Hey guys, :D This is my first time writing here, as I am relatively new to this site. I joined because I wanted to come somewhere that I'd be able to talk about my diabetes and people could understand, so I'm still testing it out for now.
Anyways, I've been a diabetic for ten years now (diagnosed when I was 12, now 22) & I haven't really taken care of myself, but I promised myself I would. My problem isn't taking insulin or checking my sugars, it's just the eating part. I've recently found out I suffer from binge eating disorder. It's more self diagnosed but I definitely have it, and even though it seems easy enough to stop, it's not. I really want to overcome this point in my life because I know I can get my A1C lowered quickly if I did (it's now 13.5) I don't know what to do. It's not even emotional eating because I don't only eat when I'm stressed out....it's just become a habit which I'm dying to break. I was wondering if anyone else has gone through this and overcome it? Any pointers at all? /"
That's good that you are recognizing the habit and talking about it!
Zoe is a great resource on this issue as she has T1, is a retired psychologist and has talked about some eating disorder issues herself. She's in CA though so probably not lurking around, but one never knows.
I have found that with diabetes, it's about balance and getting the insulin to match the food but I try to plan a lot of stuff out so I know what I'm going to eat before I eat it and then eat it. If you can do that, it can work great and both help you eat more regularly and, perhaps, see trends in your data with diabetes that you can cycle back in to improve those numbers which is easier said than done. I am pretty bingy in the evenings, cocktails while cooking, snacks and beers on into the night, etc. but keep my A1C pretty solid by testing and bolusing a lot. I'm not shy about stacking insulin although this leads to odd bedtimes, w/ 3.5U "on board" and that sort of thing. Be careful if you try being more aggressive with insulin because if your rates and ratios are even a little bit off, it can clobber you. 13.5 may not be where you want to be A1C wise but a little bit of insuln can go a long way and can be downright dangerous. But I agreethat overcoming this is a great decision you can make to help yourself feel better!
Without specifics of diabetes I'm not sure what to say ("increase basal by 10%..." or whatever) but I suspect that finding a counselor to help with the binge eating, ideally one who's not an idiot about diabetes (perhaps easier said than done...) would help that.
An A1c means that your blood glucose was 364 mg/dl on average - pretty scary. This is far too serious to handle this situation alone. It will be much easier to deal with if you accept the possibility of professional counselling to help you. Together you can work this out - step by step.
You're not carb counting for the binge? It sounds to me like your problem IS taking insulin- it's taking insulin appropriate for what you eat. I'd worry about matching the insulin to your eating first, and changing the eating later.
Hi Xanasaur
Welcome to TuDiabetes, you've definitely come to the right place!
I suffered most of my life from an eating disorder and today I'm happy to say I have 19 years of recovery. I was diagnosed with Type 1 only 6 years ago and was glad I already had significant amount of recovery under my belt because D definitely complicates eating issues. Many women who never had issues before (or were diagnosed in childhood) develop them when they have Type 1.
So yes, there is definitely hope, and no, it is not easy. People ask me how I've been able to stay abstinent for so long and I say "19 years isn't hard, but 19 days sure was". For me sugar was addictive and the only way to break the cycle was to stop eating it completely. Just "a little" would start the addiction all over again. That's what makes eating disorders complicated, is they are physiological, psychological and emotional. My suggestion is to get some support. I highly recommend OA, Overeater's Anonymous. I don't agree with all their philosophy, so listen with an open mind, but having a built in support group like that is so valuable. There are OA meetings online and live in most major cities and towns.Links are below for both. Another option is counseling from a therapist trained or specializing in eating disorders or an actual eating disorder program which are much more common today. It's very very hard to do this on your own. There is an eating disorder group on here which you might check into, but imho that's not enough.
Finally, my concern is that you might be also engaging in what is called diabulimia which is restricting insulin to drive your blood sugar high which burns fat. This is also unfortunately common among Type 1 women and very dangerous. Even if you are not intentionally doing this, I agree with Jonah that you are probably not bolusing for the binges so the result is the same. There is also a diabulimia group on here, but this is something it would also be important to talk with someone qualified about. I wish you all the best, and I know you can do it, I'm proof of that and my ED went on for many years more than yours. Friend and message me anytime.
http://www.oa.org/membersgroups/find-a-meeting/
http://oa12step4coes.org/meetings.html
Zoe
Yeah, I understand you. I'm a lot better with taking my insulin now, but I'm trying to not binge. I feel like taking more insulin is bad as well, I mean I know it helps me at the moment but I'm not trying to take too much insulin either. I sound so complicated, I think I'm just trying to do everything at once. Thank you so much for your advice though! -sigh-
That's what I'm looking for, but it's hard when you don't have insurance, and don't make enough money. -.- But I'm trying to see what I can do.
I tried doing that, and it's hard when I live with roommates. What I have also realized is that when I restrict myself, I tend to binge on what I restricted myself, but even when I have it, I guess since I think about it as a 'bad' food, it still causes a binge. Idk. -.- This gets so complicating which is why I wanted some outside opinion. It's really an internal struggle.
Thank you so much for your advice. I am going to try to talk to someone professionally about it. It's so weird because I know I can do it, but in the moments of a binge, my mind is just on auto-pilot. It's like nothing that I've done for that day has mattered, working out of eating really healthy. I hate it because it's not like it's just a binge, which is bad enough, it's also the diabetes which makes everything so much harder. I want to try eliminating foods but when I do, the binge gets more intense. Like I always crave the foods I'm not supposed to eat, but during a binge it will be anything, unhealthy and healthy. -.- I wish I understood what it was more. I know with binging, it could really be anything, everyone has a different way of coping with it and a different reason for doing it. /:
Yes, that "auto pilot" is a good description. And it's easy to get caught up in the cycle of pinging back and forth from "being good" to "screwing up". It takes an effort but recovery is about breaking out of that black and white thinking and that cycle. When I first got into recovery, my abstinence consisted of "eating three meals a day, nothing in between, no overeating and no sugar at all". Other then that I ate what I wanted. Many people in OA were doing much more restrictive eating plans but for me that set me up to feel deprived and binge. I used to call it the "twinkie - granola syndrome". I learned if I felt like a burrito and ate a lettuce salad I'd feel deprived so I just ate the burrito. Of course, now with D I don't eat that many carbs, but I'm lucky I could make those changes in two steps. You'll have to find the version that works right for you, knowing your own triggers. A good therapist or group will help you figure that out.
I have pretty clear ideas now of what created my ED, but I have to tell you the why isn't all that important. Once it gets started it takes on a life of its own and needs to be dealt with on a more gut level and by breaking the physical addiction(s). (for some people it is carbs of different sorts as well as sugar).
Based on what you outlined above, my advice is to put controlling your BG in the driver's seat, while working on getting your binge eating habits moderated.
I say this for two reasons:
- Your chronically high blood sugar is a far more serious threat to your health than the eating. The latter isn't trivial, but this is a "triage" type situation -- deal with the bigger problem first. High blood sugars, especially to the extent that you are walking around with an A1c of 13, is far more serious than overeating.
- Getting your blood sugar under control will be a strong motivator to get the eating issues under better control as a side-effect. Tight control with insulin is the only practical way to get your BG under control, especially for someone who has issues with binging (I have the same problem, BTW). Good BG control will make you gain weight -- relentlessly -- if you keep binging. Not wanting to expand to the size of a small building, I've got my eating issues under control, and am actually losing weight. Luckily, like you, I'm not obese, so there's "a light at the end of the tunnel".
Finally, if you have any prospect of getting a pump and a CGM, push hard to. With your A1c, there's plenty of medical justification. At your age, the Omnipod is probably a good choice for a pump -- I use the pod, and absolutely love it.
A pump and CGM make it a breeze to manage this condition. Also, for someone struggling with eating challenges, the combo also makes it much easier to take a mulligan once in awhile when you fall off the wagon (like I did last night -- I'm paying for it this morning :-)).
Major Advice: GET OVER YOUR RELUCTANCE ABOUT INSULIN RIGHT NOW.
It's irrational. It's like being reluctant to drink water when your thirsty.
Insulin is not bad for you. It's a necessary hormone. If you weren't a diabetic, your body would give you the insulin you need when you binge, and the insulin would not be physiologically harmful.
The problem is, non-diabetics, producing all the insulin they need to meet carb challenges, makes them gain weight. The same happens to a diabetic when they get serious about controlling their BG, and taking sufficient insulin to do so.
You're in a dangerous "stage" of this disease right now -- too young to really experience any complications (neuropathy, nephropathy, etc.), so are a bit reckless. Problem is, you're doing damage, big time, and if you keep this up you are at high risk of having all these horrible problems in middle-age, amputations in your senior years. You gotta get this under control now.
As I said in another post, don't try to solve all these problems at once -- you'll get discouraged and give up.
The eating issue is especially hard to correct, and will take quite a bit of time, discipline, two steps forward, one back, over and over.
You can't wait to get that resolved to get your BG in line. Nor do you need to. Walmart has both R (regular insulin) and N (NPH, longer acting) for $25/1000U bottle. Syringes are dirt cheap too. They have a generic BG meter and strips that are very affordable too. You don't need a prescription for any of this.
There is assistance in getting the fancier high-tech insulins as well. For example, Lilly has a coupon for a free box of Humalog pens (5, 300U each); Sanofi has a deal for 5 pens of Lantus guaranteed to be no more than $25 ea for up to 5 pens.
Depending on your insulin needs, these freebies could last you months. A dosing regimen with Humalog and Lantus can achieve tight control without being too burdensome.
Others here can point you to resources
Hi! I am 34 and was diagnosed at 15. I can honestly say I just got a handle (kind of a handle?) on my diabetes about 4 months ago, so please don't think you're alone. When you get the news as a teen or pre-teen that you're diabetic - you're just going to have a bad time. Think about it - you were learning to separate a little from your parents and do your own thing at 12, your social life and friends were the major factor, and having something that made you different from everyone was really traumatic. When something that huge happens in our lives, the parts of our psyche that were most affected just kind of stop growing.
The behaviors and coping mechanisms you use today are the same ones you learned as kid - you never moved past that point. I don't know about you, but I always felt like I WAS a kid who was eating and eating and I didn't know why. I would hide food, go out to the kitchen late at night when everyone was asleep because I felt like the eating made me a bad person. I knew it was the worst thing I could do, but I craved it so bad. It made me sick and then it made me scared of what the lasting effects of my high blood sugars were going to be. Today, I can say with certainty that the damage you're doing today is going to be the reality you have to live in 20 years or so but it can stop today. You CAN change how you behave, you CAN seek and find professionals to help (yes, even without insurance), and you CAN take care of your body the way you need to. However, you have to be able to see things differently before you can commit to anything and expect to stick with it.
Try this: step out of your own perspective for a moment. Imagine all those things you struggle with today - the fear, the confusion, the eating, ignoring a life-threatening disease, etc. Now, imagine a little girl - cute, funny, full of life with every opportunity at her fingertips - the coolest little kid you've ever met. Now,imagine her being diagnosed with diabetes. A month later she tells you all of the things you described. As an adult seeing her struggle, what would you tell her? If she told you her average blood sugar was over 400 and she just didn't know what to do but she couldn't stop eating? If you could see how much she'd changed already from being sick all the time, what would you do for her? Whatever that is - do that for yourself.
I learned that I binge ate because I was so scared of what diabetes was and how I was going to end up that I panicked and made myself face that fear - as in all day, every day by eating and not taking insulin. You may eat because of hormonal imbalances related to diabetes, you may eat because of emotional reasons, you may eat because it's your body's normal response to high blood sugar. You probably hide it and eat all at once because you feel like a "bad girl" for doing it. Whatever the reasons, the only hard fact is that by continuing to do it, you are quite literally killing yourself. The the state your body is in with blood sugars that high is not OK even for a day, let alone years at a time. I know you've managed and you might look fine in the mirror, but you are ensuring a lifetime of complications and the only thing you need to do to stop it is to realize you don't have the tools to change without help. You're an adult now, and you can take control of this disease that made the 12 year old Xanasaur feel like she had no control. The time to change is today, this minute - NOW.
I'm so glad you took the first step by reaching out on this board! You need support, and lots of people are here to help. Please let me know if you need assistance finding a doctor - I have quite a bit of experience with that. Good luck.
Hi Xanasaur,
As most people have already stated, you are not alone. I was diagnosed at 10 and I am 22 now, so our time frames are similar and I can completely agree with you that these have not been easy years. Diabetes is incredibly difficult, especially puberty, highschool, and all of the struggles that come with those things.
I have the same problem as you. Although my a1C is now under control (6.4) and I have managed to over come my binging quite a bit...I would not consider myself totally free of it. I think that living with Type 1 kind of programs an eating disorder into us 20ish year old girls...and it is truly hard to escape that. Not everybody will understand or agree with that. I definitely have a binge eating problem and very similar habits. But self cotrol is something that I had to learn. I still over eat...I think is the result of many things, some D and some non D; I love to cook and I come from a family of foodies (they are all thin and non D which has always been somewhat of a struggle for me too) But luckily we are an extremely health conscious household wich has helped me chose healthier options. But when I was away at school with roomates I was DEFINITELY making poor choices...maxing out entire bags of pretzels, beglels, pizza, chips, leftovers that I was not even hungry for. But I set a deadline for myself, and I decided one day to truly change my ways. It is the ready.set.go method, as hard as it sounds you just need to put some positive energy into it and watch yourself change every day! If I could do it you can do it...if you want to contact me through private message I would love to talk and give you some advice, or even just listen.
P.S. admitting that you have the problem is the hardest part, very brave of you! As Zoe said..you have come to the right place! and everyone is only here to help you on your journey!
Thanks! I have a similar situation! I’m just getting on today and I’m 30 diagnosed w/ T1 at 9! My a1c is at 10 but most of the time high! It has affected my eyes! And there’s no time like the present. I too don’t struggle with taking insulin, but I most monitor my blood sugars! I’m glad to know I’m not the only one and we can turn here and talk to one another. We can be each other’s mptivation. I’m happy I turned to this page. Good Luck to you all!
Thank you so much, it's really hard trying to talk to friends about this because they want to help but they really don't understand what it is to actually go through it, or how scary it could be for a diabetic. :) I'm actually going to talk to my doctor this week to see if he has any advice, then I'm going to talk to a diabetes educator to see if she knows of anything in my area. :)
It's true though, I sometimes want to eat "only veggies" but I won't feel like that's enough, which cause a binge. I'm going to try to just be more balanced with my diet, & make sure I take my insulin, which I have been doing a good job after the hospital, so I'm proud. :)
Thank you so much again :D
Me too. :D Lol. I feel like I sound so corny, but it helps out a lot when there are people who are going through what you are. :)
I have an idea about carb counting, I actually want to talk to a diabetes educator to get on that because I am very interested in a pump. Thank you btw, your advice helped me out a lot. And I have to set my priorities straight. I often try to do everything at once, and then get flustered...and give up. But I won't. I feel like if I actually didn't binge, I would probably lose weight too, because I love exercising and when I have my normal meals, they are healthy. It's always this internal battle. -.- But, I'm glad I can let these feelings out on this website, you, along with others are such a great help and support system. :D
You know, it's funny because I have a blog and I feel like everything you have just said, I have written out to myself billions of times, but never really understanding what it meant or how I really felt about it. Honestly, I feel like I binged and never took care of myself & tried acting 'normal' because I was in denial. I knew I had diabetes but I don't think I fully understood what that meant until my last hospital visit. I never wanted to come to terms with it, nor did I ever want the responsibility. I also blame my shyness, I was always afraid to talk to people. I feel like now I can really do it but my mind is still shifting into that "I'm diabetic, I need to make sure I put that first" mode. I wish I could go back and just avoid all of this by taking care of myself then, but I know we can't rewind and press play, and I know I need to do something now. In the words of Rafiki from the Lion King: "Oh yes the past may hurt, but the way I see it: you can either run from it, or learn from it." I wake up each day so thankful that I have been lucky to not have damaged anything (that I know of, because I just had blood work done) & I really don't want to start now. Your post really made me think and really put things into perspective for me and I thank you so much for that. I feel like going onto this website is also going to help me out a lot. :)