancies, ignoring NHS eatwell guidelines and following a lchf diet, using food combining and aggressive exercise (4 hours/15 km speed walking per day) to keep my levels within a 4-7 mmol/L range. After I gave birth, I ate all the treats in my hospital bag and was confused when the hospital team tested my bg and started freaking out because I had a reading of 20.5. Surely this was to be expected, as my hormones return to normal, I thought? Realising that I was never going to get 'normal' bg readings on a hospital diet of carbs, and needing to get home to my older child, I self-discharged. A month ago, I had an episode of hyperglycaemia and an HbA1C showed I had become diabetic. My GP told me I was Type 2 and recommended a low carb diet but ordered further tests, as I didn't fit the typical profile. Just as in the past, I threw myself into diet and exercise. A fortnight later I got a call from the Hospital telling me to come in immediately to begin insulin, which is how I learned I have Type 1 diabetes. During the intervening 2 weeks my body was unable to extract enough glucose from my starvation diet, seeing how I have few functioning beta cells left, and so I lost a lot of weight, my infant daughter lost weight, I developed vertigo, numbness in my face, and started to have out-of-body experiences. You would think I would have been worried about all of this but I was so out of it with starvation ketones that it's only now that I've started to get treatment that I realise how crazy it was.

So much for history, now back to the present. I was very 'good' at being a gestational diabetic. Illusory as this surely was, I felt in control of the condition for those 3-4 months. I felt similarly 'in control' during that fortnight when I believed I was Type 2: I know what I can do to help my bg levels, my thinking went, so I should get on with it already. But this paradigm has just imploded. My team have not yet put me on basal insulin (I suspect because I am breastfeeding on demand, esp. many times through the night, and they are concerned about hypos) but have instructed me to take Novorapid with meals. Before I inject I stare at the needle for what seems like hours. Even my five-year old tells me, 'Hurry up Mummy, you've done this before! As a gestational diabetic my bg had to be below 7.8 at 1 hr and below 6.4 at 2 hrs. So when I check at 2 hours after eating half a sandwich and salad and see a 16.6, I feel like I failed! and then within 3 hours I am dealing with a hypo and feeling completely rubbish. I used to consider myself a pretty stoic person, good in a crisis etc., but now I keep dissolving into tears.

As a graduate student, I loved 'The Normal and the Pathological' by French philosopher of medicine Georges Canguilhem. Canguilhem argued that biological normativity is life’s adjustment to its internal and external environment. Put another way, it is normal to get sick and for our body to change. Pathology is when we can no longer adapt to fluctuations. He meant this in a biological sense, but it seems to me there is a huge psychological dimension to this, for managing diabetes at least. Right now sadness infuses each day and I can't go through a meal without feeling tremendous anxiety. I guess I'll have to let go of the illusion of being in total control. I'm hoping though that with practice, experience, and study, I will find a new normal. Along the way, I'm planning to read up on all your experience for clues, tips, good humour, and the occasional whinge. I'm grateful for your camaraderie.

All the very best, and be well
Hannah


Hi there Hannah. Sorry to hear of your diagnosis. As a well read, well educated person I'm sure you've already picked up on many of the struggles and complications that T1 can bring about. It's not the end of the world, though. Support is better today than it has ever been. I speak from experience when I say that things have improved dramatically in recent years, and I've got 32 years on my diabetes clock! Many T1 diabetics lead a perfectly normal life and there's no reason you cannot do the same.

Allow yourself some time to adjust. Don't be afraid or ashamed to cry if you feel the need to. We've all been there. No T1 has never thought 'Why me!?' and had a moment. You will get things right in the end. Use this forum, social media, whatever outlets you can! to get help, support and advice.

I wish todays support was around when I was first diagnosed and that I had the courage to talk about it sooner.

Don't give up. Things get easier :)
 
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D

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@HLC2017 Oh wow, yes I am still in that group! I'm so glad that you were able to be seen so quickly - I am still waiting to see my consultant despite having DKA. Hopefully we can share tips on how to manage this in the future. Hope you're feeling better about things now. :)