Diabetes and mental sanity!?

Type 1 and LADA
21

I did the same on CGM. So, I used it for only 3 months, learned from it- figured out how certain foods affect my BG- then put it away. I was going NUTS and on the verge of a breakdown when hooked to the CGM. I’m on MDI, taking 20+ shots per day, and my A1c is low 6s. When on CGM, it was in the high 7s.

I’m 6 months pregnant, so T1D is kind of my “whole” life right now, but after this baby comes out, I can’t wait to not worry so much about it again. I will be fine with an A1c in a stable 6.5%-7.0% for a little while. To help ease my mind!

22

Thanks Marps! I’m sure part of my insantity at the moment is that I feel like “if I can’t be perfect now, how in the hell can I do it while pregnant?” therefore leading to feelings that I’ll never ever get there, and the stress and pressure of that is consuming me! I understand perfect is only attainable with a working pancreas–I’m still holding out for one of those :slight_smile: --, but for some reason, i still want it! Your success is definitely motivating for me. Thank you!

23

I get it Judith. I used to be only a small control freak and I can accept and realize that the Diabetes has taken me over the edge!! I try not to let it, but knowing something and convincing your psyche and inner being to do what is completely opposite of how you are wired, is another :slight_smile:

24

Good for you Melitta! Maybe I do need something to chill, b/c inately, I am a worrywart/stressed out person I think. But then when i think of actually taking something up, i get stressed even more trying to figure out where to fit that in! Yipes. I’ve got to get it together! Maybe a clone and/or personal assistant would do the trick? I wish :slight_smile:

25

Thanks for the reply. Not cool of your family to freak out on you about the pump! Don’t listen to them! If you can go into a coma with hypos, well, that can happen no matter how you choose to dose that insulin, duh, right? As for your husband and the rule of 15, well, I need to understand that one better I think!!! I’m eternally overcorrecting :slight_smile:

26

I have been reading a lot of the posts but thought I would respond to your original because I can relate so much. I have had diabetes since age 4, so almost 20 years. I STILL can’t find a way to get good control. I have a lot of highs and then lowish numbers in the same day. It’s so hard because I test my blood sugar ALL the time and have many different doctors as I try hard to have good control but nothing I do seems to help. My a1c has never been below 8 and its so frustrating. I know the bad numbers will cause complications in the long run, but it drives me crazy that I’m doing all I can and still have bad numbers. Every time i see a 300 blood sugar on the meter its just like a complication is staring me in the face that I can do nothing about. How do I live my life without constantly worrying about this? I also have had seizures in the past with low blood sugars (only about 5 times in my life) so I constantly worry about going too low. It’s just an ongoing battle that is exhausting. I know I have to take it in stride but it is so hard.

27

Thanks for responding Eliza. I’ll bet you are doing great, but you and I are too hard on ourselves…I think???
It is SO difficult to manage. I feel too that for some people it seems like it’s easier to manage (not saying it’s simple by any means, but that their bodies are more typical and respond well to what they are doing or something??) I will get a pattern down, eat the same exact foods nearly every day, but on a daily basis, it changes. I feel like it shouldn’t be that every day I’m changing basal patterns, but it’s almost like that’s what I need. Blech. I think that maybe I have an unrealistic idea that one day I’ll have excellent control, and b/c day after day I don’t achieve that, I beat myself up? I mean obviously highs and lows are a part of this, we don’t have a working pancreas, and we have to accept that (but darn it, I don’t wanna!) Maybe my mind is in a place that refuses to accept that as reality? I’m a person that loves to achieve things, so dealing day in and out with numbers I don’t accept as okay, or as “just a number to work from,” seems to be what’s got me down I think…Oh, and for those that can just look at things as a number: When you are high, how do you handle that? how long does it take you to come back down to normal? For me it’s an excessive amt of time, so I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong, or if that’s normal (b/c this “wait” certainly adds to my frustrations!) Take care Eliza. We can take it day by day, b/c, well, I guess we HAVE to :slight_smile:

28

It depends on how high I am, but it usually takes me at least 2 hours to come down. And the higher I am, the more insulin it takes. It’s HARD to wait, but there’s no other choice. So the goal for me is NOT to test for 2 hours, and then to test and take more insulin if it hasn’t come down far enough.

29

haha. I said that to one of my gynocologists when I first found out I was pregnant. I brought my A1c down from 7.5% to 6.5% in 6 months (that was the lowest I had EVER been in my 13 years, at the time) and she said "I’d very much like to see your A1c in the 4 or 5% range. I told her, “So would I. I asked for a pancreas for christmas, but haven’t gotten one yet.” This was an ongoing argument between her and I (I had been a patient of hers with a previous miscarriage as well (unrelated to T1D) and she was just so dumb when it came to bedside manner, and the facts of living with a disease.) I’ve switched gynos to one who specialized in pregnany with the D and have been MUCH happier.

Good luck. The high risk clinic that I go to every 3 weeks for measurements said that conceiving at an A1c under 8% is best. Of course they’d LIKE it lower, but if you conceive under 8%, your risk of birth defects due to T1D goes down to that of a normal woman. I was VERY relieved when I heard that.

You can do it.

30

OK, I’m naturally a big-time worrier, too, but I’m going to go way out on a limb here and propose that this is, at it’s root, a spiritual problem.

How so?

Well, there are thousands of things for human beings to worry about – always have been, always will be. We can worry about our kids, our B.O., politics, the environment, war, dry and cracked heels, the weather, the price of food, that funny sound our car just started making, the things on our to-do list, the spider under the toilet. We can worry, worry, worry, worry, worry about everything great and small, mundane and horrific, silly and soul-engrossing. Or we can do the work of learning to detach. The Buddhist concept of detachment isn’t about “not caring”. It’s learning how to care (have compassion) without becoming obsessed with outcomes (non-attachment).

This problem isn’t a new problem. There is ancient wisdom out there about learning to sit, follow your breath, watch all your busy-busy thoughts pop up, observe them and let them go, follow your breath, observe and let go, not become attached to the thought, just watch it pass by, and breathe, breathe, breathe. Eventually, we achieve a place of peace, a place of “letting go and letting God” or however you want to think of it, given your personal philosophy and beliefs.

I don’t subscribe to a particular religious dogma, but the practice of meditation and detachment and surrender are in every tradition, going back thousands of years.

If you and I can learn to breathe through each test, each correction, each number as it rolls by – just look at it with the detached wisdom of a philosopher-scientist – see it as useful information to act upon, not a moral indictment – and then LET IT GO, we’ll not only be happier (more peaceful, more wise, more content) people, we’ll also (paradoxically) be better at diabetic self-care.

This is why I believe that adopting a practice of meditation and learning to apply the techniques of meditation to our never-ending treadmill of diabetic care, will be healing for us on a number of levels.

31

Very solid advice. I really need this and it’s easy to make the excuse of “who has time for this?!” but I realize how important it is to make time because it will help our balance to be so much more where it needs to be.

32

In some ways, I think that meditation that we practiced in the Tae Kwon Do classes I had was very instrumental in getting my head to embrace “I can change myself”. I still remember when I was just starting out, probably 250-265 lbs somewhere (I didn’t quite keep score…) and watching brown belts practicing a “Tornado Kick” and going “I feel great exercising but there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to do that”. The change I could feel from meditation before class, usually not > 10 seconds, just sitting on the floor quietly breathing in through my nose and exhaling through my mouth and clearing my head, I could feel changed just from that. Then we’d jump up and down for an hour and I’d become a complete sweaty mess but the meditation was instrumental in getting my head to where I could make progress w/ diabetes too.

33

Thanks Marps as always for good advice :slight_smile:

34

Thanks for your insight. I had a friend tease me because I had been part of the “hurting arts” (kung fu) and then switched to the “healing arts” (therapeutic massage, yoga, meditation). I told her that “it’s all the same thing!”

Martial arts, hands-on healing, yoga and meditation are about learning to use and channel human energy in a profound, transformative way. (Of course, my study of kung fu was about self-defense and the protection of innocents, not attacking people aggressively – I can’t speak for those who abuse the martial arts.)

I think the discipline in the martial arts is very cogent to “fighting” diabetes. You perfect kata and techniques by practice, practice, practice and by studying with masters. You perfect your diabetes self-care by practice, practice, practice and by studying with masters: long-term, knowledgeable diabetics who have a good program and excellent attitude.

We don’t have “belts” in diabetes self-care (maybe we should?) but we must all strive to find and emulate the sensei who can help us progress to our own level of mastery – we neglect this at our peril.

35

Thank you. You are correct – we need to reframe that question to “who has time for diabetic complications?”

Not me!!! I don’t want them, no way, no how. If I have to spend X time per week mastering my diabetes self-care in order to avoid complications and feel my best on a day-to-day bases, then that’s what it takes.

We don’t expect to “just know” how to fly a plane, or create a stained-glass masterpiece, or speak a new language or play a musical instrument. We know that we have to put in the time to achieve a highly desirable result in many, many other fields of human endeavor. We just need to surrender to the fact that achieving the highly desirable result of diabetes mastery is going to take time and effort.

There’s no way around it. We have to go through it.

36

Unfortunately, I think screwing the diabetic pooch will also take time? One you have diabetes, the time is smoked. You can use the time productively or not.

37

Um…???

That visual is blocking my higher cognitive functions.

Say what?

38

From the Right Stuff? I think that any diabetes regimen or non-regimen is likely to take a lot of time. I think too that it’s very easy to be “close”, in terms of doses/ strategies and still end up all over the place numberwise? The impact of this is underestimated by the medical industry and, coupled with the sort of general communication problems that involves anyone who is not Leo Tolstoy writing down everything they do, it’s not suprising that most of us have one sort of problem or another?

39

Yep. What we need is a darn working pancreas and no insulin resistance. Sigh.

40

Second the motion! The working pancreas, or artificial facsimile thereof are probably coming reasonably soon (although maybe not in my lifetime). A cure, or at least treatment, for insulin resistance that doesn’t have a gazillion awful side effects is farther off. And then the other metabolic abnormalities in Type 2 need to be addressed, too. So, soldier on, kiddo – that’s the best you can do for now!