Introduction - needing accountability

[Iqbar]

Hey all,

I'm a type 1 diabetic joining today after a bad set of blood results. For the first couple of years after my diagnosis, I was very vigilant with my blood sugar levels and managed to maintain Hba1c levels of below 7%, but today, four years after diagnosis, that has shot up above 8%. My treatment plan has remained almost identical and I'm not in worse physical shape than when I started, I am just losing my sense of danger; it has set in that I am never not going to have diabetes and I've consequently found it much harder to motivate myself to care about each individual reading. I've started injecting late, guessing my dosages and generally being careless.

I'd be really interested to hear from others who have gone through similar stages in their journeys with diabetes and how they coped.

Ideally, I'd love someone to chat to and to poke me into caring for myself better, perhaps with a weekly accountability conversation with a buddy (How were your levels this week? Did you test regularly? etc.). I would, of course, be very, very happy for this to be a mutally supportive relationship. I'm not a medical expert, but I have lived with type 1 for four years and would love to be able to help anyone starting out or at any other stage.

All the best!

 

[Osidge]

Hi Iqbar

Welcome to the Forum. I hope that you find it a place of knowledge, friendship and support. It is sad to hear that you have lost your way with your diabetes management but good that you realise that and are seeking support. I hope that one of our Type 1 members is able to assist you.

Regards

Doug

 

[Snodger]

Hi Iqbar,

welcome.
I've had T1 for 21 years now. I've also been studying it, in terms of interviewing others with Type 1 for postgrad work. So I can say with a fair amount of confidence that your experience is pretty much normal. Nearly all of us get to that point where we realise it's not going to go away, and everything just goes a bit bleahhhh..... Some people go completely off the rails.

You don't say how far above 8% you've gone but if you are just hovering round the 8% mark you're still at a lower hba1c than most UK T1s. So don't beat yourself up about it. Many people when they go through the 'it's never going to go away' phase end up with much higher blood sugars. It's a difficult disease. Part of coming to terms with it is realising that sometimes it just won't go right.

Re: motivating yourself, I think the key thing is working out what you can relax about, and what not to relax about. I actually ended up with better hba1c when I stopped stressing about, and chasing, every little out-of-target bg; personally I don't think you can worry about every single reading, four times a day, for the next fifty or sixty years of diabetes; you'd go insane. But things like injecting late is probably a bad idea because it's much harder to get your bg down again once it's gone sky high. Messing about with doses is something that can actually be a good thing long term, as you learn what your body does with certain foods. But you have to do it with an eye to learning from it.
Have you been on any patient education courses and stuff (DAFNE, BERTIE, INSIGHT etc)? It sounds like you know how to self manage, but you might find it good to meet others with T1 in person as well as chatting to us on here?

sorry if that's not been much help... ?

 

[noblehead]

Iqbar,

I've had diabetes for 30 years and can honestly say that the first 8 years I didn't control it well, I would never miss injections but drank and ate pretty much what I wanted, it wasn't until my I became a father that I realised I needed to take better care of myself.

Through life we have to experience the bad times to appreciate the good, I look back and know I've been through the bad days with diabetes and never wish to go there again now my control is good, diabetes is never gonna go away (well not for the foreseeable future) so we either live with the condition and gain the upper-hand or we lie-down and let it destroy our lives.

Best wishes!