Type 1 diagnosed tuesday!

Hello and welcome from another type 1. Goodness me that is quite a story :shock: you poor thing. It will take time for your body and your mind to get around diabetes. Its different for everyone and hypos are not nice at all, can be very worrying. Your DSN will probably advise you to take a little less insulin with your meals if you are having a lot of hypos ( if by chance your DSN doesn't ring by the afternoon, PHONE as they are often busy and do forget things at times)and later on try and get on Carb Counting course, it could really help you. :wink: Its an awful lot to take in and it will take time to adjust and get your head around, especially with a young family to look after, always busy. My daughter has had Chickhen Pox twice, but she doesn't have diabetes and as far as I now I have never had Chickhen Pox. Take care and if there is anything you need to know or are worried about just ask, and others will try and help as well. Best wishes RRB

It's so sad that this is how it's eventually diagnosed and treated.I'm lucky in that mine progressed less dramatically. You really should keep on at the d-nurses esp in the early weeks and months. You sound like me in that I was very insulin sensitive (well still am really) I asked for a child pen to cover half units, still need it.

Please post here as much as you need to. The first few months are a challenge with the fiddling and carb counting/insulin ratios, test test test, esp anytime you feel weird test! Hopefully the d-nurses asked you to keep a food diary for them. Two books that also really help me, Think like a Pancreas and Using Insulin, can't recommend them enough.

I used to be scared of going hypo until a lovely LADA lady on this forum advised me to try to be calm which is the best thing to do. Your DN will have taught you how to correct? Also when during your early hypos you will have very obvious symptoms, they can be scary but as long as you are able to test, correct, test.. I would suggest you let your close family/friends know, I didn't want to make a big deal but during the first few months I did have hypos during work/social events and people appreciate knowing the signs so they can step if you need it. I've handled it myself bar a couple of times when others noted I was being odd haha.


Night hypos are different but I was re-assurdd by my DN I would extremely likely wake up...she was right. I miscalculated my insulin once and woke up heart pounding! Jelly babies at 2am is weird.

The Using Insulin book suggests If you can, test at 2-3am you're reading should not drop more that 1.7. Did the DN tell you what your bed time reading should be? I used to be 9 -11 now 6-8 I tend to eat dinner and allow 3 hours to pass to make sure am not going too low. But am more confident with cab counting. You should try testing 1hr, 2hr, 3hr after dinner.

How many units basal/bolus are you? And what is your insulin to carb ratio or are you on set amounts of bolus?

You'll get there I can assure you.

It is tricky but you will get there. I understand the frustrations of being stuck with this condition and feeling like you can't forget about it. But as you stabilise and you learn more and more you WILL be able to forget about it for several hours at at time and actually feel WELL within yourself.

The way to think about it is this, does a basket ball player score every single he chucks the ball towards the hoop? No. If you can get it right 80% of the time, you're definitely winning :clap: Also the other thing I tell myself is "I'm not a robot", because even if I get it spot on then things may still not quite go my way. The best approach is just to be aware and plan ahead.

Most importantly don't become focussed too much on getting it all the right at the same time.

Big sugar swings definitely need addressing, going hypo too quickly definitely needs addressing. The aim is to get the right balance of Lantus and Novo (or no Novo, who knows we're all different).

Feel free to PM anytime if you need to x

Hellbunny said:

I'm just so scared of my 2 children getting this horrible thing, its difficult enough managing my own levels let alone a baby/child, i really feel for those out there who have kids with this.

Click to expand...

Hi there Hellbunny,

I know what you mean completely - I'm Type 1 and I've got 2 little boys and it would break my heart if either got Type 1 diabetes.

There is something that you can do and which I do and that is make sure that your children have vitamin d supplements; here is a link to a study discussing this.

http://housemajority.org/seaton/pdfs/27/5448201.pdf

Note that it says 'In children who received vitamin D supplementation regularly, the risk [of developing Type 1 diabetes] was reduced by about 80% if the child had received at least the recommended dose compared with those receiving less.'

The amount of vitamin d the children (from birth onwards) were given in the study was 2000 IU daily. The RDA in the UK is 400 IU for adults and 200 IU for children. I give my 3 1/2 year old 2000 IU a day and my 1 year old 1000 IU a day - he'll go up to full dose when he's 2 - there's no real reason other than parental caution as to why he isn't on the full 2000 IU's now though.

The vitamin d you want, by the way, is vitamin d3 in drop form - I buy mine from the US as bizarrely it's cheaper to do that than buy here. Drop me a line if you want more info.

Some people feel that vitamin supplementation is all a con and a way to extract more money from us, but I figure if there is evidence like that and the known toxicity levels for vitamin d are about 20,000 - 50,000 IU for several days then why on earth not? I discussed this with a GP friend of mine and he responded by putting all his children on vitamin d supplements!

As to your own diabetes; I'm very sorry to welcome you to the club but you will get used to it and if you use this forum you'll find lots of help (the method I find the very best in controlling blood sugars is to do as you did whilst suffering gestational diabetes and drop the carbs). You are on very low amounts of insulin at the moment so please be careful with hypos though!

All the best

Dillinger

Hi Hellbunny,

I suppose there is a very slight similarity from my story to yours. Without the chicken pox though.

1999 I was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid, treated for about 12mnths with carbimazol and propranalol.
normal thryoid function for about a year. Then overactive again. Went on to be given radio iodine treatment and consequentialy went underactive. Treated with thyroxine.

2005 gave birth to a 10lb baby.........during the later stages of pregnancy had +1 sugar however when tested again 1 week later no sign of sugar.

2006 ( just under a year from my baby being born ) Whilst on holiday sudden blurred vision, ridiculously thirty and peeing like there's no tommorow. Came home went to optitions who sent me with a letter to my GP within 2 1/2 weeks I was on insulin and was told I was T1.

My friend is a nurse and said that even though my +1 sugar had gone back to normal, she thought that with me having such a big baby that I should have been monitored. Although I dont see how it could have been prevented!

I have also read on the F/B site alot of people having been diagnosed with T1 after chickenpox or some sort of virus.

I second what Dillinger says about carb counting I would higly recommend it.

Dillinger I found that article re the vitamin D supplement interesting and am going to ask about it as like you I will do whatever it takes to prevent my son having T1. I ensure he eats a healthy balanced diet and gets lots of excercise and fresh air. Thank you!!

Lucy. xxx