Hello!
Once again, I’m sorry for my absence, but I have the most legitimate reason of them all this time!
About a week and a half ago, I was rushed into hospital, suffering from a severe form of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which led to a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. It’s the ‘unlucky’ type rather than the lifestyle type, but we have no diabetes in the family, which is bizarre. Of COURSE it’d be me, the needle-phobic and blood-phobic, who’d end up having to test her blood sugar and administer injections four times a day for the rest of my life!
I ended up in intensive care rigged up to various drips for a few days, before moving onto the ward, where I basically learnt how to be a diabetic. Hospital food is nowhere near as bad as people say, but I was ravenously hungry all the time. In the run up to the DKA and diagnosis, I’d lost a lot of weight, and the doctors estimated that I was around 7 stone when I arrived at the hospital. This is because the pancreas can’t produce insulin, a fat-storing hormone, so my body went into emergency mode, and started breaking down fat for energy. When the body has to resort to using fat for energy, it releases ketones, which are highly toxic, and cause the ketoacidosis. My blood was really acidic, and if I’d left it any longer it would’ve started to attack my kidneys and liver. Apparently it’s possible that people with good immune systems MIGHT be more prone to Type 1, because the immune system is so strong that it starts attacking everything. I never, ever got ill before this, so maybe there’s some truth in it.
ANYWAY. I’m thinking of starting a new blog about all this, because it’s obviously a HUGE part of my life now, and I need to vent. I don’t know any other diabetics, so maybe someone will find my blog and be willing to talk to me. I have so many questions, and there’s only so much Dr Google can teach me!
On a lighter note, I found out yesterday that I got an A in my NCTJ portfolio. Good news at last! I suppose the point of this post is pretty much to say that the NCTJ is finally, finally over, and I now know that I’m definitely a gold standard journalist! I thought I should let you know about the big change in my life as well though, as an explanation for my erratic blogging patterns of late.
Kayleigh
Hello Hygge 
Thanks for posting this.. It’s been a pleasure to read 🙂
Gotta roll with the punches. Best of luck to ya. I was diagnosed at age 15 after writing a paper on diabetes for a health class. 20 yrs later and I’m taking ownership of it, getting control of it instead of chasing it. Its something you’ll always have, but don’t let it ruin a thing.
I’m leaving a few links to look up. Might be scary to look at alternative ways to help manage diabetes when you’re so new to it, but it might give you some things to think about. I’ve found staying away from gluten and most anything wheat based help leads to better control, less insulin and even glucose levels.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22729336 Danish study of a newly diagnosed boy put on gluten free diet.
http://www.diabetes-book.com/ Book writen by a Dr. Bernstein who practices a low carb diet for controlling diabetes. Look up some of his lectures on youtube.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/type-1-diabetes-paleo-primal/#axzz2BYUAH7kW
Thanks! How long would you say it took you to properly ‘settle in’ to diabetes?
I’ll take a look at the links you’ve suggested too. I’ve actually been looking into the paleo diet, do you follow it?
Mentally I settled into it fast. I knew a month before I was diagnosed plus being a kid makes it easy. Physically it’s an on and off thing. The first year I did things exactly like they said, weight the food, made proper portions, etc but after a year I was sick of it and winged it for the next 19 yrs. There have been times when I’ve been anal about needing to know what my blood sugar levels were, other times I could go for days and not care. If I felt fine, I was fine. It took a few years for my beta cells to be completely destroyed, while some still worked it was easier to control things, after they stopped things got more chaotic.
Anytime I go through a major change environmentally or stress wise, it affects the blood sugars. Sleep is also a MAJOR factor. I notice more insulin resistance if I get 5-6 hours and need more insulin than if I get 8 hrs. Heat also affects me, insulin works faster and better when its hot, I know of others who have the opposite effect with heat.
What this all comes down too, is that you’ll have to pay attention to how things react to your body more than you ever have in the past. You’ll have to get to know your bodies rhythms and adjust to them, you’ll notice these change as you get older.
I went paleo 3 weeks ago today, yay!. The first two and half weeks were awesome, went from at least 4 shots a day down to 2. Insulin dropped by just over 50%. Blood sugars went up earlier this week as I really entered Ketosis, running my body off of ketones (fat) more than glucose. It’ll take a few weeks to get my body adjusted to this old, but new fuel source and then I should be back to normal. Its easy for me to make this adjustment because I’ve been dealing with this for so long. I know what to look for and how to adjust.
If you decide to give paleo a try, go slow. Your doctors probably won’t recommend it, but hopefully they’ll be open to it. Since you haven’t been a diabetic very long, you may want to wait a while before you do go full on paleo or any other low carb diet. Get where you are comfortable with being a diabetic and then look at ways to take control of it. If you do decide its good for you to start a diet soon, go slow and adjust into it. You don’t want to make too big a change and not know how it’ll affect your insulin needs.
How to lower blood sugar without medications is the beginning of a new way of living. Most diet programs available today could be adapted to keeping your blood sugar in control. However, you must plan your calorie intake each day to match what your caregiver has prescribed for you whether it is 1200 calories or even 2000 calories depending on your body size, gender and activity level. So to get started let’s discuss implementing your sugar control diet.Meal plan or meal planning is necessary to successfully control blood sugar while becoming healthy from what you eat. The first step is to plan your schedule for Meals. Optimal results are obtained by eating: Breakfast, a mid-morning snack, Lunch, an afternoon snack, Dinner and a “just before bedtime snack”. In other words 6 “meals” each day.`
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