A week in to diagnosis

Welcome. You've had a tough week.
The NICE guideline for type 1 diabetes advises an HbA1c target of 7.5% (59 mmol/mol) to minimise the risk of microvascular disease and macrovascular disease. The complications timeline is down to the individual. Sometimes complications are more usual in type 2's who can go undiagnosed for decades.
If you chill and let your insulin begin to work, your vision changes won't be so dramatic. When you have been running high blood sugars for months, your lens in your eyes will be swollen and will take a few weeks to change back to normal shape after your blood sugars return to normal. Also, if you cut back on your carbohydrates, you'd have to alter your insulin dosing, which will be complicated to calculate because your blood sugars are dropping. So all in good time.

Hi there @TashT1

Welcome to the forums.

In between raising 4 kids, studying for a PhD and worrying about 2 grandparents, you could always 'practice' the carb counting. It's not like it's wasted effort, it will be useful later.

When I started carb counting, I was surprised to learn that I was eating much less than the government's recommended intake. You never stop learning with diabetes.

urbanracer said:

Hi there @TashT1

Welcome to the forums.

In between raising 4 kids, studying for a PhD and worrying about 2 grandparents, you could always 'practice' the carb counting. It's not like it's wasted effort, it will be useful later.

When I started carb counting, I was surprised to learn that I was eating much less than the government's recommended intake. You never stop learning with diabetes.

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That's because the Government's recommended intake is why so many are obese.

TashT1 said:

learning about carb counting

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I'm T2 so no advice really. Would say, however, yes learn about carb counting it will be useful and it's a good place to start with regard to the schools of thinking around diabetes and carbs. You'll find there's a lively debate going on! I think you'll appreciate Jason Fung's thoughts and writing. Also I find it useful to think about bg in two ways: firstly mean readings and secondly fluctuations. The aim is to have a low(er) mean but to achieve this without spikes and troughs.
Good luck (sorry you're here because who wants diabetes! but it is a great site)

Hi, and welcome to the T1 world @TashT1.
When telling children about hypos, I suppose it all depends on the child who you’re explaining them to.
If your children are interested in how the body works you might like to tell them that we need glucose to provide the power that keeps our brains, muscles and nerves working properly, so if you’ve not got enough of it our bodies won’t work properly and we might be slow, not speaking well, not making sense, doing silly things, maybe sweating a bit or even a bit cross or staring into space. If they see you like that, they should bring you a some jelly babies and then in a little while you’ll be ok again. They shouldn’t be frightened, just go and get the jelly babies.
It’s important too, to tell them that your jelly babies need to be left alone, but their own treats are for them. I know they’re of an age to understand, but sometimes jelly babies can be tempting.
Another couple of books that some people have enjoyed and found interesting and helpful are ‘Think Like a Pancreas’ by Gary Scheiner and later, when your body’s adjusted to having lower blood sugars after the time of highs, and you’ve got an insulin to carb ratio sorted, ‘Sugar Surfing‘ by Stephen Ponder’s quite a good one. Ponder’s book is really based on his own way of adjusting insulin while using a pump but it’s interesting.
If you’re keeping a record of the carbohydrate in what you’re eating, and your blood sugars before you eat and two to three hours after you eat, then you might also find Carbs and Cals useful. The record you keep will help to set your own insulin to carb ratio when you begin to run the beast for yourself. However, I expect the team who diagnosed you will want you to wait until the early adjustments have taken place before that happens.
As the others have said, it takes a lot of high blood sugar time to create problems, and many of us who’ve had it for a long time probably had no idea what our blood sugars were for the early years after diagnosis. I was diagnosed 50 years ago.
Back in the days when a pee test was the only kit, it was very hard to see what was happening in real time. You’re really really lucky to begin your T1 life with a Libre!

Oh yes, I’ve just thought of another thing @TashT1. Some of us use a MiaoMiao (you can google it) to send the result from the Libre to either an app on a smartphone, or a watch, and it allows us to set alarms for when our blood sugars go over or fall under a range that we set. They’re attached to the Libre.
This is probably also for the future, when you’ve gone through the early adjustments; however, the prospect of something like this in the future may well stem your worries about hypos and hypers. I hope so.
It’s another wonderful modern development that I’d not have dreamed was possible as a reality when I was first diagnosed.
In the meantime, congratulations on getting your blood sugars down.