diabetic boyfriend, need help/support

Hi Aggie,

First steps to being able to control diabetes is to understand it. That means not just what diabetes is, but what are the things that we can do to exercice control over it.

A good place to start will be to get him to have a look at this forum because there is a huge amount of information and guidance for new diabetics - and those for whom getting to grips with it is new!

From what you say he must be Type 2, so first have a look in the "stickies" General info for diabetics and the one specifically for type 2s. The stickies are the first topics in this section of the forum.

Sorry, I should have said, he is a type 1.

I was about to say he sounds more like a type 1 if her was diagnosed in his twenties.

You need to provide us with some more information such as what insulins he is on, what his diet is like, what exercise he does, what his lifestyle is like.

Without that information it's very difficult to advise...

LJ

Difficult one...but good that he acknowledges he needs to do something! The best thing you can do is encourage and support him, and try not to appear "naggy"...which is difficult I know. To achieve good control, he needs to test his BG and then do something with teh results. His clinic should be able to support him with this. It took a serious health scare to make me improve my efforst at diabets control..and even when I try my best, I still am nowhere near perfect..which can be very disheartening at times. My hubby always helps though by congratulating me on teh positives. He also takes the attitude that my diabetes is our issue, not just mine, which somehow helps. Of course, at teh end of teh day, us diabetecs have to do teh work ourselves, but it is easy to sink in to the "bad stuff is inevitable" frame of mind and give up trying.
Of course, introducing him to this site would help....no one preaches, and we understand how difficult it can be. he is not alone!

Maybe he needs to determine what has changed in is lifestyle that makes is insulin intake too small. Did he give up on sport? Did he change the way he's eating? There may be no answer to this question... Maybe he just need to increase his doses or change the site of injection (which can do a lot as lumps on the injection site prevent insulin from working properly). I personnaly hate to increase doses but sometimes you can't do without.
Anyway you can cuddle him when he fells low :-/
Take care.

i think at lot of what is bothering me is that he doesn't want support, he has recently refused point blank to talk about it, or what he plans to do or what his clinic have asvised him to do.. i'm at a loss. does anyone else out their find that high blood sugars make them irritable...

You have to be careful not to nag him into closing down completely.

Feeling irritable and DEPRESSION are both common to diabetics (in fact, anyone living with a chronic illness). It's immensley draining to have to deal with this every day in life and no matter how much you want to love and support him that won't change.

BUT, encourage him to read up about it. Although he's had the ocndition a long time, people often stop learning new stuff after a period of time because they've been living with it for so many years. However, there have been masses of new developments in insulins and approaches to lifestyle which may help him get his levels down.

Sorting it out will make him feel MUCH better I promise!

Well done you for being so supportive. Now all you have to do is get him to seek out the advice for himself...

LJ

Sorry i wasn't logged in earlier when i wrote 2 messages ago! Having a very high sugar level most of the time now makes me really sleepy and lethargic. But it can also make me overactive and nervous. I guess you boyfriend will realise soon enough that he needs to take care of himself. Hopefully he won't wait for complications to appear.
It's not a condition that can be handled all the time perfectly anyway. And it can be very frustrating. But i'm not anymore trying to make it perfect because it leads to guilt.
Just don't put pressure on him and he will do the work when he's ready.
Good luck