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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grant_Vicat" data-source="post: 1662003" data-attributes="member: 388932">Just to bear this out, here are some excerpts I wrote back in 2009, when I was very much Type 1:I have a whole battery of warning signs when I am low, sugar-wise. The most obvious is sudden excessive yawning. Many times in public I have been tempted to ask total strangers whether they are diabetic, simply because they yawn incessantly. Is this because the brain thinks it needs bucketfuls of Oxygen to create unattainable energy? I can also feel unnaturally depressed. Red stars can dance within my eyes and if I walk into a darker area, what look like giant sunflower heads blot out my vision. Tingling affects all my mouth my hands shake, and I have a raging headache. I have often been alerted to low readings because I am unable to make decisions. Ironically this is often at lunchtime, in a food shop, when I am trying to work out what adds up to 60g of Carbohydrate. Recently there has been research taking place in Cambridge to find out whether depression increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Certainly many depressives comfort eat and this usually leads to obesity, which one might expect would raise the incidence. Interestingly 20% of cases of diabetes can be attributed to depression in people with both conditions. The authors, Martin P. Cosgrove, Lincoln A. Sargeant and Simon J. Griffin state that further research is needed. Whatever their findings, I always feel irritated when some condescending “perfect bodied” member of the public or Press point accusatory fingers at obese people. They have no idea what chemical imbalance could be the cause.. Ah, Mr Vicat. I see from your notes that retinopathy has been noted. I’ll get someone to attend to you.”A doctor duly appeared and informed me that I had had a haemorrhage and that nothing could be done until it had cleared enough to see what damage had occurred.  I was put under the care of Mr E.W.G. Davies, a short, wire-rimmed-bepectacled man with whispy grey hair, twinkly beaming eyes and an everlasting supply of Fox’s Glacier Mints stuffed into his white coat. I found this ironic, seeing that the majority of his patients were diabetic! During one of his consultations in my second year he asked me about my life. I told him that I was living in Kensal Rise; that I cycled into King’s College in the Strand every day; that I played squash; and that I drank moderately (I’m sure he didn’t fall for this). His response was that I should stop burn-ups on the Edgeware Road, that I should avoid squash, moderate my alcohol intake, and that I should shun aerobic exercise or anything that would make me red in the face. If I did not heed his words, I would be blind by the time I reached twenty-three.“Thank you” I said. “Do you realise that in one sentence you have ruled out all the finer points of living?”To say that I was depressed would be accurate, but somewhat insufficient. What was the point of carrying on in London? Was I likely to experience any of the ambitions I might entertain? Would I ever see my children? Worse still, would I ever have any? Would I ever drive and explore my country, let alone the World? How could I learn any more music?  These were just some of the thoughts that spun round in my head, as though my brain had been sucked into a tumble dryer. Time went by fairly uneventfully and I became engaged in a conversation with a visiting German medic. There were no less than nine people in the delivery room. Suddenly the German started whistling the Prelude to Bach’s Third English Suite. We had a lot to talk about when at 13.15 Helen shouted out “Excuse me, some of us are trying to have a baby in here.” Five minutes later Stephanie arrived with completely purple eyes. I gave her her first bath twenty minutes later and neither Helen nor I were remotely concerned that no little man had appeared. I was sent home to an empty house that evening and suddenly felt depressed. I was very grateful to Phil, who must have anticipated this and took me out to dinner. Two days later I found part of a Seven Deadly Sins jigsaw underneath a pile of washing-up in the sink.</blockquote>

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