Have any T1 folks a suspicion that heavy stress may have been the trigger for your condition ?
I think mine is more genetics. When I was diagnosed, I had 3 of the 5 common triggers for diabetes. I do think that heavy stress can make things a little tougher when dealing with the diabetes and control. But I don’t think it is the cause… for me anyway.
Hmmm. I’ve often thought this could be the cause for me. No one in my family has it. I’m a worrywart–always have been. Even as a kid. Had some stressful family situations growing up. Who knows if this was the trigger, but I do find the topic very interesting to say the least!
Basically no history here, either (great grandmother had type 1)
I was diagnosed first semester of college, while pledging a fraternity.
Definitely a stressful time.
Sometimes, I think about whether was the cause…however, since I 100% know i will never find an answer I try not to spend too much time thinking about it.
Ryan, is there a reason I should not be flying with Type 1 that i don’t know about?
Was for me.
Some interesting discussion on this topic and like some folks here I strongly suspect that stress had a major role in my T 1 Introduction. No spring chicken also and required it an an unexpected age. Healthy,no family history of the condition, reasonably fit , however working long hours with little sleep I’m sure was a major contributor.
Ryan and other aviation interested members here , certainly changes ones flying outlook and capacity , with different countries having different regulations and requirements.
I still fly here in Australia (non-commercial) although currently ultralights or recreational aircraft they are now know down under as . It is entirely different than General aviation here although it can be done with much hoop jumping and persistence. This site http://www.pilotswithdiabetes.com/ will enlighten what is possible and currently open for diabetic pilots in various countries. Especially interesting is a an article by Roger Serong under Private flying/Australia path.
I do think that pilots are ideal for disciplines needed for diabetic management , they are natural goal setters, this is proved in every flight plan they make , already knowing the end result (Taking off from point A and eventual landing at point B, weather and airworthiness permitting !! ) The principles of managing the stuff in between is similar in many ways to the management of diabetes.
Definitely.
No one in my immediate or extended family has type 1 and I experienced keto acidosis at the same time that my 20 year relationship ended, I’d been working long hours as a contractor and my primary client was scaling back (so I was pretty worried about $$).
Since then, I’ve more or less recovered from the relationship stress, have a stable job and … interestingly … have been able to reduce insulin intake without much of a concerted effort. Now that I’m under less stress I’m self-educating to begin experimenting more with diet and exercise (I was just diagnosed this past fall so still in a learning curve on all this)
stress makes sense because your immune system goes wacky, making way for trouble for the rest of our bodies.
Robert-
When I was Dx’d my Husband was in Iraq, stressful time for me. I don’t have a family history of diabetes. My Endo said I have the gene and could be the gene carrier. He said I must have triggered my diabetes with stress or illness. I have Type 1.5/LaDA. I do believe my diabetes was brought on by stress.
Great topic!
Cherise
I think stress was a trigger for me. No family history, diagnosed at 34 after a divorce.
Thank you Cherise, as a former Aussie military member I can appreciate what you went through at that time and also your hubby would have been very concerned being so far away,
Regards Robert
Doctor’s don’t know what “triggered” me for sure, but we have a good guess. Pneumonia. Supposedly, when I had pneumonia, it went and killed my pancreas. But… now I’m try to think of what kind of stress was in my life over the summer… hm…
Hmmm not sure but can be a factor definitely… I was diagnosed at 5 years old, and everyone else in my family were diagnosed as T2 not T1. Two weeks before diagnosis, I was admitted to the hospital for internal bleeding (was throwing up blood). I was in the hospital a week, went home for a week, and then back to the hospital (we didn’t actually find out what’s wrong with me until a few days after, I lived in Indonesia at the time and diabetes was considered an adult disease, not a kiddie one!).
Someone had interesting research about the possibility of T1 being connected to certain bacteria (or rather, the absence of bacteria). It was published in the latest Diabetes Forecast (the one with Randy Jackson on the cover). The premise was that the researcher found people in clean, developed countries, have more chances of getting allergies and stuff. But people in 3rd world countries don’t seem to have as many allergies (I find this true in my case, I don’t have seasonal allergies). So, she said this might apply to T1 (this is such a short summary of her article). She got the ADA grant for research and found that mice that were kept in very sterile environments, tend to get T1 more than mice that were kept in normal lab environments. No update yet on the conclusion of the research (in terms of how it pertains to humans) but she’s still working on the theory 
Wasn’t for me. I was in 3rd grade and didn’t know the meaning of the word stress. (No family history either.) I once read someone theorized it had something to do with vaccines, but I think that was more paranoia about vaccines rather than a proven theory.
I was diagnosed with a stressful time surrounding my diagnosis:
About a 7 weeks after getting married
About 6 weeks after moving from NJ to Saint Louis
About 6 weeks after moving into my wife’s apartment
About a week before closing on a new house
About a week before moving from the apartment to the new house
About a week after flying home to NJ packing my stuff into a POD and flying back to STL
Same week I was flying to MI for work
Hmmmmm… Planning a wedding… moving 3 times …changing jobs …buying a house …and moving across country
I figured I was just stressed
Who knew???
I think, yes, stress can be an important factor. I don’t have any hard evidence, but I believe there is a link between the nervous and immune systems. I have no family history, but became hypoglycemic as a kid following stressful events and then diabetic as an adult while in an extremely bad work environment (in the past I am happy to say). It seems accepted that blood sugar is harder to control under stress so if it matters in the short term why not in the long? I say yes…
I too have to agree about being DX during stressful times. I had just given birth to my second child, the first was only 20 months, lost both of my Grandparents (more my parents than my actual parents), being tested for MS, husband and I were having a VERY difficult time, then to top it off I couldn’t see a foot in frint of me. Here I thought all the tiredness and runs to the potty ment I was expectiong again, nope, just a lifelong disease.
I do notice that when stress rises, my BS drops, fast.
I think stress definitely triggered it. At the time of my diagnosis, I was working for a very abusive boss, and my, beautiful and close to me like a parent, grandmother was getting sick and died. I think that pushed it over the edge. I do find that when I am under stress, my blood sugar sky rockets.
I was diagnosed at age 4 1/2, so I think in my case it was more genetics. I do know that stress has a tendency to increase blood sugars in most people.
stress?
I don’t think so here… I was showing signs when I was 6, and was pretty unstressed as a 6 year old. Granted, I had a new strep infection like every other week back then, so I tend to want to lay blame on that.
Ivan!