Oh, Emily, I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this. You’ll get plenty of good advice and support from this website, but is there a T1 support group in your area? Can you afford an appointment or three with a reputable certified diabetes educator? Do you have any books?
Hang in there and here’s a big (((hug))). It takes a while, but it will get easier with time (well, most of the time.) Good idea to hold off on driving until you get things a bit settled down.
Take care!
When you’ve been high for a long while, being normal again can “feel low” but it’s not. Just keep testing, testing, testing. Even ten or twelve times per day is not too much. Write it down in a log (just a sheet of paper with times is fine to start) and you’ll start to see patterns, eventually.
You can have a small portion of baked potato once you get the hang of it, just maybe not one that is larger than your head, eh? ;0)
A good quality food scale to use at home is a great – even a vital – investment. When you use it every day at home, you eventually learn to eye-ball portions. It’s an excellent learning tool.
If you get the wonderful book, Think Like a Pancreas, he has the carbs per gram for various foods in the back of the book (28.4 grams in an ounce) and you can also look up lots of stuff on-line (I like the Calorie King website). Keep a log of your favorite foods, portions and grams of carbs. Pretty soon you’ll have many of those memorized, too. If you’re having trouble judging portions at first, you can inject after you eat, but it’s better if you can inject before, to give the insulin time to work – unless you are already low, then you should wait and inject your bolus after you eat.
For example, my doctor told me that if I’m below 70, to eat first and then inject two units less than I would normally have injected for that meal. It varies per person and there is quite a bit of trial and error to it, so develop a relationship if you can with a doctor or certified diabetes educator who will help you figure it out for YOUR body.
Emily,
A little something from an old timer. Dx’d 7-6-58 at the age of 3. My daughter was in the same position as you. She was Dx’d 5-4-2006 at the age of 23 during her UCONN senior finals. I talked with her alot (still do) and told her that there are good days and bad. I feel what your are going thru at the transitional phase and you need to step back and think for a while. As far as going out to dinner? Try to eat low carb. A salad just a steak??? I used to shot up at the table as I was getting ready to eat b4 I started a pump 3 1/2 years ago.
Ray
Oh honey your soooo new to this aren’t you. Take a deep breath in then blow out. now do so again. You’ve come to the right place. Here you will have loads of ppl to talk to. There’s some (loads) out there who have fought this and have (after quite awhile) came here to have other’s to talk to. Your not alone!!! Just keep telling yourself I CAN DO THIS!!! Look if I’ve done this for almost 38 years you can too! just relax your with us now
Sent you home that night. Wow. No wonder.
As you’re coming down from being so high for (probably, I don’t know what your numbers were when you ended up in the ER) so long, you’re going to feel low. That’s very normal.
If you’re testing and logging, taking your insulin as directed and are prepared for hypos, you’re doing everything you can right now. And you ARE handling this very well. It’s a LOT to deal with.
You’ll come to know your body so very well, but diabetes is an on-going challenge. You just have to be resilient. Get yourself some good diabetes education, and follow up on getting that support. You may not need it forever, but it can really help to have people to lean on in the beginning. For now, we’re here in cyber diabetes-land if you need us. 
I’m sort of new at this too. Some tips I’ve found to be helpful:
Hi. Welcome. Sorry to hear about your dx. When I was five days in, they were just putting me back on solids and moving me from the ICU. sigh. Diabetes is different for everyone.
I’m sorry you’re feeling overwhelmed. Actually, running high can contribute to that. Which is annoying–right out of the hospital, I kept having things run around my head–how was I going to do this, what random body parts are going to fail next . . . and getting down to normal blood sugars did a lot to improve my attitude. And I still haven’t lost any random body parts.
However, it took about two months before I started seeing numbers that were consistantly in the 80-120 range. My CDE explained it to me like this: For however long you’ve been losing beta function, your blood sugar has been running high, and your body has avoided dealing with it by stashing it in out of the way places. Now that it can finally deal with the glucose like it wanted to in the first place, it’s releasing the stash from before. So your injections are coping with the food you eat and random glucose infusions . . . I’d be surprised if you were not confused.
Which means, your numbers are probably going to be difficult at first. And that’s ok. You’re doing what you can. Stress will only raise your bloodsugar. You’ve found a support group of other people with diabetes, which is more than I had at dx. I had love and support, but not real understanding of how I felt about the situation.
Good luck. And so sorry.
When I got online yesterday I was so upset and unsure about everything. Thank you to everyone that gave me advice, support, and encouragement. It made an unbelievable difference and brought me out of my funk. THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE. I look forward to talking more with everyone here and learning tons from all of your wisdom:)
-Emily
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I’m very glad you feel better Emily!
Of course, I am wildly curious as to how dinner went, did bf dad pass out when you broke out your works? Since you are here bright and early, I’ll assume you didn’t pass out or anything horrible like that?
Dinner went REALLY well. We went to Applebee’s just because I was able to look at the menu online and pick out a meal before we went. I got a steak, veggies, and subbed the baked potato for a salad. I tested and injected at the table in my lap. I tried to be as unnoticeable as possible but everyone at the table got super quite. My boyfriend tried to make it all casual though which was nice. My numbers didn’t get high after so I must have done ok picking out food! It sucked when everyone was picking out an appetizer though because everything was WAY too sugary or carby for me to have. It went great overall and I’m super happy that now I feel like it can be done!
That’s fantastic!! I’m glad you put diabetes in its place!
Good for you, Emily! Eating out is one of the harder things about Type 1 to me, so consider yourself highly successful!! Don’t hesitate to ask for substitutions from the menu. Like if there is an appetizer with croutons, just ask for it minus the croutons or whatever, so you don’t have to sit there waiting and feeling weird while everyone eats theirs. The injecting at the table thing will get easier for you and for the people who are now past their first time “seeing” it.
I’m glad you’re feeling much better! Things do get easier with time.
ROCK star.
Glad to hear that your night out to dinner went well.
When the wife and I go to Applebee’s, we often get the 2 for $20 deal that they have. I also often order a steak and veggies with a salad. My wife gets to pick the appetizer which she can have all to herself. However, for my appetizer, I often choose the French onion soup. At 16 carbs, it will be my only major carb choice for the meal. It’s yummy, and I can live with that.
YOU ROCK!!!
For some reason today I hit a bleeding spot every time. I think I want to try a pump eventually too. I thought it sounded really inconvenient to always have it on at first but it’s sounding better and better…
The diabetes diagnosis is emotional and somewhat traumatic. Healthcare professionals encourage us to be perfect diabetics. Most of those are not type 1 diabetics, so they don’t have any idea how unreasonable that is.
Think Like a Pancreas is phenomenal! This book describes the ins and ous of type 1 and talks about how to take one step at at time so you can handle it. I was diagnosed in 1984 with type 1 when I was 12. I read this book a few years ago and it changed my life.
Good luck, and we are here for you. Also, there is a local meetup.com group for type 1 adult diabetics here in Sacramento, CA. You should see if there is something similar there in VA.
I don’t have much to add to this thread, but I just wanted to assure you that 1) you’re in the right place and 2) it gets easier. D is a tricky disease and so much of it is “person specific” (in that what works for you may not work for someone else). But here on TuD you will meet TONS of people with T1D who, quite frankly, will likely have better advice than any endo can give you. So much of dealing with T1D is trial and error too (at least it always has been for me).
Have you read “Think Like a Pancreas” yet? If you haven’t get that book NOW. It’s a great general guide for dealing with D. If you’re considering a pump, you should also read “Pumping Insulin.”
Nutritionists can be helpful, but don’t count on getting all your issues solved in that visit. Personally, I find dieticians/nutritionists not terribly helpful in dealing with T1D. You need to really focus on not just counting the carbs you eat, but paying attention to what you eat and logging the results. For example, you will soon discover that some foods cause you to spike more than others. These patterns are generally only apparent once you’re logging all your info. If you have an iphone or Droid, look into getting an app that will allow you to log not just your BGs, but also your insulin doses, carb intake, exercise, and other things. There are SO MANY THINGS that affect your BG. Hormones are another big one - my BG goes up fairly high before my period, but then comes crashing down the day of my period (so much so that I can get by with just my basal insulin for like 7-12 hours).
Read as much as you can online and when you go to your next endo appointment, come prepared with a LIST of questions. I know doctors are all about rushing you out of their office as fast as they can, but I have found if I go in with a list and make it a point to get through that list, I can hold on to the doc for a little bit longer.
Again, remember that it does get better. T1D is a HUGE adjustment, but there are plenty of folks who have been living with it for decades and we’re doing just fine