Personally, I don’t think there is any difference between being diagnosed 9, 10 or 11 years.
I also don’t know how many people/children actually die because of diabetes, and how many of them actually die in their 11th year with it.
What I was wondering is: Did anything happen to you at your “10 year mark”?
Thinking about it, I realized that I have to answer this question with “yes”.
I was dx at age 8. When I was 18, something I still don’t have an explanation for happened.
It was a normal day, a normal evening. I went to bed with a normal bg, neither too low nor too high (so I didn’t inject any more insulin than I did any other day). There was nothing unusual during the night.
Though, when I woke up (I assume I did, I don’t remember it), I was acting weird, shouting at my mum, arguing with her, tearing stuff in my room, and things like that. I have no memory of it. None. My memory sets in at around 10 (I was supposed to be at school at 8!) - I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, looking over to the clock and wondering why it showed a 10… I thought I was dreaming, it couldn’t be 10 already. The following 3 hours were still a complete blur but at least I was aware that I existed.
I didn’t feel well the entire day but it got better with time passing by. Probably my scariest memory (even though I do not remember most of it) concerning diabetes.
I didn’t think much about it at that time.
Later, after graduation, I dawned on me that I could easily have died that day. Nobody would have noticed until I would have been too late. Not even my mother took it as a sign of extreme low blood sugar* that her teenage daughter randomly went on a rant before school… and I can*t even blame her for it, she didn’t see me since I didn’t go downstairs to her and an argument usually isn’t a reason to check on somebody’s wellbeing.
Tested ~10:30, found myself at 30, probably already higher than it was before. Since I don’t know what I was doing all the time, it is possible that I ate a glucose tab, or that my liver eventually decided to help me out, I’ll never be able to tell.
As said above, I am not sure if that has anything to do with it happening the year I had been living with D for 10 years. But who knows?
10 year mark, nope. 20 year mark, nope nope. 30 year mark, nope nope nope. Sitll going. In those many years, a lot has changed but luckily I guess nothing remarkable has happened to make me wonder when my expiration date is coming up.
I must admit that when I first read this post-I was pretty much ready to dismiss it outright. No offence intended to you Anne-my mind just said, “No, that can’t be-it’s just coincidence” BUT-of course my mind turned to my 10th year with diabetes and then I had to sit down and reply.
I was diagnosed-T1 on September 3rd, 1975 at 9 years of age. Those first years were not easy, but not really remarkable either-those were the days of urine tests and other dark age devices. I cannot pin-point it to the day-but I can get as close as to the month-In September of 1985-I became severely Bulimic-I know because I was due to start community college that month and that did not happen because of the extremely rapid escalation of symptoms. Even the experts at the time said they had not seen an eating disorder get so severe so quickly. I went from pretty much normal eating to a constant need to binge and purge. My blood sugars were often -600+ (daily) and I was in and out of ER’s and hospitals on a weekly basis.
I could not stop-I won’t say that when September of 1986 rolled around I was over it-not by a long shot-This Saturday will be 36 years and I am still here without the “active” eating disorders. But it is nothing short of miraculous that I survived my 10 year. I just find that really interesting and I thank you for bringing it up. We never know what will help others in their struggles with this complicated disease.
I was diagnosed in November 1968 at 13… I do not recall anything of significance in November of 1978 at 23, except I was living at home with my parents, making less than $7,000 a year with a master’s degree… and I was a bit crabby about that…Remember being depressed that year, but it was due to some emotional issues that were NOt directly related to diabetes… I do not think it was a 10 year thing at all.
I would guess that this might have to do more with being a teenager with Type 1 and that the 10-year mark may just be a coincidence. There have already been studies done showing the teenage years have some of the highest mortality rates for Type 1s.
I did not have anything remarkable happen my 10th year of diabetes (I was 19-20 that year). Some of my worst lows happened before that time when I was a teenager, but nothing remarkable in that year or since. I will have my 20th year “anniversary” in five weeks.
I agree w/ Jen that it’s the young teenagers, who are starting to sow their wild oats, etc. MrsAcidRock and I are helping the 12 year old with her math. She was kvetching about the concept but once she got focused she’s smoking us on the math stuff. Scary frightening. There are a lot of smart kids who have posted that their parents still sort of run the show and I could see it being hugely risky were a mistake to be made. I recall when I was a kid just wandering around town on my bike but I didn’t get D until I was 16 and got a car shortly thereafter so I never paid any attention to it. I keeled over a few times in college, mostly the morning after wild parties without, of course, learning my lesson.
If I get a little bit off, my numbers will sometimes swoop all over the place. I usually manage to catch myself and sort of deal with it but the weights are probably lower in a 14 year old so the little bit is probably correspondingly more dangerous?
Jen and acid rock23: You both make valid and logical points. The teenage years are often full of risky behaviors. Add diabetes into the mix and it really gets scary. It is already well-established knowledge that there is a strong correlation between diabetes and eating disorders-so probably no mystery there. I guess it is normal when life altering events happen to ask why-As humans we always seem to want a reason for things-maybe so we can feel like we have more control.
Looking at it-I suppose my disease progressed so quickly for the same reasons that some people can use a drug one time and be addicted-while others use once and never again. Just the differences we have.
Probably the take-away from this is to be especially alert during those particular years and for those of us who have already made it through-well, I for one am very grateful.
I think I kept an eye on diabetes because I was running around getting blasted all over the place and didn’t want BG “events” getting in the way. Perhaps horrible “motivation” and not likely to be recommended by your endo but it seems to have worked ok?
