- Messages
- 49
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
Hello to all,
This post is a little complicated and complex but I am really struggling with a particular problem that is destroying my life through my type 1 diabetes. I feel really, really desperate and I thought maybe this situation happened to someone and that someone found a solution.
So the problem started about 3 years ago but has really been worsening over the past months. It's a gastroenterological condition that makes my diabetes crazy... I weight everything that I eat, unfortunately never allow myself to eat outside, and all of the following results are evidence-based and actually factual, not approximations.
I am 30 years old, have been type 1 diabetic since I am 5 years old and I go to the gym 5-6 times per week. Have always had a tough, but manageable diabetes.
When I eat simple meals (not fatty, not too heavy in proteins nor in fibers, etc.), let's say some rice, chicken and cucumbers and tomatoes, well the carbs can take up to 5-6 hours before entering the blood. So, if I were (I was) to take insulin like recommended, a shot with the full dose and then eat, that would give a huge hypoglycemia one hour after (when insulin peaks) and then a glycemia that is slowly rising, rising, rising skyrocketting a couple of hours later. I got to understand the problem and managed it by splitting the insulin dose (let's say, 60% of the insulin, then eat, then 1 hour later the other 40%) and eat meals that are low in fiber and fat, but now it's got completely out of control. I never know when carbs get broken down in the g.i. tract will enter the blood, I am literally always in hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia.
So during these past 3 years I have seen about 30 doctors regarding the problem. Most of which gastroenterologists, as all of the endocrinologists/diabetes specialists don't know how to deal with the problem and all say they could do nothing.
Along with this big diabetes problem, let's say that the symptoms are intermittent, sometimes occur more sometimes less, and are more or less limited to generalized, chronic abdominal pain/discomfort, especially after eating, borgorygmi (exagerated bowel sounds), that I am almost always constipated (bristol stool chart 1-2) and that it is difficult to digest.
I also noticed that if I am moving even a little (cleaning the apartment, walking from the groceries shop to my house, digestion completely stops. For instance, if I eat my lunch and 30 minutes after I walk a few blocks no carbs will enter my blood and thus insulin will provoke a big hypoglycemia, and as soon as I stop walking and I am sitting (ex: in an office, on a couch) digestion resumes and sugar goes up up up up...
So here is the summary of most of the analysis/tests that I have done. I'm a medical school student which had the chance not only to see doctors outside of my school as a patient but that had the chance to talk to a lot of specialists from the inside.
There was first the suspicion that it is a gastroparesis as it's frequently associated to diabetes and these are the typical symptoms/signs. I have done a scintigraphy that not only resulted negative, but showed a fast gastric emptying. On top of that we did an R-R interval test to assess if there was an autonomic neuropathy that would explain a gastroparesis but that resulted negative.
I have done an ultrasound that resulted negative for all of the abdominal components. Just to be sure it wasn't a chronic pancreatitis hiding there, an abdominal CT scan resulted negative.
I have done 3 upper endoscopies in different settings, one with a stomach + duodenal biopsy which were negative for h. pylori and negative for celiac disease. Blood tests for anti-transaminases and anti-gliadin also confirmed negativity for celiac.
I tried an empirical therapy with ursodeoxycholic acid, which didn't help, and with prokinetics, which never solved the problem.
One of the most recent tests that I have done is a mannitol breath test which showed an accelerated transit time and an increased intestinal permeability.
Now my hypothesis are either a celiac artery compression, or a SIBO (bacterial overgrowth) associated with constipation. I have to try an empirical therapy with antibiotics for the SIBO hypothesis and I would have to do an MRI for the celiac artery compression diagnosis (as a recent ultrasound was negative for mesenteric compression but couldn't show the celiac artery due to too much gas).
In summary, my life is ****. Pure ****. I feel so handicapped, so depressed, every single thing that I have to do is a struggle. I can't walk too much, I have to be extremely precise with timing and quantities for food, multiple insulin doses, bedtime. etc etc etc. I have no social life anymore, I feel like a struggle for the people around me that care for me because of my "heaviness" and my ugly state of mind. I started to hate life, like there is some devil inside me that is just making every single basic thing an impossible challenge.
Thanks a lot to all of you guys, thanks for reading and thanks for your time.
This post is a little complicated and complex but I am really struggling with a particular problem that is destroying my life through my type 1 diabetes. I feel really, really desperate and I thought maybe this situation happened to someone and that someone found a solution.
So the problem started about 3 years ago but has really been worsening over the past months. It's a gastroenterological condition that makes my diabetes crazy... I weight everything that I eat, unfortunately never allow myself to eat outside, and all of the following results are evidence-based and actually factual, not approximations.
I am 30 years old, have been type 1 diabetic since I am 5 years old and I go to the gym 5-6 times per week. Have always had a tough, but manageable diabetes.
When I eat simple meals (not fatty, not too heavy in proteins nor in fibers, etc.), let's say some rice, chicken and cucumbers and tomatoes, well the carbs can take up to 5-6 hours before entering the blood. So, if I were (I was) to take insulin like recommended, a shot with the full dose and then eat, that would give a huge hypoglycemia one hour after (when insulin peaks) and then a glycemia that is slowly rising, rising, rising skyrocketting a couple of hours later. I got to understand the problem and managed it by splitting the insulin dose (let's say, 60% of the insulin, then eat, then 1 hour later the other 40%) and eat meals that are low in fiber and fat, but now it's got completely out of control. I never know when carbs get broken down in the g.i. tract will enter the blood, I am literally always in hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia.
So during these past 3 years I have seen about 30 doctors regarding the problem. Most of which gastroenterologists, as all of the endocrinologists/diabetes specialists don't know how to deal with the problem and all say they could do nothing.
Along with this big diabetes problem, let's say that the symptoms are intermittent, sometimes occur more sometimes less, and are more or less limited to generalized, chronic abdominal pain/discomfort, especially after eating, borgorygmi (exagerated bowel sounds), that I am almost always constipated (bristol stool chart 1-2) and that it is difficult to digest.
I also noticed that if I am moving even a little (cleaning the apartment, walking from the groceries shop to my house, digestion completely stops. For instance, if I eat my lunch and 30 minutes after I walk a few blocks no carbs will enter my blood and thus insulin will provoke a big hypoglycemia, and as soon as I stop walking and I am sitting (ex: in an office, on a couch) digestion resumes and sugar goes up up up up...
So here is the summary of most of the analysis/tests that I have done. I'm a medical school student which had the chance not only to see doctors outside of my school as a patient but that had the chance to talk to a lot of specialists from the inside.
There was first the suspicion that it is a gastroparesis as it's frequently associated to diabetes and these are the typical symptoms/signs. I have done a scintigraphy that not only resulted negative, but showed a fast gastric emptying. On top of that we did an R-R interval test to assess if there was an autonomic neuropathy that would explain a gastroparesis but that resulted negative.
I have done an ultrasound that resulted negative for all of the abdominal components. Just to be sure it wasn't a chronic pancreatitis hiding there, an abdominal CT scan resulted negative.
I have done 3 upper endoscopies in different settings, one with a stomach + duodenal biopsy which were negative for h. pylori and negative for celiac disease. Blood tests for anti-transaminases and anti-gliadin also confirmed negativity for celiac.
I tried an empirical therapy with ursodeoxycholic acid, which didn't help, and with prokinetics, which never solved the problem.
One of the most recent tests that I have done is a mannitol breath test which showed an accelerated transit time and an increased intestinal permeability.
Now my hypothesis are either a celiac artery compression, or a SIBO (bacterial overgrowth) associated with constipation. I have to try an empirical therapy with antibiotics for the SIBO hypothesis and I would have to do an MRI for the celiac artery compression diagnosis (as a recent ultrasound was negative for mesenteric compression but couldn't show the celiac artery due to too much gas).
In summary, my life is ****. Pure ****. I feel so handicapped, so depressed, every single thing that I have to do is a struggle. I can't walk too much, I have to be extremely precise with timing and quantities for food, multiple insulin doses, bedtime. etc etc etc. I have no social life anymore, I feel like a struggle for the people around me that care for me because of my "heaviness" and my ugly state of mind. I started to hate life, like there is some devil inside me that is just making every single basic thing an impossible challenge.
Thanks a lot to all of you guys, thanks for reading and thanks for your time.