Hi everyone! I have been stalking for a couple days and finally decided to just join up and get some support.
I am 27 years old and I have been T1 for 13 years this month. Just in the past two months I have really started to focus on my health and take care of myself the way I know I should. I've never been on a pump, always MDI (first mixing insulin, then switching to pens, now on Lantus and Apidra vials). My doctor first told me I was too well controlled to need a pump. As a 15 year old kid, that was fine because I didn't want to be "that weird kid with the beeper". Then my late teen years hit, I headed off to college and my control tanked. I would always do my Lantus, but never my Humalog (pre-Apidra) or check my bg. Saw another doctor a few years ago to discuss becoming a pumper and he didn't think it was right for me because I was too uncontrolled. Yes, that wasn't confusing at all!
Just went for my labs/endo appointment last week and my A1c is 6.8, which is lower than it has been in ages. My LDL has come down (from 156 to 119) without the meds he prescribed (no way on earth am I taking those!) and I know I can get it down even further just to make him happy. I think it is fine and I will also be working to get my HDL to increase. Overall, I'm doing incredibly well except for one thing---my weight has increased and I'm not happy about it. Not 5 or 10 vanity pounds that everyone worries about--20 lbs in the past three months! It's to the point where I am eating as little carbs as possible, and then only "good" carbs (fruits, veggies) or unavoidable ones. I've cut out as much processed foods as I can right now and eliminated any aspartame from my diet (I know that screws with my hormones and that's the last thing I need). I'm not a sports fanatic or anything, but I make myself walk on the treadmill at least 30 minutes, five days a week. Does that sound like too much? I continue to put on weight regardless.
I've never had complications, which is great. But I am also wanting to explore my options with pumps/pods/cgms. I've read a bunch of reviews for all the major brands and have come to the conclusion that I will just have to:
1. Find a new doctor who is going to actually listen to me and support my goals;
2. See if I can test a pod/cgm on a trial basis;
3. Talk to my insurance and find out exactly what my monthly costs will be for each.
Have any of you out there who have switched from MDI to a pump/pod found you were able to lose weight better? I was already overweight by probably 50lbs before this extra 20 decided to sneak up on me. I am increasingly uncomfortable in my own skin and just need a solution.
Thanks so much to all of you in advance for responding!
Nice to meet you! You are way ahead of where I was in sort of the same boat when I was 37, although I was up to 275 lbs at my peak. Sort of overshooting insulin to make sure my BG was ok and overeating to "catch" lows I think? I didn't pay that much attention to it. Walking on the treadmill is good. I think walking outside is better though, as I've always been partial to strolling around the neighborhood and did that when I started to make a change (c. 2005 or 6 maybe?). Exposure to green space, even narrow urban trails/ parks is good for you.
I found the pump and CGM to be very useful for losing weight. I was able to sort of see how many carbs I was eating and then figure out where I could cut them out here and there. I still like snacking a lot but swapped various things out at various times and have just kept at it.
I think that another suspect might be thyroid stuff? My endo always likes to test mine but if yours doesn't, it might be worth exploring? I'm not sure which way is the right way and which way is the wrong way but I think there's a correlation to unexplained weight gain?
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've been on generic synthroid for about a year, but can't say I noticed a difference when I took it. I've gone a couple weeks in between getting it refilled before, but my doc didn't mention anything about my thyroid levels this past visit. I have thyroid problems on my mom's side of the family. I also have a slightly enlarged thyroid, but have had that as long as I can remember.
I do try to walk down the neighborhood and back--a mile down, a mile back. I usually like to go when my sis-in-law or husband can join me though. Or when its not too hot!
The frustrating part is, I'm actually really trying hard and it feels like it's falling apart. Like that old analogy about the handful of sand--the harder you squeeze, the more slips out.
I'm hoping I'm just going through a readjustment phase for a couple months and that things will even out and improve. I have goals and places to go and things to do and I'm tired of being self-conscious, you know??
It's taken me a long time and a lot of work to get things done. It's very slow progress, up 2 lbs, down one. I do all sorts of stuff that would probably be dx'ed as OCD if I even began explaining them to anyone with an appropriate degree but I don't ask for those referrals.
Saying "I'm going to focus on my health" is the best thing to do I think? I got *really* into Tae Kwon Do for a while. It was demoralizing at times, like I felt like I should make faster progress, the boss was on my case about my weight, etc. but I just kept at it. The wheels fell off that bus in 2009 when I had to move but I had learned enough to keep at it and switched to running and have enjoyed myself a lot. But I started w/ TKD 2x/ week at my friends' park district class and added the walking in both to help avoid running out of gas in class and to get out and enjoy walking around the neighborhood. By the time I got farther along w/ TKD, to where people were like "you have to run to pass the test..." I was down to maybe 230 lbs and ran 4 miles on the treadmill when I cleaned the clothes off of it!
Even if the progress is hard to see, every time you exercise, you are making yourself stronger. I used to shop for uh, heavier doctors, since I figured they'd go easy on my but now the nurse takes my pulse and goes "oh, do you run?" b/c my resting heart rate is in the low 50s. It's cheesy but it's been very pleasant to switch from "well, you're not morbidly obese, but you're getting close" to "oh, do you run?".