My name is Libbie and I’ve had T1D for roughly 20 years. I was diagnosed when I was 13, in the midst of having just lost my mother to suicide, my dad and brother being in a horrible car accident and then my father having to undergo a quadruple bypass. (It was a tough few years)
I struggled a lot with coming to terms that j was diabetic. I only kind of took care of myself until I turned 18 and then I gave up. I probably went to the doctor two or three times in the last 14 years. I know I’ve been very lucky to not have any complications. And I feel awful about not taking care of myself.
Early this month I decided I needed to get my life together and take care and get my diabetes under control. I saw a doctor and have been on the path to control. The only problem is things are not going well. My my blood sugars are hanging out at 220-260. I’m following the doctors instructions to the letter. This morning at 8:00 my bs was 67. I ate breakfaste took my insulin and went out to run my errands. Got home around 3 and tested for lunch and I was 226. I’m insanely frustrated at this point but I promised myself and fiancé that I wouldn’t give up again.
Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Just needed to get it out there. It’s hard to keep my frustration in and no one around me really gets it. Thanks for reading and I hope to be an active member of this community.
Hi Libbie! Thanks for checking in and letting us know you’re here. If you don’t mind my asking, what sort of treatment are you on? There are a lot of people here with experience of a wide variety of treatment regimens–R/NPH, MDI, insulin pump & others–and if you’re not happy with the results you’re getting with the one you’re on, this is a great place for learning about alternatives.
Anyway, never too late to re-focus on getting better control of the disease. We’ve all gone through times when we felt like giving up or just got burned out. You’ll find lots of encouragement and practical help here. Hope you stick around!
Hi Libbie, it is a good thing that you are going to attempt getting better control of your type 1. Putting it off longer might cause many difficulties. What kind of insulin do you use? Do you use injections, or a pump? To avoid the high numbers you are having you should be using carb counting. I need one unit of fast acting insulin for every 10 carbs I eat. That is called a 1:10 insulin to carb ratio. Do you use a ratio to bolus for each meal and snack? Doing that will help so much to avoid highs. There is a book called “Using Insulin” by John Walsh. He also wrote the book “Pumping Insulin” if you use a pump. Those books are very good in explaining how to avoid highs and lows. Please talk to us and tell us about your diabetes management.
I have been type 1 for 69 years, and am doing very well. It takes a lot of time and effort to have good control of our diabetes, but it is great to live a long time without diabetes complications. The life expectancies for type 1 people in the US is almost as good as for non diabetics, but that assumes that good diabetes management is being practiced.
sorry for the delayed response. Busy weekend. I am on a 1:10 per my doctor. I do injections, Never really thought about a pump really. I don’t really snack that much, and when I do I will count the carbs and inject accordingly.
I’ve been snooping around the forum and I think that protein is affecting my levels. I’m pretty active (I play roller derby) and am always doing something. I eat a lot of protein. Probably more than carbs. I go back to my doctor on next week and will inquire about that.
I ordered “Using Insulin” and should receive it in the mail today.
Protein can be a help or a problem depending on the situation. Lately I have noticed that if I have the sense to include protein and fat along with my carbs it helps drag out the digestion process and prevent my postprandial BG from spiking as high as it does when I eat only carbs. Duh?!
What effect are you thinking of from protein in your case?
When I searched for John Walsh’s “Using Insulin” on amazon, the copy I found seemed to have been published in 2003. Another, more recently revised, popular advice book is Gary Scheiner’s “Think Like a Pancreas” which you may also find helpful. In my opinion, Gary has a different, much lighter writing style than John Walsh.
Besides ordering books, you can also often find them at your local library. If you are comfortable reading an ebook then you can also often check out the ebook copy of the book from a library you have a card for. For example, ebooks.nypl.org has “Think Like a Pancreas”. (I qualify for a card at the New York Public Library because I’m resident of NY state. Yea! )
I think that most people on MDI don’t think about using a pump unless someone on their medical team suggests it or they read what others have to say about it online.
In the past, I’d recommend a person consider using a pump if they felt it might help them out. But that was before I started using CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring). While I’m still very much pro-pump, my priorities have changed. I now tend to feel that if I was forced to pick one, then CGM would probably be how I would roll.
The big negative with CGM is the cost. It’s (still) insanely expensive and if you have to pay for it entirely out of pocket, then it probably doesn’t make financial sense.
Certainly true in my case. I was on MDI for about 8 yrs, after 20 on R/NPH (ugh), before starting on a pump about 2 1/2 years ago. I was curious about it though not super interested as it seemed pretty close to what I had with MDI anyway. But my endo encouraged me to take the prep class and one thing followed another… For me the pump wasn’t nearly the life-changer that MDI was, and I had enough problems at the beginning that I considered going back to MDI and bailing on the whole thing. But on the whole I do prefer it just for the greater degree of flexibility, especially the finer control over basal rates–being able to set temp rates for exercise and that kind of thing. And CGM helps with that too, of course. I’ve got my Dexcom echoing to the app on my iPhone, which sits in a cell-phone holder on my handlebars so I can watch my BG while I’m riding. Very handy!
Ok, thanks. You might want to do a search on TuD for splitting your lantus dose if you continue to run low in the morning and then high before lunch. I definitely agree with others on Gary Scheiner’s Think Like A Pancreas. The Walsh book was helpful too, but for me, I found Gary’s book to be one that I can go back to as sort of a reference.
Keep up the good work in trying to get improved numbers. I just read an overview of a study that shows 30% of adult T1s with A1Cs at or below 7.0. That reinforces the old adage: If it was easy, everyone would do it. Once you get things dialed in though, it will get easier.
Just downloaded this and started reading. Got to the part about Gary Scheiner attending Wash U in St. Louis and it made me smile. I’m from St. Louis. It’s the little things right?
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