Hi all! (if anyone reads this). My name is Erin & I was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in May 1996 at the age of 13. I'm sure it started for me the way it did for most of the Type I's out there, but I was fortunate enough to come from a family full of Type II's that caught on early & I never ended up being hospitalized for it.
Up until September of 2005 I never took care of myself properly. I was lazy & never could seem to remember to take my injections no matter how brightly colored the sign on the fridge that said "Insulin" was. I'm lucky in that I had an extremely long honeymoon period & being flippant about my diabetes didn't cause any long term effects.
When I was going to the doctor (while in college & before) my A1c's were always in the 10's but neither my Mother or myself had ever really understood what the number meant & they never were hard enough on me about it. They never tried to scare me because I was "just a kid".
I realize now that neither my Mother or I were well informed & I always relied on her to be the informed one & she never really had a clue.
In September of 2005 I found out I was pregnant. It was unexpected & I was not under any form of control. It snapped me reality & I realized that I was no longer jepordizing just my health but also that of my unborn child. I immediatly started counting carbs & using my Lantus & Humalog properly. I did bring down my BS's very quickly. At 8 weeks pregnant I had a 7.4 A1c, that was with a full month of lows from the amount of insulin I was using to drop it & still being uneducated about my control. I know for sure it would have been far higher.
In October 2005 I found a site called DiabeticMommy. It has been my saving grace. Its a community of women that are diabetic (all types including gestational) & have babies, want babies are waiting for babies to come, etc. It was then that I really started to understand just what I needed to do in order to keep myself healthy.
I pride myself on the fact I brought my A1c as low as 5.1% during my pregnancy. I however, battled high blood pressure (which I never had before) several times during my pregnancy. At 36 weeks along even though the baby would be early, I was told she needed to come out. I was induced on my 23rd birthday (unplanned) & it was expected I would have her a couple days later.
Shortly after they started the induction she wasn't responding well & I ended up having an emergency-ish (haha) C-section that very night. So I had Isis Laura on April 23rd, 2006 at 23:46 on my 23rd birthday!
Since then my control has continued to do well, my current A1c of 6.5% is the highest I have seen since intially getting it under control. However, lately I have been struggling & I'm not sure why. I have very high resistence right now, I think due to the extra weight I am carrying due to the baby.
I have tried Smylin but it didn't agree with me & gave me some strange side effects. I have also been on Metformin lately, but again it really hurts my stomach.
In September of 2006 I went on an Animas Insulin pump & I love it to death. It has really changed my life & on top of allowing me to maintain my control I feel like I have freedoms that i didn't have previously (although I never really feel "free" so to speak).