When and How..
When were you diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes? How did the story go and/or how has life been since?
8 months ago
little over a year ago, I got routine blood tests, and my doctor said I was fine except that I was in danger (due to being pretty overweight) of becoming pre-diabetic. So put my butt in gear and lost, over the course of a year, about 110 lbs. I WAY passed my "goal weight" and kept losing even after I started eating poorly again...kept losing weight...peed a lot...drank tons of water...all that business. Then I got a new job that required a pre-employment physical (June 2007) which revealed blood sugars of about 650. So yeah, my doctor said I was diabetic, and through further examination found out I was type 1. My doctor said my rapid weight loss (with weight watchers) probably kick started my pancreas shut down. I said, "So wait a minute doc. I started losing weight so I wouldn't get diabetes, and now you're telling me that my weight loss is what essentially gave me diabetes?" Ridiculous irony! Crazy story!
8 months ago
i was 13 when i was diagnosed.... i was consistantly going to the doctor because i was sick all the time, which isn't normal. i could never get in to see the real doc so i saw the PA. well, the first couple times he said i probably had the flu but the more i went in he pretty much implied that i was faking it even though my mom insisted he do blood tests and check for lukemia or diabetes (she worried a lot but knew something wasn't right). i began losing weight really fast and drinking lots and lots of water, which was unlike me and i quit eating because whenever i ate, i didn't feel well. we saw the doctor again and this time he was accusing me of being anorexic! ok a few more days go by and i'm back in the office on a friday with a killer migrane and after that morning i had collapsed after a shower, he was like "it's 430 in the afternoon, what do you want me to do about it?" we were mad so we left. the weekend passes. i finally go to school monday and tuesday where i spent most of my day in the restroom whenever i wasn't almost falling asleep in class, which made my teachers mad. my mom decided she was going to check my blood sugar with my aunt's old machine (after she had passed away somehow we got the tester). she went to one store and they were out of the test strips, went to another they were out and kept looking till she found them. the meter read 440 with an error message so she called the meter company since the meter was really old and they told her to take me to the ER right away. I had lost so much weight and even muscle by that point that it had quit drinking water, yet still peeing often, could never stay awake that the ER doctor said i was hours away from going into a coma. my sugar was around 800! i was so weak and miserable, i really felt like i was going to die. my mom pretty much saved me.
8 months ago
Let's see.. I was 24, just out of college, and in the Army National Guard. Fortunately, the health plan at my new job had just kicked in before I started having symptoms.
I can pinpoint the start to almost the day.. I had flown on a business trip from Chicago to San Francisco, and the next morning just didn't feel like myself enough to go to the meeting! By noon I dragged myself out of the hotel, and then I felt better that evening and did the usual regimen of checking out all the best restaurants in town that week. By the time I flew home on Friday, I was guzzling all the water I could get ahold of, or coke, or pretty much any liquid. And I noticed that water suddenly tasted very sweet to me.
Of course, I had no idea what was going on, and it was another month before I finally made an appointment to see my doctor. In that month, I lost 20 lbs (down to a skeletal-for-me 118), and had symptoms of a pounding heart, confusion, inability to focus (even while driving!_, exhaustion, and thirst.. plus 10-times-daily bathroom trips, with stops at the water fountain both ways. The day of my doctor appointment, I called off work because I was so nauseated (despite eating nothing but raw vegetables the previous day).
My friends at work called back and said I sounded so awful that if I didn't go to the hospital <i>immediately</i> they were going to send an ambulance.. so my boyfriend drove me over (funny part.. his eyeglass prescription was so out-of-date that he couldn't read the hospital signs, so I had to tell him where the turns were). After being admitted to the ER, they checked for both diabetes & thyroid problems, and administered a base to counteract the ketoacidosis, as well as insulin and hydrating liquids.
And then they kept me for a week, while they taught me how to give myself injections, and determined the proper dosage.
My mom was shocked, since this doesn't run in our family, and she actually told me once that she didn't want me to take insulin since it's "bad for me". Nice thought, but I'm not buying it...
So that was 11 years ago, and in the meantime I've switched to an insulin pump and tried to get used to this whole thing. So far, so good, though I know I could be better. I still wonder if that recycled airplane air brought me that virus that's supposedly similar to the beta cells, though I guess I'll never know for sure. It's been an interesting ride, but I'm SO ready to be done with this!!
8 months ago
I was dx'd in Sept 2008...I was having severe leg cramps and waking up 10-12 times a night to use the bathroom. My eyes were going out of whack...and I was severly exhausted. I finally mustered up the courage to go to the walk-in clinic...and the doc there told me to up my potassium intake by eating bananas....he also told me that OJ and Gatorade would help. I got worse after that...lol. I finally went to the ER one night after work to see if they would give me painkillers for the cramps....they were that bad. 2 hours and several morphine shots later for the pain...the docs told me I was a diabetic. Sugars up over 900....a few hours away from slipping into a coma, they said. If I had stayed home that night...I probably would have been really messed up. 4 days in ICU and a slow insulin drip got my sugars down....and I have been OK since then. Mostly I have problems with lows now...being back to work and all....I just adjust my Novolog and keep an eye on my carbs....hopefully next year I will be Ok to get on the pump and NO MORE NEEDLES!! YAY!!!
8 months ago
damn typo...dx'd in sept 2007....thats what i get for typing when my sugars are high...LOL.
8 months ago
Hey Walter; I was "several hours away from a coma" myself! If I'd waited for my 4:30 doctor's appt., instead of going to the ER at 8am, I might not have made it. I thought it was scary & amazing to realized what I just "accepted" and lived with for a month.. having no idea how dangerous it was!
Good luck getting the pump.. I love mine, mostly because the insulin is always with me, never across the room or in the car or (oops) at home when I'm not! Plus my control is a bit better; hopefully yours will be too!
7 months ago
I was diagnosed in 1982, my senior year in high school. I barely graduated due to my poor grades because I was sleeping my way through class. I also lost a lot of weight in a very short time. I was sleeping all the time and if I wasn't sleeping, I was eating. Eating everything I could get my hands on. I was so hungry all the time. And yes I was going to the bathroom constantly. All the classic symptoms. My mom finally knew there was something really wrong when I sat down one night after dinner and ate the equivalent to a Thanksgiving dinner for 2 and I was weighing a whopping 96 pounds. Diabetes runs in the family, so, she was pretty sure that was what it was. When they did my blood work, my BG was like 460, so, I was admitted into the hospital for a week etc... Shortly after that I gained a bunch of weight back. Like up to 165! Well, I put one and one together and realized that if I didn't take my insulin I would lose weight. Yea, not a good thing for an overweight diabetic teenage girl to know. Needless to say, I was very sick all the time and almost died once. Since then, I have gotten my act together. I weigh a healthy 128 I am on a pump and I am very lucky that the complications that I do have aren't much worse. I have had some laser surgery on my eyes about 15 years ago. I had the bone from my big toe removed due to an ulcer that wouldn't heal. I have problems with low blood pressure. I have neuropathy in my legs and feet(can't feel temperature) And have neuropathy pains in my chest occasionally. I know I could do much better and I dream of the day my doctor tells me, " Your A1C is 6 !" I know I can do it if I really put myself to work. It takes a lot of dedication, but, sometimes I just want to rule diabetes and not have it rule me!
7 months ago
I was on a field trip from my botany class at university when standing in the sun I suddenly passed just out. After that I went to see a doc. The docs office was upstairs in a rather high building and I rarely made it ups the stairs. She measured blood sugar and told me I am close to beeing diabetic and I should do more sports and it is impossible I am out of breath after walking that stairs at my age. So I felt ashame and lazy.
Anyhow I felt better for a while and went to northern finland as exchange student. The first half year was ok. Than it got all worse. I had to drink each night more than 3 litres of water and run to the toilet constantly. My vision blurred and the tiniest effort made me be out of breath. I lost lots of weight. Anyhow I did not want to go to a doc in finland cause I feared the stories about medical centres etc. So I even went to travel with a friend to estonia in my state. I could not read street names anymore and always had to run to the toilet as soon as I saw a public toilet and drink, drink, drink... actually that time was quite horrible. Basically I knew what was wrong. I am biologist and I knew from family stories about my great-grandba being diabetic and dying of it. Back in germany my mother "forced" me to see my family doc. That doc is as well diabetes doc. He gave me the diagnosis type 1 diabetes. I had known it actually before I think, but still I felt shocked. I cried when I told it my mother and sister.
The first two years I was very strict on my blood sugar and had always perfect sugars, ate healthy (I am anyhow vegetarian) and did sports. It was kinda rought time at the beginning because one of my former best friend just dumped me and I was at a new university (I had moved to ddorf after finland) knowing no one and trying to learn to deal with diabetes. But the good thing was I was just one hour drive from my family.
During summer I got the chance of my life. Having been intrested in immunology/genetics before being diabetic even made my intrest bigger. I got the change to make an internship in an immuno-genetics research centre in Turku (Finland). These two month made amazing changes in my life. I got a huge intrest in the topic and I hade a great time in the lab there and met many really nice people.
But apart from studies/work my own diabetes treatment changed to worse. Living in the dorm with many other exchange students I started to wish for beeing normal. I started snacking candy bars a lot and stopped measuring blood sugars close to completly. Sometimes I spent evenings hidden in my room just eating candy. Or eating a lot junk food.
When I returned I kept those habits up. I got a place for my diploma thesis (german version of master thesis) doing research on another autoimmune disease (juvenile idiopathic arthritis). Things got very stressfull and difficult at times. A lot people in the lab were not living healthy. There are daily some snack or candy for the lab members. Some kinda irony is one of my lab jobs is taking care of that. Anyhow I completly stopped measuring and when I did corrections/writing on my thesis at nights I survived on chocolate. Every few weeks when I felt really weird and decided it is time to measure blood sugars again I got a 400 or more. I gained weight nevertheless. So I sometimes just stopped using insulin when I ate at all. Not smart cause it makes one feel not good at all.
So right now I am trying to turn things. Watch my blood sugars, try to eat more healthy. Yesterday night I had a terrible low and was for a while wondering if it was really worth it to keep better control of blood sugars. Whilst I had high values I was never having lows. Anyhow I think it is worth it. I have wonderfull friends and family I do not want to worry. And most of all I have come to the point of realizing I can control the diabetes and live the life I want or I ignore the diabetes and it controls me.
7 months ago
I was 16 months old (June of 1980) when I was diagnoised. So it was all my parents finding out. I was potty trained yet had been going to the bathroom, wetting myself alot and being thirsty and drinking way more than normal, losing weight. So, my parents took me to the dr. and he sent me to The Childrens Hospital.
7 months ago
and I totally just noticed I spelt diagnosed wrong haha
7 months ago
Growing up, I had always been the chubby kid in the room. My older sister, on the other hand, was very thin and athletic. Looking up to her, I wanted to be just like her and to look just like her. The summer before eighth grade, I decided to go on a "diet" and to exercise more often.
That fall, I was dancing at my local studio around 20 hours per week and was watching what I ate. The pounds were sliding off easily, and my weight loss was assumed to be from my new schedule.
As time went on, the weight came off more quickly. I was also thirsty all of the time, urinating every hour, hungry and eating huge meals, among other symptoms. My cousin was also type one diabetic, and I remembered my mom telling me years before that he has lost a lot of weight before being diagnosed. This memory triggered to me research the symptoms of diabetes, and therefore confirming my suspicions of being diabetic.
When this realization happened, Thanksgiving was rolling around. My mother was busy, and dance season was just picking up for my sister. I didn't want to interfere, so I kept my thoughts to myself. I was in denial.
The holidays came and passed, and the new year had begun. One night on the way home from dance, I was telling my mom about how I couldn't even last through my ballet class without having to leave to use the restroom. She turned to me and asked if I had ever thought if I was diabetic. I shocked her by replying that yes, I had thought of that. The next day I went to the doctor, where my suspicions were confirmed by a simply blood and urine test.
It's been three years since that day, and diabetes has simply become part of my daily routine. I use an insulin pump and highly recommend it. It makes life so much more simple and allows so much freedom. I will not let diabetes take over my life.
7 months ago
I was eight years old and sitting there playing some Mega Man on my Super Nintendo. My mom came in the room and told me I had to go see the doctor. I didn't really ask any questions because mom was mom, right. Well I guess my mom had noticed the toilet bowls were extra sticky to clean lately, and I was experiencing some pretty severe migraines.
I don't remember much except that the doctor took some of my blood, I stood up, and passed out immediately. I woke up to a bunch of people holding me basically upside down and one doctor explaining to my mom that I had to go to the hospital for a while. I spent two or so weeks hospitalized and was diagnosed with Type 1.
7 months ago
Diabetes Type 1 and Me: The experiences surrounding my Diagnosis.
When I look back and think on things.. link the connections with my present day knowledge, i could say that I probably was diabetic for at least a whole year before i knew it. The very first observation was needing to always sit in the first row in class due to my vision beginning to decline and give me headaches since my sophmore year. I was carrying toilet paper in my bag everywhere i went, I was highly stressed with upcoming graduation, preparations for my trip to meet my father.. assistant directing my drama club's production, and taking a part as second female singing lead in my final highschools coproduction play..for which I must have chugged into protein shakes about two gallons of honey overall through the shows for my voice. I was thrilled that i didn't have to work out at all for the play when i started losing weight seemingly naturally, though i was constantly thirsty and i remember also once trying to time how long before i would have to pee again.. i remember it was approximately every 20 minutes.....not a fun thing during a 5 hour play rehearsal.
I was diagnosed at 18 yrs old on 9/9/1999 right after graduating highschool, during the trip of my life (at the time). I had left mom at my maui home and gone to Haiti for three months to see my father for the first time in 10 years and to get to meet my two half sisters and visit with family and revisit the place i was born and lived till 8 yrs old. ..I had leg cramps on the airplane.
I remember helping my best friend bake a cake from scratch for her birthday and putting way too much lemon juice in the frosting so we had to add a bag more full of sugar, and taking a piece of cake with lots of frosting home to my dad who only ate two bites and i ate the rest for a total of 3 pieces i ate for the night... that was the day before my grandma took me to the doctor.I was craving cold juicy sweets all the time, giving my friend money to go buy me large quantities of itzakadoozie popscicles from the street merchant pushing his cart down the road. My dad also remarked to me that the five gallon jug of water that usually lasted the family a week; I was downing mostly by myself in three days...
I remember tagging along to places with my dad and always staying waiting for him ending up sleeping in the car or on whoever we were visiting's couch. The summer heat of the carribbean didn't help either which is probably one of the reasons the fatigue and thirst was brushed off as just cause of the heat. we'd go places where you couldn't always drink the water.. and the only thing to drink and to my preference..(sweets) was a glass bottle of 7up from the corner hole in the wall... warm though..Blah> i'd drink 3 of those... ... and then inevitably have to pee all the time...and sleep some more.
I had started realizing that there might be something wrong with me when my dad started actually complaining to me that i was sleeping all day, sometimes for over 18 hours straight, only getting up to drink & pee. I stopped being able to climb up the stairs in a timely fashion. I always run up the stairs.. the time i noticed that it was strange, i couldn't even walk up half way without being out of breath..there was one occurence where he told me I'd slept for two days straight, didn't even care to get upstairs to eat food... I'd just drink juice, water, and eat popscicles bedside. I was oblivious. -I was Asleep! I started feeling horrible for not having the energy to spend real quality time with him simply because I was always too tired. He and my sisters would be going out and i didn't have the energy to do anything but sleep, I must have spent a over a week like that. I cried to sleep because i was tired of being so tired and him being upset that i didn't care to come out with them..
I was also having HORRIBBLE leg cramps that would wake me up screaming in the middle of the night. i'd could describe the feeling of my body as being as if my veins and muscles had been drinking chlorine pool water.. and my skin and respiration feeling like you feel when you've been in the hot tub jaccuzzi way too long. i remember telling my dad this and looking up online, possible illnesses associated with the symptoms of leg cramps and muscle fatigue and always feeling like my body was chlorinated and i wanted to throw up what i had just eaten... i didn't find much online except for references to possible vitamin difficiencies but i never looked up drinking and peeing as a symptom... the connection wasn't there until wayyyy later.
I had just come back from a two week travel excursion way out in the boonies, on a whole tour of the island with a teaching group of 25 people. i spent a quarter of my travel money on bottled water alone..there were mandatory all day classes at a boarding school..which i slept thru mostly -even thru all the mosquito bites.., two hour connections on the mountain bus in which there was nowhere for the bus to stop at on ..the third time..and ending up pissing halfway thru my pants not being able to hold it any longer..until the busdriver relented to stop again at a later time only because two other people had to go also and finally changing my pants behind the bus tires. ..(still to this day once i gotta go, i have a max.. 8 minute hold time... sucks; ..and i can tell you where every accesible bathroom on my island is and all the lock combinations for them and if not, i have papertowels and babywipes in my car! Oh I laugh at myself, what else can you do... But -I reeeeaaalllyyy HATE THIS!) having to pee interrupts every hundreth thought in my head just about daily.anyways...my dad and grandma thought maybe i had gotten worms maybe from drinking bad water in the countryside since because I started to quickly lose more weight even though i was eating. ....(I was weighing myself on the scale in my dad's bathroom every day, and i remember being soo happy that i was losing weight....but then at the end of the week of weighing myself and realizing that it was not necessarily a healthy thing to lose 20 pounds in One WEEK....) and so we agreed that one of them would take me to the doctor to get checked out. That's when i proceeded to tell the doctor any and all unusual symptoms i was experiencing out of the ordinary.... peeing, thirst, legcramps, and sleeping all day...she must have put it all together extremely quickly in her head because she pulled out her little machine and a fat MANUAL pricking thing and hurt my finger so bad i could still feel it for 4 days after..
then to my extreme shock after she had looked at the meter reading of 570..were my ears hearing the doctor saying ..well more like yelling!.. "WHAT!!?? YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE DIABETIC!!!!!" I will never forget those words, in that scream, as long as I live. that's how she broke the news. It was a pretty slap in the face kind of a way.i'm like.. what's that?...
It does not run in my family so I'm the lone ranger.She ordered me to come in fasting the next morning to confirm the diagnosis. The worst part came shortly a few hours after that day's follow up visit at which she had given me my first shot of insulin in my left arm... i was sitting at the dinner table at my grandma's house waiting for the maids to serve dinner and all of a sudden my heart felt like it was about to thump right out of my chest, I was hot as heck and became drenched in my own cold sweat. my body started -it seemed like- convulsing, shaking uncontrollably. I was seeing stars just like the cartoons, I didn't know what was happening to me! I was so scared and I felt so lost in an upheaval of emotions of sadness, frustration, confusion, hopelessness, and of being in a foreign country, far away from my mother and closest friends. I was bawling like I was attending my own funeral. My grandma quickly poured a heapful of sugar into a glass of water and slowly I came back to my senses after a few sips and some dinner. THAT was the worst ..EVER.. episode of Hypo i have ever experienced.. even still to this day. This is how i learned, now know, and will never forget what a bad idea it is to attempt immediate stabilization of habitually concurrent high sugars. as opposed to the smarter way of doing it gradually. If only the doctor had been smarter.
There was a week's worth of back and forth to the doctor for follow-ups..etc.. I remember having to drive around town to three different pharmacies to find needles and insulin.. and the first time i had to give myself a shot; ... one hour before dinner, --i grab my insulin, grab my needle, go hide in my room, drop my pants, and sit there ...while everyone at the table keeps yelling occasionally..'do you need some help?'..'you want me to do it for you?' .."are you gonna come an eat yet'.. " it'll take me three seconds to stick that thing into you!".. all the while, trying to muster up the courage.. ohh it was hard, very hard... it took me four and a half hours to finally give myself my first shot, unable to make up my mind about where i could have the least fear of sticking it into myself, of where i could actually reach by myself, and trying to train my eyes to intuitively xray vision through my skin so as not to hit any blood vessels or accidentally select a muscular area admist the fatty tissue, cautiously following the instructions and drawings in the little leaflet i had been given...and finally decided on doing it in my right outer thigh, which turned out to be no big deal, it didn't even hurt, but ..it was just the mind barrier that was there about poking some metal object through my own skin that i had to break through... and to my dismay, by that time, everyone else had already done eating and my dinner was cold.
7 months ago
So there I was at the commisary, staring at the candy in the aisle. I was there getting the stuff to take with me to the field. We were heading out the next day. Usually took some bullion, soup stuff, some spices...c-rations taste like crap...some ramen, things like that. And all I could see was that candy. When I got home and packed my backpack I had enough candy in there to keep a platoon of sweet tooths satisfied. Funny thing, started reading a magazine article, it had to do with diaseses and symptoms that get overlooked. Started reading the symptoms of diabetes, wow I sure had a lot of them. So instead of going with my platoon to the motor pool the next morning, I went on sick call. They told me that if I had gone to the field, I probably wouldn't have come back alive. Spent the next 6 months waiting to hear the verdict on whether or not I would stay in the army. After 13 years, reaching the rank 2 below the top for an enlisted soldier, I was let go. Told I wasn't worth keeping because I couldn't be used in a world wide army because of the diabetes.
7 months ago
I was diagnosed in 1988 at the age of 4 so I don't really remember any of it. From what my parents have told me I was sick for the majority of those first 4 years with frequent trips to the E.R./doctors office in an attempt to find out what was up(I'm under the assumption that my pancreas was preparring to go on vacation ><) Doctor's finally decided to do a test to see if I was diabetic and sure enough I was.(Funny fact, doctor's don't check infants to see if they are diabetic since you don't generally develope it until later on. Asked to have my daughter checked when she was born and they let me in on that little bit of info o.0)
Life growing up with it wasn't so bad. Wasn't allowed to have any of the tasty sugary treats as a kid which sucked but atleast there was "sugar-free" stuff(always upset my stomach ><). Went to diabetic summer camps for a few years(Camp De Los Ninos and Bearskin Meadows) which was always fun XD. Got let on the secret that I could eat sugar as long as I compensated for it at the age of 14(really wish they hadn't told me that in all honest, nothing but cavities and gained weight after that point). Never any issues of the sort involving the disease so it's been pretty good.
3 months ago
I was diagnosed in 1971. I was 5 years old. Back then we had glass syrenges. No blood glocose monitors. I went every Friday to the Hospital and gave them a vile of blood. I was told that I would live until I was 40. Never have kids, and never be able to run and jump like other kids. I wasnt allowed to eat things that other kids did etc. I had a Dad who really tried to understand, but he was in denial. I grew up on PB&J.
To say alot of changes have been made would be a severe understatement.
3 months ago
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