Is there still hope for me?
There's always hope, man, there's always hope.
But there's also science. You've probably figured out by now that retinopathy and neuropathy are both caused by running your sugars too high for too long. It sounds like it's been a good wake up call for you to start paying attention to it, but you are going to have to do some work to sort it out.
The main one being making sure you don't go too high too much from now on.
Don't know how far down the line your retinopathy is. It's caused by high sugars putting pressure on small blood vessels in your eyes. Sometimes, they'll pop and start bleeding and you could end up blind. If it's fairly early on, it can go away on it's own just by keeping levels tight. If it's further down the line, doctors can fire a laser at the swollen blood vessels to seal them up. It sounds terrifying, but there's been a few posts on here from people saying it's not painful. I don't know anything about the Philippines health care system but I assume they must have that sort of thing available.
On carb counting, we can't give advice on dosing because we're not doctors. But if you were to go on a carb counting course or the online bertie one mentioned above, they'll more or less tell you some general rules which I'll set out here, but please remember that insulin treatment needs to be customised for every individual person, so think of them as a starting point: you'll probably need to tweak them a bit to work for you, and seeing as you've been T1 for so long anyway, you're probably half way there anyway.
Anyway, here's some starting points:
1. 10 grams of carbs will tend to raise blood glucose by 2 to 3 mmol/L. You're in the Philippines and a quick google suggests you use mg/dl, so that would be 36 to 54. There's a converter here:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/blood-sugar-converter.html
2. 1 unit of insulin will tend to lower blood glucose by 2 to 3, (36 to 54).
3. So, most carb counting courses will tell you that you need 1 unit for every 10 grams so it all balances out. So, if you're having 50 grams of carbs, you'll need 5 units of insulin to deal with that: 1 unit for every 10 grams.
4. But, and it's a big but, while 1 to 10 works fine for a lot of people, it doesn't work for everyone. Me, I tend to need 1.5 for every 10, others might need more or less. You won't know what's right for you till you start experimenting.
Try buying some packaged food which has a nutrition label on the back so you can tell how much carbs are in it (don't know if they do that in the Philippines). If it says 40 grams of carbs, wait till your sugars are at a decent level, say, 5 to 6 (90 to 108) try 4 units and see how that works out for you. If you end up sky high after 3 to 5 hours, it would suggest 1 to 10 doesn't work for you, so maybe try the same meal again with a bit more insulin and see if that works. Or if you drop too low on 1 to 10, reduce it a bit.
You've obviously managed 22 years so far, so you'll probably have a fair idea of how much you need for each meal, but, as you say, the retinopathy suggests you've been winging it a bit, and not always getting it right, so going back to basics and figuring out whether you're 1 to 10, 1.5 to 10 or some other ratio seems a fair starting point.
You'll also need to check your lantus dose is right by doing some basal testing: wait till 5 hours after your last meal/apidra shot, then just watch over the next 8 hours, without eating or doing any exercise, to see if your level stays about the same or falls or rises. If it stays the same, chances are your lantus is fine; if it drops, it might be too high; if it rises, the lantus might be too low. Lantus should be holding you steady when not eating.
Anyway, signing off from a mildly warm Scotland, am insanely jealous I can't just walk out of the pub to a beautiful Philippine beach with palm trees, but life's tough, isn't it?
