Just a chat

Hi,
Welcome to the forum, I'm assuming your type one.
I'm tagging @daisy1 for her welcome pack etc.
You'll find many here who understand.
Glad you've joined us.
Take care

Hi @Jackie22louise
Welcome. How we handle it depends on who we are as individuals I think. I’ll tag some T1s with different styles for you to “meet”.
@Juicyj @Mel dCP @helensaramay @Fairygodmother @Knikki

Hi @Jackie22louise, and welcome to the exclusive T1 club, as well as the forum. I know you’ve been carrying T1 around with you for 9 years now so the club is really this section of the forum.
Yes, it can be hard, especially if we try to live by the rules the health professionals give us. I think the most important thing for me has been listening to the ways my own T1 behaves, recognising how it’ll react to particular foods and situations and not being afraid to adjust doses, correct, pre-bolus etc as seems fit. I’ve also learned a lot from this forum, and despite having now lived with the beast for 49 years I know I won’t stop learning.
Have you read anything about T1 yet? There are two books that I like, and I’m pretty sure there are others that the rest of the club will recommend too. ‘Sugar Surfing’ by Stephen Ponder and ‘Think Like a Pancreas’ by Gary Scheiner are both written by T1s. ‘Sugar Surfing’ encourages us to respond to our blood sugar readings to try to maintain figures as near ‘normal’ as possible and ‘Think Like a Pancreas’, an earlier work, charts Scheiner’s journey from an unknowing, poorly controlled T1 to a knowledgeable T1 scientist more in control of his T1.
I personally find perfect control elusive. There are so many things that can make us veer away from the perfect path, so many things to affect us that the best I can hope for is decent readings for as much of the 24 hours as possible. A change in the weather, a bug, a bit of stress, more, or less, exercise, a food that’s wrongly calculated, the wrong socks, Mars travelling through Venus, leprechauns at the bottom of the garden - you name it, it’ll nudge the bs! That’s where Ponder’s useful.
I suppose that it becomes second nature too to carry insulin, hypo treatment and spare needles with us wherever we go, big pockets and big enough bags are essential.
However, I’ve always tried to make the enjoyable parts of living more important than T1, and make sure T1 accommodates them.
Have you got a decent med team to turn to? Getting the right insulin for your own needs (we don’t all respond quality well to the different types available), and the right kit helps. Cgm is good too, but maybe you’ve already got freestyle libre sensor’s on prescription?
I think we’ve all come across lots of people who mean well but don’t understand that it’s impossible to answer loads of quick fire questions when hypo, or that it’s essential to wait a while for the bs to be ‘ready’ to eat, or that we really need to know how much carbohydrate’s in that food and no, carbohydrates doesn’t mean calories, and that we don’t always behave like this, and it’s the effect of having insufficient fuel to the brain at that makes us slur - we’re not ******, or maybe we are ****** but we’re also hypo.
Survival’s a mix of the appliance of science, a recognition of chaos and a good sense of humour!

Knikki said:

Thanks for the tag @Diakat but for some reason your tag did not show up on the Alerts? HMMM must be FG's leprechauns at work

Hello @Jackie22louise welcome to the forum where we share a condition called T1

Must confess that I have never met another T1 in the wild either and now my check ups are done by the DSN I never know if I sitting next to one in the surgery or not.

Reading @Fairygodmother I'm rying o work out the *** words but not had enough coffee yet to figure it

But, whats up?
Whats hard?
How can we help?
If its just a chat, whats on your mind?

Great thing about this place is there is loads of info around from the forum itself to the main pages

Click to expand...

It’s been mod-edited - it’s another word for drunk or what how the rain came down. Blimey!

Hi @Jackie22louise and welcome. 30+ year T1 here, and in the past however long I've found this site to be phenomenally helpful in terms of information, stuff I never knew before, and support. I'm on MDI, Lantus and Humalog, and I have Libre on prescription. Libre was a game-changer for me and enabled me to achieve the best control I've had since I was diagnosed.

Apart from that, @Fairygodmother has probably said everything else I would have and like Knikki said, if we can help or you just want to chat, go for it!

Hey, welcome to the exclusive club of being your own pancreas that nobody wants to join! I’ve been at it twenty years now, about to make some exciting steps forward and start training to be a paramedic. T1 doesn’t have to stop you from living your best life. How can we help? Ask away

Jackie22louise said:

Hi Everyone Thank you for replying to my chat. I get into the swing of things like doing my insulin testing my blood etc then for some reason I just stop out of the blue and then it’s trying to get back into it. I have a baby she is 5month and a 5 year old so life is hectic but that’s no excuse my long term goal is to try out a pump as I am on novo rapid and Levemir. And trying to remember to do that injection hard but I know others can do it and do it really well. I just got to stick to it! Does anyone know anything about pumps I need to do more research I think

Click to expand...

I’ve had a pump since August, it’s fantastic, but does require a fair bit of work and accurate carb counting. They’re not an “easy” option by any means, but if you put in the effort they can make your blood sugar control so much better. I have the tubeless Omnipod system, which might be a good option if you have two small children!

@Jackie22louise
Hello and welcome to the Forum Here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find it both interesting and helpful.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEW MEMBERS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you'll find well over 600,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.

There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic.

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

Jackie22louise said:

Hi Everyone Thank you for replying to my chat. I get into the swing of things like doing my insulin testing my blood etc then for some reason I just stop out of the blue and then it’s trying to get back into it. I have a baby she is 5month and a 5 year old so life is hectic but that’s no excuse my long term goal is to try out a pump as I am on novo rapid and Levemir. And trying to remember to do that injection hard but I know others can do it and do it really well. I just got to stick to it! Does anyone know anything about pumps I need to do more research I think

Click to expand...

Oh goodness, life’s hectic with small people and I’m not surprised you’ve occasionally found yourself slipping. I suspect you get tired, and feel you need to deal with the children first when they need you. It can make you feel like a bad mummy if you let them wait while you test and inject or whatever but except for the odd child-mayhem that’s heading towards injuries they won’t come to harm.
I set alarms on my phone to remind me to do the Levemir and they’re invaluable.

I have had diabeties type 1 just before my 7th birthday. I’m am currently 20 and still struggle sometimes. However just think of it as what makes you unique and an ongoing obstacle throughout your life and think of positives I keep reminding myself there’s a lot of worse things that could of happend like being blind, deaf or wheelchair bound or only have one limb Sure it’s annoyingly but at least it doesnt stop us from doing anything we want we just have to be a little more careful. (I volunteer at a local animal park, sports centre and cycle a lot)