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Diabetes depression

R

Richeym

Newbie
Messages
4
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hello

I am type 2 diabetes and suffer with severe depression , I recently become very paranoid and feel uncomfortable in a group of people , I left my job 2 months ago as i was unstabe emotionally. I spoke with my doctor as i overdosed 6 months ago i am married and have 3 children so i feel so much guilt. I forget a lot to take tablets and recently have severe pains all over my right side i was alwalys a strong guy but feel weak i booked to see my doctors in 2 weeks and am to scared to take blood tests i dont know what is wrong with me but i struggle to sleep and everyday is a challenge that i stuggle with.

Richey
 
oh you dont get much help do you?

can your partner maybe help you remember your medication... it could be that your fear and emotional condition right now make you fear much more than there is a rational reason to fear....

do your partner support you with your diet ? and how are your foods , du you know what to eat and how to get your blood glucose Down ?
 
sleeping is very important to get better psycologically so maybe ask the doctor to get something to help you sllep, maybe melatonin that at the same time is also good for diabetics
 
Hi freema

And thank you, I try to eat as healthy as i can and have looked at cheaper recipes i think feeling ill as i was diagnosed 18 months ago i have struggled to look after myself , my wife isn't in the best of health so i always felt under pressure. The pains in the right side have got worse ( i had a brain scan) With regards to sleep i also have sleep apnea so on average i get 3 hours sleep a night. I know when i see my doctor in 2 weeks he will send for more blood tests and i am terrified as i feel so ill. I feel on the edge and am waiting to see my mental health counsellor and want to get better
I will update when i see doctor
Thanks again
Richey
 
Oh so Many things you fight with in your life Well I also had sleep apnea , But it disapered after loosing a lot of weight and it is cheap. Just Eat Half of What you usually do and nothing from 19 oclock till 12 next Day only the first days you are very hungry and maybe get Some headace and it is much easier to get low blood glucose
 
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Hi Richey , so sorry to hear what you are going through I myself am going through depression and battle with dr to get some medication. I cannot stand to be in a room with any stranger even my own dr so I can relate. I was taking medications and half the time either taking twice the amount or none so I did buy myself a pill box and I do a weeks tablets this way I can manage to see whats taken and if I forget any , it has helped me a lot. Now depression can make you think everything is wrong I know I am an old hand at depression and anxiety and this is why I am reaching out to my GP for help getting nowhere in the long run but I will keep on. Please have the blood tests done because you can bet your bottom dollar that you feel like this because of depression and anxiety. in the meantime I believe valerian in boots is good for sleeping and its all herb related nothing addictive.Maybe this aint much help because you need to seek medical advice off the dr but stay strong and be a fighter for your family and for yourself x

this is the pill box I got

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01A0M958A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
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I am going to take a different angle and say that it is not uncommon to have anxiety and depression symptoms with diabetes.
I had it bad, I was totally asymptomatic with mental function problems.
The problem I had was excessive insulin in my blood, as well as high glucose readings because of insulin resistance.
I'm not suggesting that you have what I had.
What you eat has a lot to do with how you feel,.
What helped me was a low carb diet.
Sleep is so important to how your condition is controlled. I was on sleeping tablets for a year, but they didn't work. I had a sleep apnoea test. Not that!
It was the amount of insulin in my blood.
That's what was causing my mental problems.
There is a forum for depression and anxiety.
If you aren't already doin a low carb diet, maybe have a look in the low carb forum.

If it is symptomatic, then it can be controlled and like me, you can feel good again and get your normal life back again, it's not easy, get someone like a counsellor to help you.
Do not fear tests as they are there to help you. Ask your GP for as much help as possible, that is his job, he has to help you and get other medical practitioners to help you. Your health is important, do something about it, it's not easy, but if I can do it, you can!

Keep us updated, there are many on this forum that has been where you are and one of its will reply to your questions.

Best wishes.
 
Hi Richey

First off, welcome to the forum. We’re a friendly bunch, and we will support you as much as we can. There is a lot of knowledge and experience here and you will find a willingness to share with you.

Like others who have posted, I also suffer with depression although it’s not related to diabetes (I’m Type 2 too), diabetes can cause depression in itself. It’s not unusual to feel depressed when getting such a diagnosis and, of course, when continuing to struggle to deal with it.

I can say, from personal experience, once you can get your blood glucose levels down to acceptable levels, you will definitely start feeling very much better in yourself so, hang on to that just now and try to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. You will feel better once you get your head around what you need to, in order to achieve this.

As you’ve seen from Daisy’s post, most of us on here have found reducing carbs to be the best way to go. Along with this you can increase your fats too so you actually find yourself a lot less hungry on LCHF and, believe it or not, I’ve found I have so much more energy now, in addition to losing 2.5 Sts. I don’t even find it so hard to resist sweet foods now which I never thought I’d say.

I checked out some other weekly medicine organisers, mainly because I thought it is possible you are on other meds and so just two sections per day might not be enough. Take a look here if you would like to check out a 4 section / 7 day dispenser - https://www.amazon.co.uk/COMPARTMEN...1473713672&sr=1-16&keywords=weekly+tablet+box I use these too as I wouldn’t remember what meds I have taken and find them so much easier.

Take things day by day. There is too much for you to take in too quickly. I do hope your GP will support you and that the Diabetes Nurses will too. Hopefully, your Mental Health Team will also be supporting you through this.

Like you, I only sleep max 3 hours a night and have been like this for the past 20 yrs due to the antidepressant meds I take. Yes, one of the side effects. Life just isn’t always very fair, eh?

Take care, keep posting here. I do hope you are feeling better in yourself before too long.

Julie
 
If you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea you might want to discuss getting a c-pap machine with your doctor. It can make an amazing difference to your amount and quality of sleep. If you are chronically sleep deprived it can make everything else feel worse. Both energize and nosher have given you some excellent advice as well.
 
Thank you and i will look into valerian
 
Thank you, i have cpap machine however struggle with using it thanks again
 
Richeym said:
Thank you, i have cpap machine however struggle with using it thanks again
Click to expand...
me too I suffer with sleep apnea and the mask is driving me insane but its better to use it than not
 
@Richeym Sorry to hear what you are going through. I too suffer with depression and sleep apnoea. The lack of sleep can really make everything else feel worse can't it. I have a cpap machine but find that I'm constantly pulling the mask off while I'm asleep. It is a pain but I sleep better with it than without it so it has to be done...
Your case sounds very much like my own... hang in there.
Don't be afraid to talk to your doctor about how you feel - I know it's hard, but try to open up about everything. Your doctor should be able to refer you to mental health specialists who can help with the depression. What I do when I am feeling like ending it all is to think how much grief it would cause my wife and kids if I were gone. The guilt trip from that usually snaps me out of it - for a while at least.
Don't worry, things will get better eventually and when you are at the bottom, the only way is up!
 
Hope somebody can relate. Feeling very fed up and lethargic. Not eating properly. Putting on some weight I'd managed to lose not taking meds regularly. Not testing, what's the point. Had to stop exercise because of severe pain from arthritic knee. Sleeping only couple of hours a night. Sorry for the pity fest but right ow if someone told me to go to bed and not get up I'd be happy. I need a kick up the backside, any takers?
 
Dear Katiesgran
Please seek some help for your feelings of depression. Diabetes is difficult enough to deal with, and negative self beliefs can only make this worse. You sound like a lovely sensitive person and hopefully you are just going through a difficult patch. Looking after your diabetes is so important and you are worth looking after yourself.
 
I also suffer from depression, which has been going on a lot longer than my diabetes so can relate. Since my diabetes diagnosis 4 months ago (first for type 2 but tablets didn't work, so now insulin and LADA type 1) I have found it really difficult to control my mood. I have also found myself with feelings of despair at times. The NHS has been unable to provide more than antidepressants, which I've been taking for 4 years. Apparently my problems are too complicated for the NHS to deal with. I do think that mental health care and emotional support, particularly for newly diagnosed diabetics, should be easier to access. Could DCUK put pressure on for this to happen?
 
Thank you for your kind message. I wish my GP was as supportive but it feels like if they ignore it it might go away. They have also changed from a dedicated diabetic GP led clinic to just a normal doctor appointment and I don't feel they are qualified or experienced enough for this. Thank goodness for these supportive forums.
 
Hi
I can relate to a lot of your symptoms. I was working 12hrs a day and getting no sunlight because I worked in an area without windows. I was under a lot of stress at work so slept poorly. I lost concentration, became seclusive, ate poorly. in the end I too gave up work because I was emotionally unstable. Once I gave up work I went into a sever decline. I live alone, always have. My Dr diagnosed my diabetes type 2 a year before I left work. Roll on 7 years later when I decided enough was enough and I had to do something to snap me out of my depression. I started looking at why I had no energy and felt life was too difficult to manage. I went for a blood test and yes I needed to start taking my diabetes medicine and start taking better care of me. More importantly I found out I was extremely low in vitamin D. I took a prescribed vitamin table for 2 weeks and then 1 every month to keep it topped up. I can not tell you how big a difference this made to my depression. I had more energy than I had in a long time. My mind fog (as I now call it) cleared practically over night. Please get your vitamin D levels checked by a Dr to see if this is causing you an issue. Too much and it could cause calcium problems but not enough clearly muddles the brain in my case. With this change I started looking at what I ate and how I could improve my diet. I must say getting rid of carbs also helped me feel more energised. Its hard to start off when you cut out all of them and harder still if you want to keep "treating" yourself to high carb foods but in the long run I do feel better for reducing them. High protein and good fats - plant/fish
based best occasional meat fats (not margarine which is only 1 ingredient short of plastic (fact)). I think by cutting fats out of our diets we have actually stopped digesting the fat soluble vitamins which help us lose fat. I have come to the conclusion, you are what you eat, is a very good saying. Keep those vitamins and minerals up and keep the carbs down and hopefully you will feel a lot better
 
Hi Richey,
I'm Type2 with PTSD and couldn't return to work as well. Panic attacks all the time and just couldn't concentrate on anything (I was raped by a pedophile for over a year when I was 12). I don't even know if I quit or I was fired. I just couldn't go back into that abusive workplace. I had been assaulted several times on the job... My wife left me, what could go wrong did go wrong, but I'm still here. That was 16 years ago. I take my meds, exercise and try to get some sense of accomplishment through taking care of my physical health, it does trickle down into my mental health enough for me to say, what I'm doing is working to a degree thus far.
 
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