Intervention

Type 1 and LADA
1

Hello. My friends did some intervention with me last night.

Right, I haven’t been on here for ages. I have ignored my diabetes because I felt I had other issues going on that were more important. Also, during a course I did, I wsa told I can eat anything, and my sugars have been really out of control since. They were never great in the first place.

Well, last night, my martial arts tutor, his mother and my boyfriend sat down with me and had a serious chat. I was completely honest in that I have ignored the diabetes. I never check my sugars and I just have snack food and junk food all the time because it is easy.

It is like a catch 22 - I feel so ill all the time that I can’t be bothered tomake healthy food.

After the training course I did, where I was told I can eat anything I want, I just need to gve myself the right amount of insulin, I have been eatng Icecream, Chocolate and all sorts. I eat a chocolate bar a day.

I have always comfort eaten when I get stressed or down, and I have been really down recently. So I have been eatng a load of rubbish, then just sticking the needle in me and giving myself whatever feels right. I go up and down all the time. I am constantly correcting dosing, or over treating hypos. I get about 9 hypos per week averagely.

I am always up and down with my sugars - I mean drastically up and down.

Please help me. I want to be healthy again. I want to stop being tired and ill all the time. I want the energy and drive I always used to have.

PLEASE HELP!!!

2

First of all, erase any concerns thoughts about what you did or should have done … there’s really no reason to dwell on them because what’s done is done. Forget about recommendations for a moment and instead focus on incremental changes that you can accomplish and stick with.

Maybe its as simple as saying that you are going to check your blood glucose levels before and after each meal … disregarding the actual number and acknowledge the huge accomplishment you HAVE made by testing and making a habit of it. Once you’ve reached a comfortable spot with that, focus on the next thing (whatever that is), whether it is to pack your lunch each day or visit a diabetes educator/nutritionist for some guidance, it really doesn’t matter – just make a habit of incremental improvements. I think many doctors and educators set patients up for failure because they deliver a laundry list of things that patients must do without recognizing what’s involved in getting there. Focus on small accomplishments and build on each one, and you’ll be there before you know it!

3

Rebekah,
Welcome back. Once you start to make these changes you are going to feel so much better that you will have the motivation to continue. If you want a simple way to begin, try the recommendations here: http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/NewlyDiagnosed.htm.
I know you are not newly diagnosed, but it works for anyone trying to take control of their diabetes and get their BG under control. I was just on vacation, eating many more carbs and injecting more and it just didn’t work for me, I had too many highs and lows. I also get worn out by all the decisions to be made at every meal: should I have bread, how many pieces? I had terrible cravings and it became harder and harder to stay with the numbers that make me feel good. I find it easier to just cut out all the stuff that makes my BG rise too much except when I’m eating out. I pack a lunch and snacks for work every day. I take the time to make some sugar-free desserts, such as coconut macaroons and home made ice cream which I keep in the freezer. That way, I know I can have a treat after dinner but I don’t overindulge in them- they’re good but not as good as the real thing so I’m not tempted to eat a quart of ice cream. I also make sure to have other treats: good cheese, nice wine, fresh berries, cream, asparagus, 85% cocoa chocolate, smoked salmon, etc. so I don’t feel as deprived. Good luck and please let us know how you are getting along.
Libby

4

The people who tell you that you can “eat anything” when you have diabetes don’t themselves HAVE diabetes. They are flacks of the junk food and drug companies who basically own the ADA, and their goal is to get you using more drugs while you eat their junk foods. Sounds paranoid, yes, I know. But it’s true.

They don’t care if you go blind or lose your kidneys. We do.

Most of us have some safe, top dose of insulin which we can use reliably to cover a given amount of carb without risking dangerous hypos or highs. If we are off at that dose the difference won’t send us to the ER or go so high it will start to destroy our retinas.

That dose is different for each of us. For me it is 3 units at once or 2 units injected in two stages an hour apart. Since 1 unit currently covers 20 grams of carbs for me, that gives me the limit of what I can eat, though with a 3 unit dose I am going to go higher at 1 hour than with the 2 unit dose (and 40 grams of carbs, tops) which keeps me pretty flat.

With this regimen I can eat pretty much “anything” but not a lot of it.

The other half of making this work is to learn the carb counts of the foods you eat. Get a food scale and measure everything you eat for a couple months. Get some software to look up the exact carb counts of the food you eat (I use LifeForm, others use Fitday).

It takes a few months to learn these values, but eventually it becomes automatic.

Finding that safe level is an individual thing. I’d advise starting at the bottom–find out what 1 unit will cover, carb wise, and eat at that level of carb intake for a few weeks to give your body a chance to calm down and get over the insulin resistance you have probably created with the extreme blood sugar swings.

Then you can move to 2 units and find what that covers.

Work up but when you start seeing yourself going over 140 mg/dl for several hours after every meal, you’ve hit your limit. That is the magic number above which you do not want to spend a lot of time.

5

i used to be in the very same boat you are in now. i hated my diabetes and pretended it wasn’t a part of my life. i was in and out of the hospital so much the nurses all knew me as soon as i came in. the fact of the matter is that diabetes is a part of our lives, but that’s just it. it’s a part. it is not the whole of us, but something that will always be with us, even if we find a cure. the lessons we learn now and the way that we treat our bodies will stay with us. by accepting that diabetes is one part of your life you might be able to stop it from ruling you and gaining back control.

i was seeing a therapist a couple of years ago who planted the first seeds of change in me. every couple of weeks we would set a goal and once that goal had become habit, we would make a new one. the first step i recomend is making checking your blood sugars a habit. start as small as you’d like. in fact, i encourage it. set your goals too lofty and you will become overwhelmed by them. it can take time to get used to doing things differently.

just vow to yourself to check before breakfast and bedtime if that would be good for you. don’t beat yourself up for the readings, they will improve with time. once you are doing that every day, set a new goal. check before every meal or make that chocolate bar a once a week thing (you can have treats, but realize that the definition of a treat is something special not to be indulged in every day).

step by step you can accoplish your goals and begin to feel so much better. i will give you fair warning that as you sugars improve having a “normal” blood sugar might feel rotten because your body is used to high numbers. trust me though, you will adjust and be so happy for the change. if you ever need any adive or encouragement, i’d love to hear from you. this process is kind of like quitting smoking. it’s a long road and you might fall of the wagon sometimes, but it will happen if you just keep at it. good luck and i hope to hear from you and the progress you’ve made.

6

Rebekah, Debb is right. You’ve taken a couple of huge steps already. Celebrate those.

I’ve been where you’ve been (and I also tend toward long posts, so forgive me please). The biggest lies I told myself (and I still have trouble admitting they were lies) were “I can pretty much tell where my sugar is, so testing isn’t necessary” and “I can just correct it with insulin or candy if I was off and it won’t be a big deal.” Well, the big deal was what those swings started to do to my body. After my kidney stones, which could have been coincidence (another lie?), I saw a urologist. He said my bladder was all inflamed, which is why I had abdominal pain a lot. He said that stress could do that. I said, “well, I am a high stress person.” He said, no, not stress from life - stress from an autoimmune disease on your body over time. I was 24. I had had diabetes 14 years at that point. I hadn’t really thought about slow, tiny, cumulative effects - only the big ugly complications I had managed to dodge.

Now at the age of 28, trying to get ready to get pregnant, I realize that every single individual swing of high or low does damage. A single high blood sugar, if I were pregnant, would rob my developing child of oxygen during its spinal cord and brain development. If it can do that, what else does a single high do to my body? They were hurting my eyes…and surely my nerves were next.

I made a commitment not to bolus on my pump for any food without a corresponding blood sugar reading. It made a world of difference. My body, though stressed, has healed itself. My blood vessels that were quietly bursting in my retinas have healed so well that my new eye doctor swears I never had any damage. My A1C is lower with each visit. My bladder never hurts and I haven’t had a kidney stone in a couple years. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but forcing myself to know my REAL numbers - not my assumed, presumed, I’m-probably-here numbers - let me have control again.

And that’s the thing. I have been saying recently that I thought I was shutting diabetes up and putting it in the backseat so I could drive my own life, but that wasn’t what I was actually doing. Instead, I was handing diabetes the keys and kicking back with my eyes closed for a little nap in the passenger seat, trusting it to drive itself. It would hit a tree, swerve back onto the road, hit some small children, drive through a lake, and I slept through it. When I got out and saw the shape of the car, I knew I’d made a mistake. You may not feel like being the designated driver every night, but you’re the only one in the relationship who knows how to drive. So you have to drive even when you don’t wanna. But once you get on the right road, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be so proud of how far you’ve come. And you should be proud already. Stop the shame. Today is a new day.

7

Rebekah,

On some level, we can ALL relate!!! I think that the advice that you received it good-- so I won’t repeat it, but just add that I did not have very good control over my diabetes for the first few years that I was diagnosed. This was also because I got the advice that I can eat ANYTHING.

SO I ate chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

The reason that my A1c was never horrible was because I checked often. Minimum of 6 times a day. I almost always checked two hours after the chocolate bar to see if I gave enough insulin. If I didn’t then I corrected.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD MODEL FOR TIGHT CONTROL. It might just be a first step, like Scott suggested.

Some people make sudden changes to their diet successfully. Others do better with gradual and long term changes. Think about what you could do best.

I still eat chocolate, but NOW I eat 10-20g as dessert after lunch. I give the insulin for it with my lunch bolus, but I wait an hour after lunch to eat it. I have found that I have been able to keep my blood sugars stable with this. BUT now I am even thinking of giving that up… for tighter control.

So the step by step approach worked for me :slight_smile:

8

Rebekah,

I can relate to the “eat anything you want” I was told basically the same thing and I took it very literally…I went crazy eating all sorts of things I felt deprived of when I had been misdiagnosed as a T2…to me the insulin was my savior! I went through 2 1/2 insulin pens in the first month!! My saving grace is that I am soooo cheap. Now I use one per month. I started asking myself if a particular food was worth “spending” insulin for. Sure, I can have that Wendy’s Frosty but is it worth 10 units of insulin?? In order not to feel deprived I made compromises and modifications by looking for similar foods I love but lower carb versions with more fiber and protien. I switched from white carbs to brown: rice, pasta bread etc… and add more veggies. Instead of candy bars I might have a protien bar high in fiber and vitamins. I at least feel like I am getting more out of it than empty calories. (Not sure if you have them in the UK but Snickers makes a nutrition bar and an energy bar) They are the best I have had!

I agree with everyone else though; start with small goals and celebrate everytime you meet them…Heck I celebrate even when I get close! Don’t beat yourself up…everyday is a new day to start over.

Please keep us posted on your progress!

9

As you can see :slight_smile: You have tremendous support & postive feedback.

We’ve all had our own moments of being in denial of our diabetes. Incremental steps help get you back on the right path so you feel good about you.

Tu Diabetes is a great place to keep voicing your concerns & your triumuphs because it assists with the need to be heard, acknowledged, and justified so hopefully you don’t reach for all the emotional goodies a.k.a sweets & snack food.

It’s great to see everyone reach out & we know we are not alone with all the challenges of being diabetic. I know I have my ups & downs and don’t always “choose” right either, but I keep hopping back on and get a little further each time by eating better, testing more often, excercising more, and yada - yada LOL since it all incorporates into our daily management and can be overwhelming.

Make 1 goal and then you’ll get to the next goal and before you know it - your are sitting pretty with your diabetes :slight_smile:

10

I pretty much ignored my diabetes for the first 5 years that I had it. I found that getting a meter in which I could test on my arm helped me with testing. After I started testing and seeing my numbers it really started effecting what I ate. I know some people will say that testing on your arm is not as good as testing on your fingers but anything that will help you test and take care of your diabetes is better than nothing. I hope you realize that you are not alone and a lot of us have struggled with our diabetes. It really sucks sometimes.

11

Rebekah-

Don’t get down on yourself! We’ve been there and done that…just like Scott said graudually get yourself in a routine. I ignored my diabetes for 2 months…took meds…not testing…lesson learned…you can’t go back.

Think and plan for the future, you have a great support system here! Find what works best for you…
remeber…“diabetes doesn’t control me, I can control it”

Cherise

12

Rebekah,we’re all glad you’re back. Now you know…that route didn’t feel good and you’re getting ready to make a change or two. Any little thing you can do for your health is better than not doing it. It sounds as though you’ve had it under control in the past…you know you can do it again. We’re all rooting for you. Keep us posted.

13

Hello Rebekah Humphrey:

How will you respond best? The carrot and stick, the militant DIABETIC DRILL INSTRUCTOR, the nudging from people who care. Something from us here???

You tell us what method works on YOU the best when you need to do something that is not fun, pleasurable, etc. What approach gets through to you???

Stuart

14

Or try that old dieter’s trick of allowing yourself a weekend “cheat” day. You might not trust yourself to have a choc cake in the house, but know that on the weekend you can go out and have a piece. I find that I pretty much stick to my low carb ways, even if I give myself that out. The flexibility of knowing that if I am with other people on the weekend, I can go to the Mexican or Italian restaurant or have a burger and a few fries when I am craving them helps a lot, however. You just need to be willing to do the BS maintenance routine.

15

Yeah, I find that the easiest way to manage. I don’t cook or keep in the house those foods which really affect my BG in anything but a tiny portion, but when I go out to eat I have some bread, fries, etc. That way I don’t feel that I am constantly having to deny myself or restrict my intake.