In Control

If you have discovered my blog from the article in Abbott's In Control Magazine - Welcome. I hope you enjoy what you see. Please leave me a comment to say hello. Also check out some of the blogs I have listed down the right hand side, mostly American but some really good ones there, especially SixUntilMe.

Fame at last???

I thought I'd better come on over and update this blog. I have let it - and my diabetes - drift for a few months (so what's new you cry!).

What's new is that I have been contacted by a diabetes magazine who may feature my blog in an article about diabetes social networks. Now I'm sure there are much better blogs than mine out there to feature but it's nice to be asked. I have answered some questions for them so we'll see what happens! 'Citin'!!

Ulgh, where does the time go.

Well circumstances have gotten in the way a bit lately and so I have had to postpone my operation for a month. I will now be going on 28th September. At least it is not something urgent that needs to be sorted out. And I'm only getting it done so that I can knit again!!

My husband is currently having some tests which are a bit scary and have taken up a lot of our thinking time, hence the blogging break. Hopefully we will be getting some good news on that front at the end of the week. Can't say anymore until then.

Diabetes daily

I have just had my blog added to the Diabetes Daily site. Hopefully I'll get a few more visitors now. If you have come over from there, please feel free to leave me a comment, thanks.

Other diabetes blogs - friend or foe?

Over the last week or so, since I decided to blog about my diabetes, I have been checking out other people's. There are some good ones out there and some of the ones I like I have listed in my sidebar so I can find them again easily.

What I'm not sure about is if it is a good idea to read other people's blogs or not.

On the one hand, it is wonderful to know that there are other people out there who are going through the same as you. People who understand the ups and downs, and who also have them too. I used to think I was the only person without a HbA1c of 6.5 or less, or who was frightened of lows. I now know I'm not. This is very reassuring. It is also lovely to get comments on my blog from total strangers who are very friendly and helpful. This is only my 5th post and I have already had 9 comments. Thank you to all who have left them.

On the other hand, I have been reading about things that have possibly made me a bit more nervous about my condition. People passing out and waking up in the hospital for instance. This is one of my worst fears (apart from not waking up at all!!) and to be reminded that it does happen is probably not something I want to read. I have never passed out from a hypo, probably because I keep my sugars too high on purpose, and check far too many times a day.

There are also the people who are really good at being a diabetic and it makes me feel bad that I am struggling so much with it.

I will keep reading though, because as my husband says, these people are still around to blog about it, they did recover from these hypos. And I will too.

History of my diabetes

Today I found a diabetes blog called Diabetes-Wise. It has inspired me to start this blog. For some reason I didn't think to look for any diabetes related blogs until today. Doh!! This one is very good from what I have read so far, I was almost brought to tears by one of the posts, and there are loads of links down the side to other blogs which I have yet to check out.

Anyway, my current situation is not good. I have "lost the plot" as they say. And it is all going on for far too long. A bit of history is required here methinks............

• February 1987 - diagnosed with IDDM aged 18. Started on one insulin injection per day. A few weeks later I went up to 2 injections per day. I was taught the basics of the "exchange system" of carb counting, ie 1 medium apple, 1 egg sized potato = 1 exchange, etc, eat 4 exchanges for breakfast, 6 at lunch blah blah. And snack, snack, snack!!
• June 1987 - retook the A-levels that I had failed the year before.
• October 1987 - went to university in Bangor, N. Wales and 2 days later met Colin. We have been together ever since. During this first year I would go to my hospital check-ups when I was home during the holidays and was told I was one of their better controlled diabetics.
• October 1988 - had a hypo during a lecture, and had to leave the room to sort it out. It went on for longer than any previous ones and in the end I had to ask my friend to come out of the lecture hall and go and see if she could get someone to help me. By pure luck she found a diabetic who brought me Ribena and sat with me until it went off. I never saw him again but I often think he was like a guardian angel.
• A few weeks later I had another hypo in another lecture and again left the room. I then began to get anxious in lectures, waiting for it to happen again, and my hypo phobia began to take hold. After Christmas I started missing lectures and by Easter I was having panic attacks and not leaving the house.
• I struggled through uni with the help of some wonderful friends who brought me lecture notes and I took my exams in sick bay, scraping a 2:2 in June 1990.
• I can't remember exactly when but I went onto MDI and insulin pens.
• Colin and I moved to Wrexham and I had to get a job. I started working in a cafe and then got a full time job in the Path Lab. I was deliberately keeping my blood sugars high to avoid hypos, by not taking enough insulin. I was anxious if the bgs went lower than 12.
• 1991 we moved back to Bangor and I got in touch with the diabetes nurses. They tried some drastic action by taking away my testing kit so that I wasn't able to check my sugars all the time as I was a bit obsessed. I had to go to them to get tested, luckily I worked in the hospital. (However, I didn't give them ALL my strips and had a secret stash that I used when I got in a panic!) That lasted about a couple of weeks.
• I saw a psychiatrist, who it turned out was diabetic, and he told me to carry a sweet in my pocket all the time. Derrrr, I carried enough sweets and lucozade to keep an army marching for weeks!!!
• 1994 - we got married.
• 1996 - we moved to Chester. The diabetes team did their best. I got referred to a clinical psychologist, who by coincidence had done his degree with Colin. He did cognitive behaviour therapy with me, but I was too frightened to do anything he told me to do, but I kept going back until he went to another job 2 years later.
• Around about this time I started getting retinopathy, and had laser treatment, which is ongoing on and off depending if I am stable at each 4 monthly visit. I also got high cholesterol and went onto statins.
• 2003 - We paid privately for me to see a psychotherapist who did EMDR. This was fairly successful and made me think about things in a different way. This also helped when I was given the go ahead for pump therapy in 2004.
• August 2004 - I went on the pump. It was a revelation and I thought the answer to all my problems. But no, the actual psychological problem of the fear and anxiety was still there. My HbA1cs did improve from 9.9 to 8.3.
• Meanwhile, I started to have unexplained bouts of vomiting and had a test which discovered I had gastroparesis. Sometimes my stomach just doesn't absorb the food in it, so my bgs drop dramatically. So I am now keeping my bgs high just incase the food I've just eaten doesn't absorb but the insulin is in and working. I am testing too many times, and my last HbA1c was 10.5. I'm due another one this week for my review in a couple of weeks. I know it will be even higher.
• I am going to be 39 in August and my biological clock is TICKING!!

So the situation is, to boil it down, I am scared of hypos and keep my bgs too high to avoid them. This is causing me problems with the onset of complications, ie gastroparesis and retinopathy, and preventing me from starting a family.

I started off using a Disetronic DtronPlus but have now upgraded to a Accu-Chek Spirit which has a few more features.

I am going to visit other people's blogs and leave comments in the hope that they will possibly be curious to have a read of mine and offer any insights into what I can do. Any help greatly appreciated, thanks.