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Developed a phobia

livitridge

Active Member
Messages
30
Location
Seaford
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
About 3 months ago I was put on the omnipod, to sort out my high blood sugars and it worked. Hba1c came down from 14 to 7!!! It wasn't until I experienced a horrible hypo right before bedtime that wouldn't come back up for an hour (still don't know why it happened) and I had a few more that week, despite giving half the amounts of insulin and sneakily eating snacks without insulin... and ever since then I've been terrified of taking insulin. It's such a shame as my omnipod is only a 6 month trial and I'm worried they will take it away from me now as I've totally ruined my hba1c due to pure fear.
The constant paranoia of hypos has ruined christmas for me, I can't seem to take it off my mind or enjoy anything. Anytime I feel funny I rush to test my blood and often I'm not low. I don't know what to do I hate this diabetes life. I'm the most paranoid person you will ever meet and can't deal with this for much longer, each week that goes by I think to myself another week gone by of pure misery!
 
Have you adjusted ypur doses and done basal rates or bolus ratio changes?
 
Yes I adjusted my basal and now bs are running too high.. But I'm too scared to get them back to normal. Was never scared of hypos until I started having all these unexplained ones - and eating didn't bring them up very much
 
Are you going low 2-3 hours after eating?

Have you done basal testing since having low's?
 
No. It's hard to explain , one night I had a hypo, treated it as normal, and felt no better 20 mins later.. It hadnt come up at all so I continued to finish the bottle of lucozade.. And it bought my bloods up to around 8.
I thought lucozade was supposed to shoot blood levels up. I had not taken any extra insulin as I'm on an insulin pump.
The next day my bloods were running slightly high all day. They were 7 before dinner, no insulin on board at this point...I had dinner and gave half the amount of insulin my pump wanted to give me. 45 mins later my bs was 3.7. I was so confused as there should be no reason for this and it happened a few more times when I woke up one morning at 2.1. It's like someone has gone adjusted all my basal.. (No one had) but I've changed it now so my bs are running high and I want to get them back down but I'm too scared.
 
Ok there's lots of pump people here, me included.

You need to go back to basics and do some basal testing....

Also if you are going low 45 mins after a bolus for food.. Thats not your food bolus giving you the low its because your basal two hours before is too high....

What pump are you on?

Keep levels as are, do testing and get your basals fine tuned first.... Back to basics I'm afraid..
 
I can't give you advice on pumps, so hopefully some other people will be along to hep with that.

I can, however, advise on hypo anxiety. This is something I've battled with for a long time. When I was first diagnosed and didn't have a clue what I was doing because I was given insulin, a BG meter and sent on my merry way. I had two really bad hypos which really scared me. Like you, I spent some time (actually, around 3 years) making sure my levels were high because I was so scared of having another bad hypo. I now know that during bad hypos, the liver dumps loads of glucose into the blood. So when things go really bad, you can usually rely on that.

It was only until I brought my levels under control by low carbing, that my hypo anxiety went. When you low carb, you take lower amounts of insulin, so any hypos that you have are less severe.

So the advice I would give you is:

  • First you need to control your levels. Have you tried carb counting? If this doesn't work, consider low carbing (avoiding starchy carbs)
  • Second, you need to tell yourself that you have survived every hypo you've ever had. I don't know how long you've had diabetes, but I've had hundreds of hypos over the 11 years I've had diabetes. I've survived every single one, even the bad ones.
  • Finally, always carry your BG meter with you and a bottle of Lucozade (a bottle of Lucozade will get you out of any hypo). When you become more confident, you can swap the Lucozade for something a bit more convenient to carry, like Dextrose tablets.
 
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