Hi Geri, I too have these days lasting sometimes for weeks on end. I have been a carb counter for the last 36 years, as long as I have ben type 1. I eat very well and get as much exercise as I can when I am feeling ok. I get very fed up with the 'do gooders' advising as to how I should feel. I guess that after 36 years on insulin and carb counting (the old exchang way) it is probably just my body saying that I am getting older and should slow down a little, I can have a good blood sugar at night and awake to find it as high as 22, with no apparent explantion. Just keep battling with it is the only advie I can offer.
No energy and finding life hard.
- Thread starter Geri
- Start Date
Depression can do it too. It was years before I admitted that, even though the physical symptoms of exhaustion were being treated with thyroid - I had the same as you vivennemme, symptoms but normal blood test - the symptoms still kept coming back. I went the other way too though: I kept going to the doctor saying, 'I can't be depressed, I just started a new business, joined that club, that committee, I'm doing this and doing that and everything was brilliant and now I can't move and I hurt and I'm exhausted and it has to be physical.' The doctors never told me that depression can cause physical symptoms of that kind, but it does. Mind, you'd think they might have smelled a rat or few with what I kept saying about my unexplained and sudden crashes into depression. I've been on medication for bipolar now for about five years and I have my life back. I can get up in the morning, do a days work, relax in the evening, have a good night's sleep (although you wouldn't think it with me typing away here at 1.30 am!!), and get back up the next morning and do it again - every day. I couldn't even think about that a few years ago. I've come off DLA because I can run my own life again and the stars are shining and the birds are singing and I notice them. Oh dear, I'm running away with my thoughts again. Sorry.
I guess I just wanted you to understand that sometimes exhaustion has nothing to do with physical problems and everything to do with mental ones. Depression is very common with diabetes: understandably as we have a lot more to deal with than well people do - and please don't shout at me for saying we're not 'well', if juggling food and injecting insulin and going hypo and trying not to, is well, then whoever says that has pretty low standards or 'well' - oh heck, there I go again.
The other thing that can happen is that whatever physical problem initially caused you to be so exhausted can seem to still be there once the medical side of it is sorted because inactivity and exhaustion themselves encourage depression. There is little more depressing than staying in bed all day and doing nothing, and when you are depressed it is very hard to want to do anything else, so you get into a never ending spiral.
I hope you get sorted, but I think that idea is worth a thought just in case. Good luck.
I guess I just wanted you to understand that sometimes exhaustion has nothing to do with physical problems and everything to do with mental ones. Depression is very common with diabetes: understandably as we have a lot more to deal with than well people do - and please don't shout at me for saying we're not 'well', if juggling food and injecting insulin and going hypo and trying not to, is well, then whoever says that has pretty low standards or 'well' - oh heck, there I go again.
The other thing that can happen is that whatever physical problem initially caused you to be so exhausted can seem to still be there once the medical side of it is sorted because inactivity and exhaustion themselves encourage depression. There is little more depressing than staying in bed all day and doing nothing, and when you are depressed it is very hard to want to do anything else, so you get into a never ending spiral.
I hope you get sorted, but I think that idea is worth a thought just in case. Good luck.
Hi Geri,
I haven't read all the responses, so don't know if anyone else has said the same things, apologies if so. You said you had a hypo, went high after, then corrected with insulin. You're not meant to do that, as a) your body needs that glucose to 'restock' the liver to help pull you out of your next hypo, so all that sugar goes somewhere useful but having extra insulin stops that from happening and b) once you've had one hypo you're more prone to another, so you're supposed to leave resultant high sugars alone for both those reasons. I've seen it referred to by HCPs as the 'insulin rollercoaster' and lots of people do it without realising what they're doing 'wrong'. So, hard though it is, you try to not overtreat the hypo and if you go high - leave it. If you wait and see, it will most likely go down to a much more reasonable level a few hours later, I tried it myself and that's exactly what happens. I hope this information helps clarify some of what might be going on with your ups and downs.
There are many medical conditions other than diabetes and thyroid that could be causing your symptoms so I would suggest you might want to discuss this with your doctor again. I have chronic fatigue syndrome, for example. If you really feel inside yourself that there's something else going on, don't be fobbed off, keep going back until someone takes you seriously. I've just been fobbed off for two months being told there's nothing wrong with me when actually I've had a serious health problem that could have turned extremely ugly and I'm now on three different types of antibiotics - only because I finally insisted on retesting everything.
Good luck, I really hope you feel better soon.
I haven't read all the responses, so don't know if anyone else has said the same things, apologies if so. You said you had a hypo, went high after, then corrected with insulin. You're not meant to do that, as a) your body needs that glucose to 'restock' the liver to help pull you out of your next hypo, so all that sugar goes somewhere useful but having extra insulin stops that from happening and b) once you've had one hypo you're more prone to another, so you're supposed to leave resultant high sugars alone for both those reasons. I've seen it referred to by HCPs as the 'insulin rollercoaster' and lots of people do it without realising what they're doing 'wrong'. So, hard though it is, you try to not overtreat the hypo and if you go high - leave it. If you wait and see, it will most likely go down to a much more reasonable level a few hours later, I tried it myself and that's exactly what happens. I hope this information helps clarify some of what might be going on with your ups and downs.
There are many medical conditions other than diabetes and thyroid that could be causing your symptoms so I would suggest you might want to discuss this with your doctor again. I have chronic fatigue syndrome, for example. If you really feel inside yourself that there's something else going on, don't be fobbed off, keep going back until someone takes you seriously. I've just been fobbed off for two months being told there's nothing wrong with me when actually I've had a serious health problem that could have turned extremely ugly and I'm now on three different types of antibiotics - only because I finally insisted on retesting everything.
Good luck, I really hope you feel better soon.
I totally agree with what you are saying about the hypo roller coaster, moonstone, but can you explain this bit in the quote? You do need to 'restock' your liver but without insulin, you can't do that. You need insulin to put the blood sugar back into storage. Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?moonstone said:
I'm not an endocrinologist, and I have had it explained properly but have forgotten so the best thing I can do is explain it as an old friend of mine did to me, as soon as I was diagnosed. Your liver's got a shop filled with glucose. When you have a hypo, your liver gives you some of its glucose stocks, to help you out of the hypo. When you treat the hypo, you don't want to go mad but you do want to eat enough not just to counter the actual low sugar but to also allow enough glucose to go back and fill up the shelves in the shop in the liver, ready for the next time, which could be sooner than you think. So going high after a hypo isn't something to be injected for unless you really can't handle it, because that sugar's going to be used for something necessary, which could also save your life in the next hypo. It was also drummed into us over + over again on the DAFNE course - never correct for a hypo. I have given in a couple of times because I felt so terrible but went really easy on the correction shots - just one or two units. Don't forget that due to the hypo and your long lasting inulin you most likely already have plenty of insulin in circulation despite the high, so there's not necessarily a need for extra insulin to make the glucose go into the liver. Someone else will have to explain the ins and outs of it all though, as I'm sure it's far more complex than that.
Hope that covers it.
Hope that covers it.
