Newbie on the loose!

[scotchpie]

HI guys!
I'm Dave, I joined up earlier today.
I'm 37 years young and was diagnosed T1 earlier this year. That was a bit of a shocker lol :shock: !
I've not had a great deal of success managing my diabetes and sometimes feel (at the risk of injecting a bit of drama) a little unsupported and without the proper advice.
I'm sure that this is something most of us experience in the early days and was wondering how others have coped :?:
My diabetes care nurse started me on 18 units of lantus slow acting insulin at 2pm daily and 7 units of apidra rapid acting insulin with each meal (would anyone else rather have chips with each meal? :roll: ). The doses seemed immidiately wrong for me with the apidra either leaving my sugar levels way to high or resulting in a hypo and the lantus causing nightime hypos and low morning levels.
I've recently reduced my lantus to 15 units daily and am trying to count carbs and adjust mealtime insulin accordingly. Things aren't too bad at the moment but i have a really long way to go.
If anyone has any hints or tips that could make carb counting easier and more effective for me please feel free to respond.
All i know at the mo is to take 1 unit for 10 grams of carbs. Thats it. Really. Thats what im working with!
Any suggestions for fantastic web sites (apart from this one, obviously), valuable books to read and anything else would be an amazing resource for me. Thanks in advance for any suggestions
I posted a new topic on the ask the experts section and someone recomended the the Collins gem carb counter. Have any of you used this? Was it useful and easy to put into practise?
Well guys, i think i've given you enough to get on with for now so i'll let you put your feet up and enjoy your evening.
Thanks for reading.

 

[NickW]

Hi Dave,

As you say, it's a bit of a bolt from the blue when you suddenly find you've got type 1 isn't it? Happened to me 11 years ago but I still remember walking out of the doctor's in a daze (and my first thought being "**** - I'll have to switch to Diet Coke now"!!!)

I can empathise with the feeling of being unsupported too; I think it's because diabetes is such an intrusive part of your life, it's with you all the time whereas hospital appointments are few and far between.

As far as your dosages go, it does sound like your Lantus might have been too high as you already suspect. Getting your long-acting dose right is a bit of a black art, the best thing you can do is test your blood regualrly and record the results; I promise it starts to make sense after a little while! It's the same with carb counting - it's a skill that you'll quickly get better at, and the best way to do that quickly is to record everything.

As for mealtime doses, again it's a case of learning how things affect you. Test, test, test!

Book recommendations - I'd absolutely recommend "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution". It's an American book so there are some differences to the UK (e.g. they measure blood glucose in different units; you need to divide their figures by 18.05 to get UK measurements), but it's worth its weight in gold. Be warned though, the advice in there is probably quite a bit different to what your diabetes team will tell you! However, in my opinion the dietary advice the NHS currently promotes for diabetics is fundamentally wrong, and the approach Bernstein advocates is far more successful.

Other than that, there's a book called "Think Like a Pancreas" which I found useful to explain the fundamentals and I'd recommend too. Both of those books are available from Amazon (I've never seen either in a book shop funnily enough).

Finally, just wanted to say "good luck" with it all!

Cheers,
Nick.

 

[Bluenosesol]

Hi Dave,

I should ask your diabetic nurse about a DAFNE course?..

http://www.dafne.uk.com/scripts/typeone ... ourse.html

I am T2 metformin, diet and exercise myself, so no expertise on insulin. Hang about and some of our more knowledgable members will chip in...
....

Good Luck Steve.