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Relationships/families destroyed by the symptoms of Diabetes

D

DiabeticVeteran

Well-Known Member
Messages
55
Hi All,

Sorry for the post but for me I feel this is an important one!
I may not get many responses from it but from my experiences recently.

The question is: "How many relationships, Families & life's have been destroyed through the side effects of Diabetes?

Due to my initial response of being aggressive with Hypo's, since then finding that i have Hypo Unawareness & my wife recently telling me that my attitude had got worse, I was wondering if anyone has had or heard of other people experiences.

My wife does know that i have always been kind & gentle to her over the years but unfortunatley due to the occassions of me having bad hypo's & now looking at it, working in "Auto Pilot" due to the unawareness,she has bitter feelings. I cant blame her for this.

I have NEVER been aggressive or violent when "normal" & unfortunatley alot of this was taken out on her because I lived with her. Most people have confirmed this. I am devastated by this.

Although my family are shocked by this & possibly friends as well, certain members are ruling out the fact that it is not Diabetes related. I have tried explaining it to them on many times. Could the shock of them knowing relate the fact that noone has ever seen me aggresive/violent? I can have a temper but we all as humans fall into that category.

From what i have read, speaking with certain professional people, I am fully convinced it is Diabetes related.

Now although I am now on Animal insulin, my life is ruined by this & it is very hard for me find that light at the end of the tunnel.

I love my Wife very much, more than words can say.

How can i convince them?

Regards,

Steve
 
Steve, I think its very brave of you to post this, you thankfully realise your mistakes and are trying hard to make ammends . I have been on the receiving end of domestic violence and you have to understand that even if explanations are given, trust takes a long time to be reinstated . I would not waste your time by trying to verbally explain to others, just take heed of that old adage, actions speak louder than words . At least you are now aware of what happens to you and are striving to put this right, just allow your wife time to heal , as well as youself and good luck to you
 
Steve
Living with a diabetic can be tough. As well as having T2, I've been married to a T1 for almost 40 years. He hasn't always looked after himself very well and in the early days, it wasn't so easy and the advice was not good.
I found it particularly hard when we had a young child and, I was making life as good as I could for her.
Still we've stuck it out and Ialways pick up the pieces.
Sometimes it has got to assessing the commitment to the family and marriage.
Aggressive behaviour in hypo is common.
Now if T1 does something silly and gets hypo, and hurts himself( which happens) Ideal with the immediate danger and then I can get to the tough love bit. I don't go all soppy. Isay I'm not sympathetic. At the moment the banged up ribs are hurting him, but it was an avoidable injury.
 
Hi

Im sorry things havent improved (ive read your other posts) and dont know what to say. My family, certainly in the very early days (hah, its only been a bloody year! :? ) very much took their cue from me - if I was having a good day (mentally or bg wise) then they were good too. When I struggle with it (and its ALWAYS when bg is wonky for no reason) they dont know what to do

In terms of changes per se, I dont think my personality has changed but I do know that when I get high bg I can feel depressed, partially because its out of control, but also at times I only know its high because I feel tired, and quite flat - best then not to get high bg in my world! Likewise, if someone disturbs me when Im hypo then my temper flares very easily , in a way that it doesnt normally. whether thats physiological, or that my concentration is poor and I need to concentrate on what Im doing, I dont know

Is there any way you can speak to your clinic about it, and ask your wife to attend the clinic with you. Im not saying they will give you an 'excuse' re the agression but if professionals let her know that in theory it does happen with T1, hypo unawarness (and its very well documented that people lack insight to being hypo and can be belligerent) then it might help. Likewise, they can help her understand you are trying to get awareness back by changing regimes and such like
 
Before I was diagnosed with diabetes I was always an aggresive git about an hour or two after lunch so much so it affected my work and the way I talked to people. So my job didnt work out. Family relationships where stressed aswell due to them thinking my aggresion was down to being an arrogant git. Now after getting it allow more under control it has vastly improved.

Allot of people dont think diabetes can cause allot of these issues. It is something that people need to be more aware of.
 
DiabeticVeteran said:
Hi All,

The question is: "How many relationships, Families & life's have been destroyed through the side effects of Diabetes?
Click to expand...

I think the answer to your question is "a lot more than people will admit to"

I have said before I might have diabetes but my wife also has it. What I mean by that is I have the "diabetes" but she has to put up with all the hassle and stuff that goes with it so she has it by proxy.

Now of course I am a saint to live with, I know it, everyone else knows it, but my wife fails to see it. :lol: :lol:

The problem with diabetes is, everyone is affected differently and thats hard for Joe Public to understand, its difficult for us diabetics to get our head round. I always tell peeps, that if I was "normal" and dropped a buttered piece of toast on the floor it would fall butterside down, or if I was lucky butterside up. But as a diabetic, it might fall on its edge, or on the corner or bounce out the door, or suspend itself in mid air. What it will do is unkown. (I must keep taking the tablets)

In answer to your question "how do I convince them" you have to ask yourself, is it them you need to convince or yourself. Might seem a bit harsh to say that but its a question that has to be answered. Somtimes its easy to blame diabetes for everything when actually the problem is you and the diabetes agrevates the situation.

I can say that diabetes makes me a grumpy old git, the fact is, I am a grumpy old git and not having a grip on my diabetes can make me worse. :lol: :lol:

Hope you get what I am saying, I am not having a go at you, just sometimes you need to look at the whole picture and not just part of it.
.
 
Steve, (diabetic Veteran)

Don't really know what to say, but yes diabetes does put a strain on family life in one way or another. I am sorry to hear of your position, I do really hope things improve for you in the future, and those around you will begin to understand that the previous persona you had post diabetes, is one which was diabetes related and not the true you.

Now is the opportunity to prove that this is the case......................good luck!

Nigel
 

Hi Fujifilm,

Regarding the convincing, this is a very good question & without any doubt, it is ME that i have to convince first.
Then hopefully, one day, this will be realised by my loved ones, that it was never me.

I have always been Kind, Gentle & very loving to my wife & although on the fair few occasions this happened, I never thought it could of been related to my Diabetes. Yes, I have been stubborn, like many of us BUT never aggressive/violent.

I have never used my Diabetes as an excuse, until recently after speaking with health care members & Jenny from the IDDT.

I kind of spoke to my wife on Saturday via text just to ask if it was really the hypo issues. She replied & said it was a combination of things, like the way i have acted in recent years, etc.
This kind of confirms what has been said to regarding the "Side effects" of the Human insulin.

This is why i am making & doing theses changes.

As you know, I have now been on Animal insulin since sunday (yesterday). One thing i noticed mid afternoon onwards was, although my blood sugars were on high side, they were dead constant, no fluctuations, well +/- 3mmol/l. I had a good dinner last night, I checked my blood sugars before, were 6.8, took 8 units of insulin, had dinner, checked 1 hour afterwards & BG was 7.4. Checked at 11pm last night & BG was 6.4. I ate a banana & took 22 units of Hypurin Isophane.

Although, this is very early days & much more adjustment will be needed, I have never experienced control like this for a long, long time with these small doses. With Novo rapid, i injected 18 units for each meal & the Lantus was 30 units, but my blood sugars were very irractic. After a meal, they would always jump really high. I always struggled to acheive this with the Human insulins.

I will keep you all posted with my progress.

Cheers,

Steve :mrgreen:
 
Good luck with it Steve.

My biggest problem on the pig insulin is the highs in the morning its driving me mad, I can check at 4am and find its high so take some insulin to correct it and find at 10am its still as high as if I had not taken any. :?

I think your coming off the lantus was a big step to you getting things back to normal. I spent years on that rubbish and only now do I realise how kack I felt. Trouble is you get used to feeling like that, used to being down all the time. That becomes normal.

Once you get better control you will start feeling good about yourself and once that happens you will start to wonder how you put up with feeling kack all the time you did. Those that care about you will notice the effort you are putting in and they will notice the change. You have done the hardest part and thats realise you have problems and needed to make changes.

Upwards and onwards :lol: :lol:
.
 
Can I just say that my uncle was the sweetest, gentlest, bravest little old man I ever knew...until he had a hypo. After a while, I grew to recognise the signs and would get him to check his bg but once it went down dramatically and nobody understood his condition. I got a call from his warden saying he was acting oddly and I dashed around to find him in the most vile temper you can imagine. My mother came with me and he started swearing (we didn't know he knew words like that :lol: ) so she bent forward to ask him to stop and he hit her. I don't know who was more surprised! Afterwards he had little recollection although he remembered being very agitated.

The reality is our persona is much influenced by our chemistry balance. People with unrinary infections often behave very oddly (they can even be violent), women with pmt (God knows I've been there) and PCOS (don't get me started). My usually lovely husband can get irritable when he is hungry and he's not even diabetic. You could ask your wife to read this thread and research the internet so, even if you don't work out your problems, she will understand them. Good luck.
 
Something similar happened to me, on one of the early so-called human insulins. A combination of sudden, severe hypos and a (new) violent temper resulted in rows that made the neighbours call the police. Luckily one of the local policemen had a close relative with T1. Still it drove my hubby and I almost to breaking point. I really wasn't myself all the time I was on that stuff. Not a nice person at all, even when I wasn't hypo. Fortunately, hubby managed to ring our GP during one of my violent outbursts, and finally somebody paid attention.

Everything settled down once back on pork insulin, including side-effects we hadn't blamed on the insulin. Hubby realised it had been the insulin talking, although I'm think he saw it mostly in terms of me getting/not getting angry, rather than feeling so different in myself all the time.

Although on paper my HbA1c deteriorated, real control improved (instead of being an average of wild swings between extremes). If nothing had been done I'd have ended up in jail for assault... or worse.

I'm sure things will improve for you too Steve and hopefully your wife and others will see the change in you.

Good luck.
 
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