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Brand new type 1, need advice

R

RPNKW

Active Member
Messages
35
Dear All

2 weeks ago I was admitted to hospital with a BM of between 27 and 50 and ketones, probably days from keeling over.After 3 days in hospital I was diagnosed as insulin dependent diabetes.

I need help to try and make some sewnse of things.

After discharge my sugar levels were high, between 16 and 18. On 30th April I had my first normal reading (6) since then most have been between 5.5 and 6.9 apart from mornings which were high but was 7.5 this morning. Tell me, how does this seem 13 days posdt discharge (insulin dose was upped too)?

I think I am getting the hang of the diet bit, I use a 7inch plate now, pasta and potatoes seem the best carbs for me but I had a big appetite so need to keep working on it.

The problem is I am feeling awful for part of eaach day. My vision is very blurred. I am currently off work and seem to want to sleep a lot in the morning. I have been walking for 2- 3 hours each day and this seems to help and my weight is down (More healthily then when my body was vainly trying to eat itself), so I get good bursts of energy that seem to burn the sugar. But I keep worrying about the symptoms Got thirsty a lot today and seemed to pee more than normal (But nothing like when acutely ill) My mood is also odd, one minute fine then it just dips and I think I can't live with this

The specialist nurse is helpful but I need a steer from people who have fiabetes as well especially anyone admitted as an acute case like me.Do people in this situation take time to heal after high sugards for so long?

On a positive note, hope to go walking in Derbyshire in the next couple of days if things seem tight
and learning diferent ways of cooking without artery clogging fatss is good, it's actually more tasty than what I was eating. Still a little concerned re sugar levels though, my pre lunch one was 7.1 today but fell asleep for 3 hours after breakfast so was inactive.

Any advice would be much appreciated right now and I hope when I get used to this I will be able to help too. Insulin is lantus and also novo rapid

Yours

RPNK
 
Hi RPNKW,welcome to the forum,your must be feeling quite shell-shocked with all this going on.Your blood sugars sound quite good now and hopefully you will start to feel better once they stabilise.I'm hoping that our experienced type 1's will come along and give you some good advice re insulin etc.One thing that strikes me is your carb. intake.Do you test before and after a meal to see how things like rice,pasta ,potatoes affect your BS?Most of the long term diabetics on here agree that a low carb diet is the way to go to control your diabetes.I noticed that Amazon have a new 'type one for dummies' coming out on the 7th may.I have the type 2 for dummies and it is very good,just a suggestion maybe,to help get your head round it all.Have a good read round the forum and you will pick up lots of help and tips for coping.Good luck.
 
hello RPNK,

Welcome to the forum.

Your blurred vision could possibly be down to the better blood sugar levels
that you've be keeping recently and should soon improve given time.
Also, your sugars have likely been so high for so long that your body needs
to get settled at your new level - this is why you don't feel 100% at the moment.

Exercise is key to controlling diabetes, but you really need to be sorting out
your routine with the testing, jabbing and mealtimes first. Once you know
where you are with your basic routine, you can begin to fit exercise in
around everything else.

There tends to be a sharp learning curve to begin with, but once you get
the hang of it all it'll get quite a bit easier.

good luck,
the fuzz :wink:
 
I was dagnosed as Type 1 at the age of 42 and admitted to hospital with blood sugars of 33 about 8 years ago. I would say that your blood sugars are pretty good. I suffered from difficulty with vision for about 2 weeks after satrting on the insulin. The glucose is removed from all the body liquids very quickly once treatment starts and this includes the aqueous fluids inthe eyeball. However, glucose builds up in the eye lens and the sugar secretes from here more slowly, causing the lens to change shape and blur your vision. I went from being shortsighted to long sighted and back to short sighted in a matter of a few days and had to use reading glasses for a short while. Everything stablised after about 10 days.

Nobody warned me and I was away from home during the period and had to visit an opticians as I had to drive home and couldn't see well enough! Fortunately, the optician was very familiar with the problems and managed to allay my fears.

On the question of blodd sugars generally, I found that once I was injecting insulin, my pancreas recovered a little and was able to produce some. This meant that my readings were pretty good for the first year as it limited to the overshoot if I got things wrong. Eventually it packed up completely and I wish I was regularly achieving your results.

Good luck with. Once you build up your strength, you will probably feel a lot better overall. That was my experience.

Nigel
 
Hey,

You sound like your handling the disease really well. I also have type 1 diabetes and let me tell you it gets a LOT easier. You will eventually get the hang of injecting insulin and testing blood glucose.

Personally i think when it gets easier it's pretty fun to do blood sugar tests. It's something to do isn't it. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
Hello RPNKW, It is normal to have blurred vision for quite some time after post-diagnosis. My vision went down to 40% and it was three months before I could see well enough to go back to work.

On exercising, be careful in the early days post-diagnosis with to much exercise.Wile you are still adjusting your insulin dosage, exercise can increase your body's sensitivity to insulin and what is a normal amount of insulin, that you use to cover the carbohydrates you eat on a none exercise day, can in fact induce hypo's on a day when you are exercising. Alway take your BG meter with you and test every hour, also take a few snack bars, or glucose tablets with you and keep well hydrated with plenty of water, not soft drinks.
 
Dear All

Thank you so much for all the advice. I have been hiking in the peak district in the uk recently and this was an interesting "Low sugar" experience.

If I feel like I have touched my tongue on battery terminals and get a bit quaky I now know this means "normal" sugars, more quaky means dropping sugars.

My vision is improving as well.

My worry is getting complacent, i.e my blood sugar was raised again in the past 48 hours but within the normal range, though mornings are still a problem for me. I have also "Sinned" in that I have consumed red wine and whilst alcohol reduces blood sugar the consequences re cholesterol in the blood are not good ones.

Stormin-Norman, your advice was great, still awaiting this big hypo though.sticking to low carb diet, funny though, this diabetes seems like that film "Speed" with sandra bullock. If you move you burn sugar but if your bus stops the high sugar bomb goes off. I find that if I don't walk 2-3 hours a day my sugars are at the higher end of normal.

Hope to help more after I lose my "L" plate compadres!

RPNKW
 
RPNKW said:
I have also "Sinned" in that I have consumed red wine and whilst alcohol reduces blood sugar the consequences re cholesterol in the blood are not good ones.
RPNKW
Click to expand...

Hi RPKNW,

I wondered where you got the idea from that red wine is bad for cholesterol. Admittedly all alcohol in high quantities is bad for you, but in 1992 scientists first discovered what became known as the "French Paradox". This was the realisation that the French (particularly at the Med end) eat the highest fat diet in western Europe and also consume the greatest quantity of red wine, yet the have a very low incidence of cholesterol related heart disease.

A huge amount of research has been done since then which has proved conclusively that the polyphenols present in red wine increases HDL (the "good" cholesterol that prevents heart disease) by up to 16%, and reduces LDL (the "bad" cholesterol).

So drink and be merry my friend!!
 
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