I was hospitalized with ketoacidosis in the beginning of March this year, after having gotten ill on a long train ride home from visiting my mom.
It was a complete nightmare for me. At first, I started breathing really heavily for an abnormal amount of time after having to run with my luggage to reach a bus. Then it just got worse and worse, and I was hyperventilating after only walking a bit. My lips were cracked, I could barely call it lips anymore because it was just some very hard and dry pieces of skin.
I was very dehydrated, but I didn't really notice because I wasn't thirsty. In the end, it was so bad that if I only took a few steps I'd start hyperventilating. In the end, a guy working the cashier at a kiosk in the Oslo bus station asked if he should call an ambulance.
At first, I refused, because my eight hour long bus ride home to Denmark from Oslo were leaving in about an hour and a half, but I ended up going back and ask him to because I was getting scared.
So the ambulance picked me up, measured my blood sugar which was quite high, (When I'm sick, I have very bad control over my blood sugar levels) and drove me to the emergency department in Oslo. Which for some reason is separate from the hospital.
When I got there, I saw a doctor, and in the end, he just gave me some subscription for some more insulin. By then, I'd already missed my bus home.
Despite me telling the nurses that I had no where to go in Oslo, and that I'd missed my bus, and that the bus station was closed (It opens at about 4 am) they were still sending me off, at 12:30 am.
The only reason I didn't spend the next few hours on the street outside the bus station, was because a nurse saw me on my way out, coughing and hyperventilating, frankly looking like sh*t, told me I wasn't going anywhere yet, and took me to a bed.
I slept there til 04:00 am, when a nurse woke me up, and asked me when my bus left (my boyfriend in Denmark had ordered a new bus ticket for me). I told her it left at 07:10, and she said it was time for me to get out.
I ended up sleeping an hour in the waiting room because I was so incredibly tired, before I ended up ordering a taxi to drive me to the bus station, where I slept on a bench til my bus arrived. Despite being dehydrated, I only drank about one litre of water on the bus, because I wasn't thirsty. I also kept falling asleep, mostly without even being aware of it until I banged my head against the window.
When I arrived in Copenhagen, my boyfriend picked me up. He had to park a bit away, and I'd have to stop every few meters because I hyperventilated so much. By that time, only moving a bit caused me to breathe heavily.
I slept most of the hour it took to drive home, where we promptly called a doctor to come over and take a look at me.
At that time, I couldn't stop hyperventilating, even while lying down on the couch not moving at all, and it really felt like I couldn't breathe properly.
So we called for an ambulance.
The doctor arrived a bit before the ambulance, took my blood sugar which was fine by that time, listened to my lungs which sounded fine, and said I was probably just hyperventilating because I was scared.
My boyfriends mother also several times said my breath smelled of nail polish remover.
The ambulance people decided to take me to the hospital though.
Well, I had a pulse of 140, and a very fast heart rate.
Despite all the signs, and my explaination of things, none of the doctors caught that I had ketoacidosis. It hurt to deeply inhale and exhale, and by then, my stomach muscles hurt from breathing in the way I did.
At first, they even thought I'd taken drugs. One doctor actually suggested to check for ketones, but another said that nah, my blood sugar was fine, so that couldn't possibly be it.
It was first when they took a blood test that they saw elevated ketone levels in my blood.
Well, apparently by then, the PH value in my blood was at 7.1, which is, as far as I've been able to find, the average time when someone falls into a coma.
I feel like I was very lucky that it ended as well as it did.
Is it really this difficult for doctors to think that a person with Diabetes type 1 can have ketoacidosis, especially when quite a few symptoms are represented? I'd like to know some peoples thoughts about this situation I was in.
It was a complete nightmare for me. At first, I started breathing really heavily for an abnormal amount of time after having to run with my luggage to reach a bus. Then it just got worse and worse, and I was hyperventilating after only walking a bit. My lips were cracked, I could barely call it lips anymore because it was just some very hard and dry pieces of skin.
I was very dehydrated, but I didn't really notice because I wasn't thirsty. In the end, it was so bad that if I only took a few steps I'd start hyperventilating. In the end, a guy working the cashier at a kiosk in the Oslo bus station asked if he should call an ambulance.
At first, I refused, because my eight hour long bus ride home to Denmark from Oslo were leaving in about an hour and a half, but I ended up going back and ask him to because I was getting scared.
So the ambulance picked me up, measured my blood sugar which was quite high, (When I'm sick, I have very bad control over my blood sugar levels) and drove me to the emergency department in Oslo. Which for some reason is separate from the hospital.
When I got there, I saw a doctor, and in the end, he just gave me some subscription for some more insulin. By then, I'd already missed my bus home.
Despite me telling the nurses that I had no where to go in Oslo, and that I'd missed my bus, and that the bus station was closed (It opens at about 4 am) they were still sending me off, at 12:30 am.
The only reason I didn't spend the next few hours on the street outside the bus station, was because a nurse saw me on my way out, coughing and hyperventilating, frankly looking like sh*t, told me I wasn't going anywhere yet, and took me to a bed.
I slept there til 04:00 am, when a nurse woke me up, and asked me when my bus left (my boyfriend in Denmark had ordered a new bus ticket for me). I told her it left at 07:10, and she said it was time for me to get out.
I ended up sleeping an hour in the waiting room because I was so incredibly tired, before I ended up ordering a taxi to drive me to the bus station, where I slept on a bench til my bus arrived. Despite being dehydrated, I only drank about one litre of water on the bus, because I wasn't thirsty. I also kept falling asleep, mostly without even being aware of it until I banged my head against the window.
When I arrived in Copenhagen, my boyfriend picked me up. He had to park a bit away, and I'd have to stop every few meters because I hyperventilated so much. By that time, only moving a bit caused me to breathe heavily.
I slept most of the hour it took to drive home, where we promptly called a doctor to come over and take a look at me.
At that time, I couldn't stop hyperventilating, even while lying down on the couch not moving at all, and it really felt like I couldn't breathe properly.
So we called for an ambulance.
The doctor arrived a bit before the ambulance, took my blood sugar which was fine by that time, listened to my lungs which sounded fine, and said I was probably just hyperventilating because I was scared.
My boyfriends mother also several times said my breath smelled of nail polish remover.
The ambulance people decided to take me to the hospital though.
Well, I had a pulse of 140, and a very fast heart rate.
Despite all the signs, and my explaination of things, none of the doctors caught that I had ketoacidosis. It hurt to deeply inhale and exhale, and by then, my stomach muscles hurt from breathing in the way I did.
At first, they even thought I'd taken drugs. One doctor actually suggested to check for ketones, but another said that nah, my blood sugar was fine, so that couldn't possibly be it.
It was first when they took a blood test that they saw elevated ketone levels in my blood.
Well, apparently by then, the PH value in my blood was at 7.1, which is, as far as I've been able to find, the average time when someone falls into a coma.
I feel like I was very lucky that it ended as well as it did.
Is it really this difficult for doctors to think that a person with Diabetes type 1 can have ketoacidosis, especially when quite a few symptoms are represented? I'd like to know some peoples thoughts about this situation I was in.
