Struggling Diabetic.

Welcome Rob from Weymouth!

Are you under a consultant or GP only?

Have you been put on to statins? These can cause muscle aches.. However muscles and joints are different.... If on statins, aches can occur at any time.. Not necessarily the day you take them.

Would you be able to say what basal insulin you use and what say todays bg levels have been and whether control has only recently become difficult.

I lived in Weymouth and Portland as a child and envy you living there!

What has GP said about muscle/joint aches?

Hi Rob

Are the aches generally all over body or more so in legs or arms?

Statins are drugs for high cholesterol.

Chase up the hospital.. I moved and I get forgotten every 6 month appointment and always have to phone the appointment people....

Basal is the long acting insulin, bolus is the short acting.

Do you rotate the sites where you inject, have you any lumps or bumps around your areas where injecting?

How old are your pens? Are you sure they are 100% working and do you ever see insulin coming out of your skin after an injection?

Sorry to ask so many questions, just that there could be many reasons for whats happening and we need to try and eliminate some...

None of us are medically qualified, we are just helping from our own experiences...

Is the sand sculptor still on the beach.. Mind you.. 20 years since I last visited.....

Hi Rob

Have you done the DAFNE course at all? If not I think this could be really beneficial for you

Hi Rob and welcome to the forum.

Basal insulin is the lantus you inject, in order to get any decent bg control you must make sure that your basal insulin is set at the right dose, to do this you must do what they call a fasting basal check, the following explains what one is and how it should be carried out:

http://www.salforddiabetescare.co.uk/index2.php?nav_id=1007

Once you get that right register with the following, its an on-line carb counting course similar to the one that Gemma mentions above:

http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/

btw, chase the clinic up and ask for an appointment, you should be seen at least once a year for your diabetes checks.

If you can get on a local DAFNE course I would highly recommend it.

It's a full 5 days so quite intensive but it teaches you exactly what numbers of insulin you need for your background and your food.

You get to the point of having a ratio that works for you and have the benefit of 5 full days with 2 healthcare professionals as well as other diabetics.

It's quite in depth and there is a day that also involves light exercise to see exactly what effect that has on blood sugars.

My hba1c was 13.9% before DAFNE and 5.8% ever since

PunkyRob said:

Hello Gemma.

I haven't done a DAFNE course. I don't think I could handle sitting in a room listening to Diabetes talk all day and the exercise part would probably kill me. Although I will look into it a bit more and see if it for me.

Thanks.

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the exercise part is only light and honestly even though you've had diabetes a long time you will still learn new things and get a new perspective

@PunkyRob, basal is what they call a background insulin, it deals with the slow secretion of glucose from the liver that enters the blood, without it our bg levels would go sky-high and we would be in a life threatening condition. If you don't want to do the DAFNE course then do look at the BDEC site.

PunkyRob said:

I think it is because I do not know enough that I am in this position now.

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Then it might be worth considering. There is usually a waiting list so maybe you could enquire even if you decide it's not for you, it will get you in the system.

Anyway get some rest and I hope you feel a bit more optimistic tomorrow, it might take some work but things can and will get better.

Hi. It's a lot to take in all at once. Are you on a low-carb diet and what is your weight/BMI? It is essential to have a sensible weight to help stabilise insulin and blood sugar. You need to check your Basal insulin (the daily Lantus you take) is the right number of shots. Do ask the GP or DN about this but if you can't get the right support then come back here for advice on that. You should be carb-counting your NovoRapid. What this means is that you adjust the amount of insulin to match the amount of carbs in each meal. Many are started at 1 unit of insulin to each 10gm of carbs but it will vary for each person. Whatever you do, check your blood sugar if you make any changes to your insulin to avoid any hypos and continue to test before driving. Make sure you have all your diabetes checks at least annually and in your situation you should be seeing a DN or GO every 6 months with an HBa1C test each time. Arrange the appointments yourself together with a blood test around 2 weeks before so you can discuss the blood test results with the DN/GP.

Hello Rob I did not read all the responses but I read enough to know that you already have severe damage from poor control.

Essentially you have to get it under control your risk is extreme and not just nuisance.

I do not give advice, what I can tell you is there are "old school and new school" professionals.

I went to old school for more than 10 years then to new school for the last year.

Both old and new got my BS under good control.

Old school had my insulin up to 130 units per day
New school got me off insulin and onto tablets with a no major carbs diet. Aslo it got my weight down by 20+Kg

I was told that 2 units of insulin was a minimum variation not a dose. In other words if I was on 10 units per meal and I needed more I should go up in twos 12 then 14 then 16.etc.

Two units is too small for a complete dose.

@forge, the OP is a type 1 so there's no chance that he can come off insulin, also insulin doses can be adjusted by one unit and even by a half in some cases, just thought I'd point this out.

Hey Rob, just wanted to mention something i don't think anyone else has yet, when did you stop drinking? If it wasn't too long ago some of your aches etc may be from that is all I was thinking. But well done on giving that up and deciding to take control of your diabetes!

Also when you said you tested this morning and then when you were in from work, if you are driving try to test before getting into the car.

Hope you wake up with a good reading tomorrow to help you feel positive, what time of day do you take your Lantus?

Abbie

Hi Rob

You have had many responses, so I'll just respond that I too think your pins and needles and aches are down to longterm damage from having diabetes.

You need to speak to your GP. You may not have much confidence in them but you need to find out for sure what is going on. Book up a double appointment with them.

Retinopathry checks should be done annually by the NHS. Your GP should arrange this.

Your feet should be checked annually too and this is important to get done now. Your GP Practice should do this as part of your check ups.

Your pens should be replaced. If they aren't the disposable ones. Then you should have a minimuum of 2 of each type incase of loss or breakage.
I don't know what size needle you are using but this may also have an impact on your getting the right dosage in the right layer of your skin and avoiding bruises and rare leakages.

Glad you going to specsavers but do also get your NHS check done as well.

Even being a long term diabetic we aren't all perfect all the time. You need now to aim for tightening up the results of your blood readings. I know this can be over whelming initially... However neuropsthy from diabetes ccan improve if you get all your readings under 7.7 and with less swings in readings. The smaller the swings the better and they need really to go no higher than a change of 2.8 2hours after eating.
This is possible but requires decent help from others around you. Whether its NHS or from others here that have achieved it.

Glad you posted as you will get huge support from people here.

Get appointments set up...

Post your units of insulin and a days worth of readings here.. You'll get enormous amount of help from other T1's.

If you have tried everything to improve levels and you are under a consultant then it may be that on a long term basis that you may wish to look at having an insulin pump. However, you really have to be sure that you have done everything on injections, DAFNE course etc to be really considered for one. It is going to be a time now of you looking at your life and what you are willing to commit to on a long term basis...

Hoping you can start to feel positive that you can improve levels and stop further damage from occuring.

We're all behind you...