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Having diabetes makes me depressed

  • Thread starter Thread starter najamadahir
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najamadahir

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I’ve had it for all my life. I was diagnosed at the age of 1 years old so it’s been 17 years since and my blood sugars are always high. I hate taking injections, I hate that to keep my blood sugars stable I have to know how much carbs are in the food. It all seems like so much. I still can’t accept that I have it. It sucks even more when my family tell me to die from my diabetes when they’re angry at me. Cos I wanted to kill myself a couple of times. I’m so sad
 
Sometimes it gets me down. And you are at an age where it's difficult - body changing makes it all tricky, as well as trying to enjoy the freedoms of adult life.

One of the annoying things is there's no instant upsides from all the **** we have to do - well, maybe a bit of pleasure when we get a good reading, but it's a lot of work to do it.

The only reason I stick at it is it's worth it in the long term. I do feel better if I get it right over a longer period, and trying to avoid the problems which can happen, both short term (mainly hypo) and long term (complications), pays off over time.

At this point I'm afraid my advice runs out, mostly being keep the injections going, work at managing your doses and keep the sugar levels sensible. But I think others will be along.

Also there are people out there to help you, both with the physical side and the mental - the medical profession wants to help.

And you aren't alone.
 
Welcome to the forum najamadahir, and I’m so sorry you’ve come here in these circumstances. I wonder if it’s worth booking an appt with your Diabetes nurse to tell him/her how you feel and to find out what support might be available for you?
 

I tried to do everything but then gave up because I cannot be bothered to find out the carbs. It takes so long sometimes and I’m hungry. My diabetic team are rubbish.

Thanks
 

Thank you. I have and she wasn’t that helpful. She seemed like she thinks I’m overreacting and angry at her. It’s all making me highly depressed that the support I should be getting isn’t there.
 
Re the carb counting - I mostly just guess TBH. But I've got many years practice at that, and my portion sizes don't vary that much. Guess + correct later? Means more blood testing, more injections, but gets you going when you're hungry and don't have time to do a detailed calculation.
 

My guesses are not doing well because my blood sugar goes from 4 to 18 then it goes low then the cycle continues and it takes 100 years to go down. And I want to lose weight so taking so much insulin and little insulin isn’t doing for me either
 
You have to rise above.

You need to see the advantages that diabetes has for you. Physical ones, no. Lifestyle ones, endless amounts.
Late to school/work oh sorry diabetes, want to get out of something oh sorry diabetes playing up.

You need to rise above your doctors, ask for a pump I have a pump and I love it, it makes my life so much easier with the lack of injections I have to do.
Everyone says you need to eat 3 meals a day to keep blood sugar nice and steady and you need to eat a lot of carbs
That ain’t practical.
You can’t live your life like that everyday, if you want to lose weight you need to eat healthy and do some exercise and your diabetes ain’t gonna stop that. Eat food before you exercise so you have energy and your blood sugar won’t go low, have something like an apple or a banana.

You need to rise above as if you don’t then you see it more of a chore rather than a way of life, your diabetes is who you are. You need to see the benefits which over come the drawbacks.

Read this might makes you feel better )

https://apple.news/Am_Wn1PeQSsmUxM1HsIzxEg
 

My blood sugars increase so much after I exercise and apparently continuous high blood sugar can cause weight gain. No wonder I’m so fat when I hardly eat. I’m embarrassed to have diabetes. And when I do make diabetes excuses people just tell me to stop searching for pity because diabetes isn’t that hard to deal with. Well for me it is

Edited by moderator for profanity.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

They’ve been saying they’ve found a cure for years. This article pops up every year. They have the cure but won’t tell us
 
Hi najamadahir, I’ve had T1 for nearly 50 years and I can definitely say that it’s worth hanging in there even though it sometimes takes soooooo long to weigh and count carbs! If you can get it right then having decent blood sugars makes everything seem better!
Your feelings may be an effect of having highs. High and low blood sugars can make a big difference to the way we see things, to our emotions and motivation. I hate the bad effects of too many highs.
Don’t despair, there are ways to get on top of it all, though as many with T1 will confirm, there are sometimes days when the diabetes gremlins are in charge.
There are a few apps that help with assessing carbs. I use Carbs and Cals and scales to weigh foods with.
There are also books that help. Have you read ‘Think Like a Pancreas’ by Gary Scheiner or Sugar Surfing by Stephen Pinder? They’re both written by people who are T1 so they know what it’s like from the point of view of the jabber and calculator. They may help.
I think it may also help if your family knew more about the way T1 affects emotions, and maybe you could have a quiet, non-confrontational talk with them. They must have been supporting you while you grew up, you’ve survived, so they may well want to go on supporting you if they know why you’re getting so upset now.
Lots of people suffer from diabetes burnout, you’re not alone in that. I think most of us have times when we just want everyone to know how much we hate T1! But, please, hang in there. Things can change.
For now, though, have some hugs from a fellow T1
 

No one really cares about me enough to help. Diabetes isn’t the only thing making me depressed and Ive been feeling like **** since day 1
 

Actually it’s the opposite continuous high blood sugar causes weight loss as the body cannot get the glucose to the blood as well and therefore uses the fat however this is ridiculously dangerous and doing exercise should in fact decrease your blood sugar levels as you’ve not got enough energy as well as you’d go low if you hardly ate due to lack of glucose in your body. And it’s hard to deal with for everyone we all went through the same thing that you did.
 
najamadahir said:
No one really cares about me enough to help. Diabetes isn’t the only thing making me depressed and Ive been feeling like **** since day 1
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Have you talked to your GP about this? It is, of course, possible that your depression is affecting your diabetes and your GP may be able to find ways to help you with that. Depression’s pants. However, there may be some ways to reduce the bleak black dog.
Exercise does help. I’ve heard people say that the adrenaline produced when exercising raises blood sugars and they counteract this by having a small carb snack, say 10g or so, before they start.
You should only need to take the insulin that you need to stay in range. It doesn’t matter if it’s a lot, all our needs as T1s seem to vary. Which insulins are you taking? Do you inject the bolus 10 to 20 minutes before you eat so that you have it up and working before carbs enter your system? If you look at the bumph that comes with your insulin it’ll tell you how long after injecting it (may) become active. Even if you plan the amount of carb you’re going to eat and inject accordingly then fill up with non-carb veg like greens to feel full it should make a difference.
Do you see a Consultant at a clinic? If you do it’d be worth asking for an appointment and take in a record of your results so you can get advice.
It seems that you’re dealing with two or three interrelated issues: depression - see your GP -;
blood sugar levels - you could try limiting carb and blousing before meals, and even doing a basal test,
and body image - this one’s a big problem in modern society. You may see yourself as ‘fat’ but you may not be. If you’ve more weight than you’d like then why not call yourself plumptious (rhymes with scrumptious) or curveliscious? This issue’s not really worth worrying about right now: forget those spurious demands the image makers peddle! Concentrate on feeling, and being well and ask for help with this. When you’ve got on top of that then you can begin to exercise cheerfully to make yourself feel happy.
More hugs.
 

I love you
 
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