Confused.

Antje77 said:

Glad to hear your team is on the ball!

Poor penguin!
I'm glad I got to use an anonymous sponge, I wouldn't have wanted to stab an innocent penguin!

It completely baffles me why they don't let you practice on yourself with an empty pen.

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I feel it’s against human nature to impale oneself? Self preservation unless you happen to work as a dark circus act..
learn the action & become adept to ignore any perceived pain?
But we’re not thrilling the crowd here. It’s all about health & well being. Something I came to understand as a kid, I could feel the change with insulin use. (When it went well.) Bit like “Popeye & that can of spinach.?”

purrpleness said:

Good evening,
Thought I'd give you an update, my Positive GAD antibody test came back as 1460 or 14.6? As the Internet states under 5.0 is normal.
I don't appear to have a c-peptide result, I remember seeing it on the blood form, maybe that hasn't come back yet?
Anyway, diabetic nurse was so lovely, I got a new glucose monitor, I've been told to take 6units of basal insulin same time everyday, I'm yet to pick the pens up from the pharmacy. I also have a prescription for a fast acting one, but not to use that one yet. I need to test through the day once I start the insulin and then send them the results so they can work out if it's the right dose I guess.
I was in the room for an hr and a half, I came home with alot of information and pleased with how it went. She also got me to practice the insulin on a squishy penguin lol
We've basically caught my diabetes early as later down the line I will be completely insulin dependent. She also kept calling it type 1, no LADA or .5 mentioned at all.

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I am so happy you had a good session with the nurse; my c-peptide results took about 3 weeks and antibody tests about a month but was warned they could all be up to 6-8 weeks, so it can be a waiting game depending on how busy the lab is.

Glad you had a practice penguin - I was literally shown once how to do it on my own stomach and sent on my way, the nurse did it, so I didn't even have a go!

Did you get the form for free prescriptions (if you don't have a certificate already)? My first trip to the chemist would have been £90 (BG test strips, ketone test strips, lancets, insulin x 2 types, insulin needles, clinical waste bin, metformin and the kitchen sink). Only because the nurse put the wrong type of lancet prescription I went back to the surgery and had a mental and financial breakdown that she 'remembered' that there was a form so I didn't need to pay! If you've already paid you can get a refund, but if you are waiting for the form to be signed by your doctor, the certificate will be backdated so you don't need to worry about 'falsely claiming' you are exempt from payment.

Good luck with next few days, don't forget to ask all the daft questions on here - if your sister was diagnosed as a child she might not have the memory of those early days, and there are a lot of newbies on here more than willing to pass on recent experience of current treatments etc

purrpleness said:

Just taken my bedtime reading, 10.9, I had a packet a crisps and some wine (I know, naughty)

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Not too bad a result, and nothing naughty about it either.

You'll need to learn to dose for the crisps in the future but the wine has no carbs, it's exactly as healthy or unhealthy for a diabetic as it is for a non diabetic.
In fact, it might lower your BG overnight a little, because as long as your liver is busy dealing with the alcohol, it's not dumping random glucose in your bloodstream.

purrpleness said:

I like the odd sweet thing after a salty snack.

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Some salted nuts followed by a square or 2 of Lindt 90% chocolate can be a 'good' treat

As a Type1/LADA and sometimes called Type1.5 as said before it's all the same thing. Type 1.5 is rarely used in the US now as it just confuses everyone, even doctors to what that actually means. LADA just means Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults as a way to describe the slower progression that usually happens as an adult. As a kid it seems to be a fast process, but as an adult it can take 8 years plus to fully lose the ability to make insulin, that's referred to as the honeymoon period. It can be a fast or very slow process though, it can just vary per person. With that high of a GAD level it sort of looks like it's a pretty good attack. But your pancreas will still keep trying for an indefinite unknown amount of time.

Insulin will eventually be a necessity that keeps you alive. While some want to delay as long as possible, I have always though it's a good idea to learn how to use it in baby steps when you don't have to rely on it for everything you eat. When I started using it, I felt better. That's probably because all of a sudden I could properly use that food I was eating. High and low blood sugars can also cause moodiness, irritability, impatience etc. And high blood sugars are a sign not enough insulin is being made to deal with it, which can lead to DKA and getting very sick.

Nowadays with all the tech available it's keeping us healthier and making life easier. Being able to have and use insulin is a wonderful gift that keeps us all alive and lets us live a close to normal life with some adjustments. That's the best positive there is!

Mrs HJG said:

Not what I was suggesting at all. I was just trying to point out that not everyone needs insulin immediately, all the results need to be considered and OP is still waiting on her c-pep which is pretty crucial to the decision.

Sorry if anyone is confused by what so said.

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Insulin gives people with type 1 antibodies DKA protection as beta cells can fail overnight with an autoimmune response. The doctor would have considered this when prescribing the insulin while waiting for the c-peptide test results.

I was diagnosed with type 1 and told to start insulin straight away and tried to avoid taking it. Nothing I did including starving or running managed to get my blood sugars down and insulin was the miracle solution that I should have accepted straight away to keep safe and normalise my blood sugars.

ert said:

Insulin gives people with type 1 antibodies DKA protection as beta cells can fail overnight with an autoimmune response. The doctor would have considered this when prescribing the insulin while waiting for the c-peptide test results.

I was diagnosed with type 1 and told to start insulin straight away and tried to avoid taking it. Nothing I did including starving or running managed to get my blood sugars down and insulin was the miracle solution that I should have accepted straight away to keep safe and normalise my blood sugars.

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As we all say over and over, we are all different, react differently and have different needs; medical professionals will naturally go to the most 'usual' treatment first; I'm 18 months in with T1/LADA and still not taking insulin after those initial weeks of mayhem, the doctors made the textbook call, but it was not the right thing for me - it's not a competition and no-one's experience is more valid than anyone else's.