- Messages
- 2
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
Hey everyone. I'm a pretty new diabetic, diagnosed just under 2 years ago, aged 18.
For 6 months my sugars were hitting the 20s every day and I'd check my sugars maybe once a month. I'd miss insulin injections and eat all the carbohydrates I wanted. Safe to say, I didn't take too well to the diagnosis. I was forced to drop out of my Performing Arts course, and almost lost my partner and at one point, life. My family were (and still are) unsupportive with my diabetes care, with my mother being diabetic herself and refusing all medication. Long story short, after these 6 months, I finally started calming down and looked at what I could achieve out of my life, not what diabetes has taken away, and in April of 2014, fell pregnant with my first child.
With my sugars still averaging around 20 daily and no idea how to control them, over the next few months, through a change in home, insulin and attitude, I reduced my Hba1c from 109 to 54... a massive jump in just 5 months! The difficulty came after the birth of my son, who is a perfectly healthy little boy, weighing 8lb 11oz, born Dec 30th 14. My entire diabetes education was based around how to control my sugars whilst pregnant! In the weeks before birth, my sugars rarely went over 7.5 and I had maybe one mild hypo (3.5 or over) every few weeks. I had perfected my basil and bolus doses to eat however I wanted and keep in perfect control.
The night after I gave birth, I had my first serious hypo. I was still in hospital and my midwives were not trained to deal with diabetic patients, and when my sugars hit 2.0, they did very little to help! They refused to give my any orange juice or toast as it was the middle of the night and they could only give me food after 8am. I panicked and still remember the fear I had as if it were the other day. I must have eaten about 80 grams of fast acting carbs out of my hospital bag (Thank god I still had my snacks!) and even then, I only hit 8.7.
As I was pre-warned, my sugars took a little while to stabilise after the birth and I had to east about 100 grams a day without injecting a single unit of insulin just to keep my sugars up about 5.0 (I was breastfeeding as well which is why I needed so much). About 6 weeks after my son was born, my sugars started creeping back up again so I started injecting small doses of insulin, and every time I did, I would have a hypo. In the first 6 months of his life, the paramedics had been called 5 times because I could not raise my sugars. To make the situation worse, on a night where I ate a lot of carbs and injected the most insulin I'd had in months, I came down with food poisoning and was admitted to hospital after even the paramedics couldn't bring my levels back up above 4 for more than 15 minutes.
Jump ahead to present day and about a month ago, my averages were back up to the 18/20 mark as I was terrified of injecting more than a unit or 2 for fear of hypoglycaemia. I've now started gradually increasing the amount I'm injecting and am on a 1unit:15grams ratio. Trouble is, when my sugars hit 10.0 or under, I panic! I get so anxious about the idea of a hypo, that I start treating one, even though there isn't any sign of one! Just the slight sign of my hands starting to shake or my heart rate increasing (I'm anaemic so this happens fairly often), I'm throwing back carbs just in case my sugars are falling, testing afterwards to find that they were about 15 to begin with. I won't go to bed at night without slow acting carbs first, and my sugars HAVE to be above 10 or I physically can''t sleep.
My worry is, I'm 16 weeks pregnant now on my second child, and even though I'm taking the same steps as last time to gradually bring back down my averages (down from 18.7 in April to 12.6 in August), I'm finding it so much harder mentally because this time, I have experiences with hypos and it honestly terrifies me! I'm worried every day that there will be consequences for my baby if I can't get thing sorted out sooner rather than later!My diabetes team is an hour an a half away on a bus as I don't drive and they literally NEVER answer their phones! My next appointment isn't until next month, when I'm 20 weeks pregnant.
Can anyone help me out?!
For 6 months my sugars were hitting the 20s every day and I'd check my sugars maybe once a month. I'd miss insulin injections and eat all the carbohydrates I wanted. Safe to say, I didn't take too well to the diagnosis. I was forced to drop out of my Performing Arts course, and almost lost my partner and at one point, life. My family were (and still are) unsupportive with my diabetes care, with my mother being diabetic herself and refusing all medication. Long story short, after these 6 months, I finally started calming down and looked at what I could achieve out of my life, not what diabetes has taken away, and in April of 2014, fell pregnant with my first child.
With my sugars still averaging around 20 daily and no idea how to control them, over the next few months, through a change in home, insulin and attitude, I reduced my Hba1c from 109 to 54... a massive jump in just 5 months! The difficulty came after the birth of my son, who is a perfectly healthy little boy, weighing 8lb 11oz, born Dec 30th 14. My entire diabetes education was based around how to control my sugars whilst pregnant! In the weeks before birth, my sugars rarely went over 7.5 and I had maybe one mild hypo (3.5 or over) every few weeks. I had perfected my basil and bolus doses to eat however I wanted and keep in perfect control.
The night after I gave birth, I had my first serious hypo. I was still in hospital and my midwives were not trained to deal with diabetic patients, and when my sugars hit 2.0, they did very little to help! They refused to give my any orange juice or toast as it was the middle of the night and they could only give me food after 8am. I panicked and still remember the fear I had as if it were the other day. I must have eaten about 80 grams of fast acting carbs out of my hospital bag (Thank god I still had my snacks!) and even then, I only hit 8.7.
As I was pre-warned, my sugars took a little while to stabilise after the birth and I had to east about 100 grams a day without injecting a single unit of insulin just to keep my sugars up about 5.0 (I was breastfeeding as well which is why I needed so much). About 6 weeks after my son was born, my sugars started creeping back up again so I started injecting small doses of insulin, and every time I did, I would have a hypo. In the first 6 months of his life, the paramedics had been called 5 times because I could not raise my sugars. To make the situation worse, on a night where I ate a lot of carbs and injected the most insulin I'd had in months, I came down with food poisoning and was admitted to hospital after even the paramedics couldn't bring my levels back up above 4 for more than 15 minutes.
Jump ahead to present day and about a month ago, my averages were back up to the 18/20 mark as I was terrified of injecting more than a unit or 2 for fear of hypoglycaemia. I've now started gradually increasing the amount I'm injecting and am on a 1unit:15grams ratio. Trouble is, when my sugars hit 10.0 or under, I panic! I get so anxious about the idea of a hypo, that I start treating one, even though there isn't any sign of one! Just the slight sign of my hands starting to shake or my heart rate increasing (I'm anaemic so this happens fairly often), I'm throwing back carbs just in case my sugars are falling, testing afterwards to find that they were about 15 to begin with. I won't go to bed at night without slow acting carbs first, and my sugars HAVE to be above 10 or I physically can''t sleep.
My worry is, I'm 16 weeks pregnant now on my second child, and even though I'm taking the same steps as last time to gradually bring back down my averages (down from 18.7 in April to 12.6 in August), I'm finding it so much harder mentally because this time, I have experiences with hypos and it honestly terrifies me! I'm worried every day that there will be consequences for my baby if I can't get thing sorted out sooner rather than later!My diabetes team is an hour an a half away on a bus as I don't drive and they literally NEVER answer their phones! My next appointment isn't until next month, when I'm 20 weeks pregnant.
Can anyone help me out?!
