Life expectancy

[John101 2]

Hello, im an 18 year old girl that was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yesterday. I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

 

[LooperCat]

Hey, welcome to the club none of wanted to join, but some of us have been healthy members of for many decades. There’ll be a lot of stuff to learn, but with modern insulins and tech, we’ve got every chance to live the life we want. Tagging in @helensaramay @porl69 @Knikki @Robinredbreast @MeiChanski @SueJB and @Fairygodmother

If you can keep mostly healthy, non diabetic blood glucose levels, there’s no reason for us to die any earlier than people with a functioning pancreas x

 

[John101 2]

Thank you for your encouraging words. Any advice?

 

[mike@work]

If you can keep mostly healthy, non diabetic blood glucose levels, there’s no reason for us to die any earlier than people with a functioning pancreas x

I absolutely agree with @Mel dCP on this one - no need to worry, as long as you try your best to keep BGLs within NORMAL glucose levels. We are a few oldies here, who have been "up and running", with type 1 for 50 years + already (and not nearly always with NORMAL levels I have to admit )...

Edited to correct typo

 

[MeiChanski]

Hello, im an 18 year old girl that was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yesterday. I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

Thanks for the tag @Mel dCP

Hello, welcome!
Type 1 diabetes does stay in it’s place if you take on board everything. But sometimes things like hormones, stress etc does play a role and makes diabetes a bit tougher to manage. I was diagnosed quite young so I’ve been through DKA and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t be here today. The insulin regime given today is a far a lot better than how I got it.
I’ve learned over the last few months to not get hung up about one high reading or one low reading.
More over to answer your question, Some of us and myself are doing very well and some are of us are doing okay. No two days are the same with diabetes but we manage it, tame the beast and move on. My management was pretty bad the last couple of years & I’m feeling more positive because I can sleep at night. You did the right thing by reaching out to us. You are not alone, we are in this together.

 

[Jaylee]

Hello, im an 18 year old girl that was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yesterday. I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

Hi @John101 2 ,

Welcome to the forum.. I pretty much agree with the advice on looking up the life expectancy.. I broke into a student nurse's room to peruse her books whilst i was a kid. (no tinternet then, & long story.) Didn't like what i read.
But i'm still here & it hasn't stopped me doing nuffin.. (Apart from I no longer burgle for information.)

Stick around & find the positive.

 

[MeiChanski]

I forgot to add in that Theresa May, our ex prime minister. I admired her for managing her diabetes and the amount of pressure from her job. Diabetes didn't stop any of us from achieving anything, our management isn't perfect. We do get an odd high or an odd low and sometimes stress gets in the way, like I'm on my period and diabetes just doesn't want to stay above 5mmol/l. But I treat it and get on about my day. As long you are trying your best to stay in range, there's nothing to fuel diabetes to bite you back.

 

[ert]

I've just been on a DAFNE course for type 1's. Dafne says, with modern insulins and improvements in technology like the CGM, we can now expect to die of old age.

 

[Robinredbreast]

Hey, welcome to the club none of wanted to join, but some of us have been healthy members of for many decades. There’ll be a lot of stuff to learn, but with modern insulins and tech, we’ve got every chance to live the life we want. Tagging in @helensaramay @porl69 @Knikki @Robinredbreast @MeiChanski @SueJB and @Fairygodmother

If you can keep mostly healthy, non diabetic blood glucose levels, there’s no reason for us to die any earlier than people with a functioning pancreas x

Thank you Mel.
I agree with Mel and in this day and age I can't see why any of us can't live a long and an active life. But like non diabetics, we just don't know what is around the corner.
Live life to the fullest and make every day count

 

[Scott-C]

I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

Hi, I was dx'd a bit older than you at 21. I went through exactly the same stage as you: oh, my god, I'll go blind, lose limbs, die early.

Thirty years on, none of that has happened.

There's folk here who've been in the T1 game for way longer than me, 40, 50, 60 yrs, and they're all fit as a fiddle.

Provided you make a decent effort to keep your bg levels in range, and, importantly, keep a sense of perspective and don't sweat buckets when you go out of range for brief periods, the chances are, as other posters have said, you'll die naturally from old age, not from T1.

A lot of the actuarial figures on T1 life expectancy are based on data from decades ago when treatment methods were way more primitive - folks were running bg in the 15 to 25 range. That is damaging, but with modern methods, it doesn't happen that much now.

I had a look at the Scottish statistics on T1 a while back. The number of folks having serious complications was tiny. About 1 to 2%, and my guess is that a lot of those are folks who are a bit too "liberal" with their management and don't mind swanning around at 20 for weeks on end.

You're young and want a full life ahead of you. You will be able to do that. Keeping bg in a decent range doesn't mean you have to become a stay at home hermit eating nothing but cauliflower rice.

Go steady for the first few months while you learn some of the ropes of this game, how insulin, carbs, exercise work together, but after you get the gist of those rules, there's no reason at all why you can't go out for a few drinks, currries, clubbing, etc. or whatever it is young people do these days, with your mates, provided you pay attention to bg levels.

When you eventually reach retirement age, the actuarial "T1s die early" meme is pretty useful - if you've been paying into a private pension, you'll generally get about a third more out of it.

Good luck!

 

[Caprock94]

Hello, im an 18 year old girl that was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yesterday. I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

I can tell you this. One of my best friends became T1 diabetic at age 5. He is 46 now and doing fine. My wife's grandfather died a couple of months ago. Don't know if diabetes was to blame or not considering he was 95 with no diabetes complications and had been T1 for like 70 years.

 

[John101 2]

Thank you all for your encouraging words and helpful tips. You just made my whole life.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Hello, im an 18 year old girl that was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes yesterday. I just wanted to ask about what will happen to my llife expectancy if i maintain a normal blood sugar level and keep on my meds. Im terrified please help.

I was told at the age of 13 that I should make it to 13. Then possibly 20. An actuary told my father that statistically I could get to 40. I was a poorly controlled Type 1 from 1959 - 1979 and I am now 61! God knows what science will have achieved by the time you are 61! Enjoy your life!
Edited to add I was a well controlled (unless adrenaline or a bug caused blood sugar rises) Type 1 from 1979-2013, ending in a pancreas/kidney transplant.

 

[John101 2]

truly inspiring thanx.

 

[Marie 2]

At first it's a little up and down world. Being newly diagnosed you are still making some insulin and as time goes on you will make less. So while we all strive to keep our numbers well controlled, at the beginning it's not as easy because your pancreas is a little haywire. They will start you out with lighter doses so you don't drop too much. So don't worry about having higher numbers right now, just tell your diabetic team so they can make adjustments.

So right now is a learning experience of how to take insulin, learn to carb count etc. The goal is to learn how much you will need and to learn to control your Bg's. It just takes us paying more attention to what we eat so we can end up with the proper amount of insulin and then you can live a long and healthy life!

 

[ert]

I was told at the age of 13 that I should make it to 13. Then possibly 20. An actuary told my father that statistically I could get to 40. I was a poorly controlled Type 1 from 1959 - 1979 and I am now 61! God knows what science will have achieved by the time you are 61! Enjoy your life!
Edited to add I was a well controlled (unless adrenaline or a bug caused blood sugar rises) Type 1 from 1979-2013, ending in a pancreas/kidney transplant.

You no longer have type 1? Wow.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

You no longer have type 1? Wow.

Just a turncoat! Good health to you!

 

[KK123]

Hi @John101 2 ,

Welcome to the forum.. I pretty much agree with the advice on looking up the life expectancy.. I broke into a student nurse's room to peruse her books whilst i was a kid. (no tinternet then, & long story.) Didn't like what i read.
But i'm still here & it hasn't stopped me doing nuffin.. (Apart from I no longer burgle for information.)

Stick around & find the positive.

Well that's your story eh?????

 

[Robbity]

Welcome @John101 2 and also be inspired and reassured by the likes of Dr Richard Bernstein diagnosed with T1 in 1946, and still going strong. See here and plenty more about him on Google too!

Robbity

 

[porl69]

Hi @John101 2 I was diagnosed 48 years ago aged 5 1/2, so am doing pretty well. I have a few problems with my health BUT that is due to me not really caring about my diabetes up until 4 - 5 years ago. Planning on living a long time yet