New to T1, feel very alone

hi all,

i was diagnosed about 6 weeks ago. i am 22 and had nearly graduated but took all my exams at my worst. I now realise why i couldn't spell or structure my answers properly!

i spent most of my time at first looking for studies on cures, though i'm hopeful i now spend more time researching diabetes management and the likelihood of complications.

at present i'm not finding it too hard to manage but i'm worried that when the 'honeymoon period' is over it will become more difficult and also when i become more busy and start working that i wont be able to maintain healthy levels!!

Hi Howie,
Sorry to hear you took your exams while high on sugar. I hope you are able to repeat them and you get some consideration.

I just wanted to say that you shouldn't worry about stuff that may or may not happen. You might actually find that your blood sugars are easier to control once you are passed the honeymoon stage. You wont have to allow for what your body may or may not produce. Diabetes management has all sorts of stages where things can be going really well or quite badly and if you give yourself a hard time it will only seem much worse. It would also be sad for you to stop doing the things you love because of fears of high or low blood sugar levels. You will learn to manage them in time and recognise your body's signals to act.

I hope you have some good support where you live and a good medical team. You are only very new to this and it just takes time.

All the best, Jen.

thanks for the reply,

yeah my medical team is average, my consultant is great but seems to be the only person who can answer my questions, i feel like the rest of the team only know about type 2 really.

would anyone be able to let me know their insulin requirements so i can guesstimate whether i am still producing some of my own insulin and therefore in the 'honey moon' stage? i know exercise, diet and weight has a lot to do with it but just to give me a general idea.

thanks
howard.

This probably wont help you at all but my son has about .8 of a unit insulin per kilo. Adults will vary much more with diet and exercise. I would imagine if you aren't having unexpected frequent lows you may not be honeymooning but that's not to say a honeymoon period couldn't come and go repeatedly over years. Diabetes is pretty weird anyway. I can feed my son the same stuff, do the same things, and have the same doses of insulin and have very different results. Any mistakes I've made happened hours before I find out about them and sometimes you just need to shrug your shoulders and move on. My poor kid had a 2.4 the other day and got a bit of the shakes (this is the 2nd time he has gone that low in the 2 yrs he's been diabetic).

Anyway, hope you get a few more adult responses to your query.

Jen.

I always think of the actress Elaine Stritch a very tough Diabetic and she is still going strong although no longer on our screens. She was the only celebrity at the time I knew of when I was diagnosed as a role model that did not use diabetes as an excuse.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Stritch

Hi there,

I am only about 3 months diagnosed and my wife is a surgeon, with most of our friends being doctors or failed doctors of some description.

I can understand your fear of complications, but I use that as a reason to build on. Knowing what can happen if I take chances with my control makes me be a bit of a carb-Nazi!

I also seem to be in a very small minority that hasn't felt like Diabetes was a bad diagnosis. My feeling has always been 'i had something wrong with me, now o can deal with it'. One of the reasons I hadn't joined forums before now is that I had looked and everyone newly diagnosed felt awful and tearful and as if their life was over. I simply haven't felt like that and in a way feel isolated from the diabetes community for it.

It is maybe because I was due to be a father so soon, maybe that has given me the "get on with it" attitude, I don't really know.

Anyway, with proper management their is no real reason to panic about the downsides, diabetes is a manageable condition with lots of research fundingjust now. Advances are
being made all the time, and who knows what lies ahead?

yeah good post gazhay,

there's just so many stats out there which say even people with good glycemic control still get complications, you just hear of minimising risk all the time which isn't exactly inspiring.

all best,
howie

Hi
Diagnosed at around 30years old should with a bit of luck be plain sailing with modern control methods and you should avoid the complications.

Top tip to help avoid complications is use exercise as an aid to control, leave the car at home where possible or park farther away from you destination.

Be flexible keep upto date with things and when your ill with flu etc do not chase the raising blood sugars stay in front.

I have always done karate,boxing and running since diagnosed in 1980 and still weigh in at 12 stone at 6ft 1iand firing on all cylinders although swine flu took me 7 days to beat.

Did you take the Tamiflu? I have heard it makes you feel worse!

No I did not take Tamiflu.

I came down with it on the Thursday with a sore throat by Friday this had got worse with a headache like I had never had before also very weak and tired. On the Friday sensed my sugar rising and trebled the dose and waited 2 hours later my blood sugar level was 7.

Temperature dropped to 37.5 Sunday afternoon throat still bad and still pumping in the NovoRapid at every opportunity. Monday started to get chest pains but temperature down to to 36.1 still no strength in legs.

By Wednesday run out of Aviva Test Strips when I eventually persuaded one of my kids to come of the X-Box and collect the prescription the local chemists had run out. So for a day at least I was injecting and waiting to go low before I had something to eat.

By Tuesday throat going down insulin levels\dose returning to normal for remainder of week slept where possible to make sure and be safe.

Sick Note given by Doctor for 1 week, in summary I hope it was Swine Flu because you can never be 1010% certain.

second post i've read and i'm actually laughing out loud. bout your kid and x-box, and typical chemist'd run out, and tactically waiting to go low, good strategy. imagine telling that to you endocrine doc lol. :lol: