How to Cope

Hi I am a type 1 diabetic and have been for nearly fifteen years now. I have definitely had my ups and downs through these fifteen years. I would get to the stage where i just didn't want to think about my diabetes. I would always take my insulin, but would go through periods where I wouldn't check my blood sugars for weeks on end. I have been with my boyfriend for ten years and a couple of months ago got married. He has always been so supportive, understanding and cares so much about me. However I have had times when I have had really bad hypos and my husband knows all about it and what to do. It worries him to death to see me like this. I hate worrying him, but sometimes I just can't help having hypos no matter what I do. Until recently I haven't had any bad symptoms when my blood sugar has been high apart from feeling a bit tired and thirsty. I played golf the other day for the Daibetes charity day and silly me drank beer throughout the entire day. I was walking home with my husband and good friend when my legs just collapsed under me. This i don't remember. I went to bed and started screaming as I was told the next morning that I was hallucinating people in my bedroom. i then shoved my husband and was tapping my hands on the bed. I don't have any recollection of this. I was told all about this by my husband the next morning. This has never happenned to me before and it scares me and depresses me that this has happenned. This really worried my husband and I hate worrying him. It makes me feel so depressed about having diabetes and the things we go through day to day. I am usually very positive about my diabetes and don't let it rule my life. There is people much worse of then me and at least this is treatable. But this has really upset me. I do try hard to control my diabetes. Just wanted to talk to some one about this and was wondering if anyone has gone through the same thing.

Hi Rosey, I'm sorry there hasn't been anyone around much today to talk to, but I'm here now.

Your experience must have been truly frightening for you (I had a similar thing happen to me a couple of years ago, but for totally different reasons) and I can understand how upset it has made you.
The first thing you need to do, as I think you already have, is to recognise what set this off - Beer! So you know for future reference that beer is pretty much a no-go area.

The second thing I'd like to say is, your husband married you because he loves YOU, and in your case it means he accepts that you're a Diabetic. Part of loving someone means worrying about them too. I'm married to a T2 and I worry about him constantly as he works away so I can't check up on him all the time.

I have Type 1 Brittle Asthma (just one of my illnesses ) and after an extreme attack I was given Ketamin to put me into a coma to give my lungs time to recover. Two years later I'm still finding out, from the family, the things I did as I hallucinated for three weeks after they brought me round. It is very frightening to lose control like that, but I was in a safe place and was cared for. Just as you were!

Have you spoken to your husband about your worries?
Have you been to the Diabetes Clinic recently? You may need to have your meds adjusted if you have been having new problems recently.

I really wish that I could be more help, but we are always popping in here and we will always listen, even if we can't give much practical help.

Hi there Rosey (you have a very pretty name!)
Welcome to our board, thanks for joining! I know how you feel. My diabetes has been getting me down recently - and like Clare I have other stuff to deal with along with the dreaded-D, sometimes it feels like it's all getting on top of you and it's hard to make it through the day without saying "oh sod it" and just giving up on it all. However, my advice would be - take each day at a time. Try and start each day a fresh - like a clean exercise book at school. Find something in each day to make you happy. TRY and look after yourself and forgive the stuff you either have no control over (i.e. the hallucinations) and also the stuff you do when you say "oh sod it" and have a beer! Life also has to been seen as a whole too - have I done something useful this year? Have I made someone happy this month? What can I plan for the future for those who love me and care for me to show them how I appreciate them?

Well I am waffling but I hope you come back to visit and let us know how you are feeling. Keep yer chin up, chuck!

Hi Rosey,
Well it's been an age since I was here (I had a computer virus, reformat, lost the page etc etc).
Isn't diabetes fickle. I'm well into my 35-36th year with it. I have to be honest, I have always hated it, never accepted it, fight battles with it day in- day out. Rosey, your post made me smile, believe me my hypo's over the years have been monumental. I've been held down by 5 people, I was thrashing about and throwing people about like they were fairy light, instead of fully grown men (rugby playing men at that one time). I always thank my lucky stars that I never remembered my hypo's when I was talking human insulin, the embarrassment would have killed me in itself. I have punched and kicked my husband (bless him) many a time - haven't hallucinated (well not that I remember). I've drunk myself into oblivion sometimes (especially the early years, never caused me to hypo though, usually did that when I didn't eat and then hit the beer.
I too sometimes feel like a burden for my other half, he has only ever known me as a diabetic, I however remember not being a diabetic. I have collapsed in more places than I can remember (in my early days) one time I even bit someone who thought it was a good idea to stop me choking on my tongue by sticking their finger in my mouth, big mistake, besides I was choking in the first place. Like I say I don't remember any of it - thank goodness. However, when I finally got switched back on to animal insulin my hypo's are less intense, I now get warning signs again, I don't fit and thrash about any more, so all in all - nicer hypo's (did I really say that).
Rosey, don't worry too much our partner's are used to us, it's just part of their lives, I know we fret and worry, but they don't seem too other than they hate to see us distressed. Life and diabetes just don't mix some times!

Hi Junglegirl,

Welcome back

Nick

I know this is probably an old thread but I'm new here. Just reading through your posts - my daughter is 13, she has been diabetic for 3 years. She has phases where she hates her diabetes (I am sure she hates it all the time but I suppose at certain times its more obvious). I think one of the things is she knows life BEFORE diabetes and on the one hand she actually says she remembers how rotten she felt before, she says that at the time I suppose she just looked at it as "the norm", but she says on reflection she really did feel lousy, tired and just generally yeuch all the time - so her positive is that THAT side of things has improved. BUT on the downside, the blood tests, the injections, the hypos and her worst thing, not being able to just eat what she wants when she wants. MAYBE things aren'et helped by her age (hormones and all that jazz), but at times she really does lash out at hating having to ask before she can have things.
One thing I found very difficult was - I have 2 children, a son and a daughter. Now my daughter doesnt mind her brother, but he has never liked her much (sisterly love and all that), the thing I found difficult when she was diagnosed was, I felt it wrong for him to eat stuff in front of her, just openly get out a snack/choc/biscuit etc because I thought it was cruel for her to have to see that and obviously IF she saw him I'd get her yelling at me how unfair it was that he could eat what he wanted and why did she have diabetes, but by the same token I had him saying it was unfair that he couldnt have stuff because it wasn't him with diabetes, I felt very torn. I'll be honest I felt very angry at him at first, he was only 12 to be fair, and obviously sibling rivalry etc. but I felt he was so insensitive that he didnt feel sorry that she had been diagnosed, sorry that she had to inject, sorry that she had to watch what she ate. So I was not only having problems coming to terms with my daughters diabetes, helping her dealing with it, helping my husband deal with it, I was also having my son lash out at me that it wasnt HIS fault, and HE shouldnt have to go without chocolate etc, and then resenting my son for not being more considerate. But the diabetic specialist spoke to us and he said that in this situation it was very common for the sibling to feel jealous of the attention given to the diabetic child, and maybe this was his way of dealing with it????

My daughters hypos - generally (touch wood) I suppose they are mild and controlled, she knows when she is hypo and its been a case of giving insulin for a meal and then she doesnt eat it , but she has only once had a severe hypo where she collapsed to the floor and we didnt know what was going on. I was screaming at her not to fall asleep, as she seemed to want to just lie down, but then she would hit out at me and kick out at me, and scream at me, but she just wanted to sleep, I was doing anything and everything to get chocolate/glucose ANYTHING into her. Eventually I got her back up, and she had no idea what had gone on. I was on auto pilot shouting the odds at my hubby to get me stuff, he was just running for what I asked and just sitting there stunned at it all unfolding. Later we were just dazed, and then the day after I broke down - I seem to deal with it like that, delayed shock kind of thing. But LUCKILY thats the only time she has had a bad hypoe( touch wood)...when she is high, she just drinks alot and wees alot.

High Rosey,

My first time chatting on here and your post was the first I read. I have been recently diagnosed with Type 1 after going into a coma for 8 days on my Birth Day New Years Day. I understand a little of what you have gone through. I too was told by my wife and family about the violent fits and hallucinations i was having while in my coma, good thing I dont remember any of it. It was worse on my Family than it was me. My blood sugar was at 1500, yes not a typo, 1500 when I was brought to the hospital. The dr's told me I should have, could have been dead. Guess it wasnt my time yet.

So this Diabetic thing is quite new to me and it is good to here from people that have had it for many years and are still living a somewhat normal life. I have a pritty good attitude and have been really trying to keep my blood sugar under control, although the shots everyday are a pain in my stomach, lol not that bad, I think im doing good.

Still adjusting to my new life stile but its nice to know there are other people out there going through or have gone through what I am going through.

Keep up the fight Rosey!