My Type 1 Diabetes - Exposure To Chicken Pox

A friend asked me to look after their little boy Oliver last week as he had contracted Chicken Pox from Pre-School.  The school obviously wouldn't take him and neither would his child minder I can't think why, its not like it was obvious

Well perhaps it was.  LOL The dilemma for me was I had never had Chicken Pox or should I say that every child that came into contact with me got it as a child, but I never had any of the symptoms or spots.  My mums friends and the doctor said I was a 'Carrier' and they all talked about 'Typhoid Mary' having seen an old black and white movie about her.

The thing is, did I have the power of my convictions and would I shirk at testing the theory.  No! Well I was pretty certain I was immune, so me and Mr Spotty had a great week playing.  Amazingly Oliver wasn't driven mad by itching, and despite having a slightly raised temperature he charge about and wore me out.

His mum had gone online to check if there were such things as carriers, and promptly told me it was rubbish and that I must have had it.

My bloody sugars have been normal, and I haven't developed a temperature, so here is hoping I don't sprout in the next few weeks.  Needless to say when Oliver came round with his brother Pascal today he was a lot less spotty.

Malcolm

My Diabetes - My Favorite Tipple Lucozade

By far the lifesaver for me over the past 32 years has been the humble glucose energy drink "Lucozade".

It is remarkably fast acting at bringing up my blood sugar and not giving me rampant indigestion and I tend to use it when doing work around the house, garden, sex and crazy sports.

I know all the theories about slow release carbohydrates being better for me, and that I should reduce my insulin to do tasks but it always left me exhausted and feeling hypo.

Not only does the mixture of the insulin and the lucozade enable me to get on and do the most difficult jobs it also changes my muscle shape and tone in an afternoon.  Whereas my partner and others spend weeks at the gym and are often left tired and drained by exercise (they have burnt their reserves of glycogen etc) I am left feeling bulked up and ready for more action.

You may think after consuming 30g+ of lucozade and doing some heavy work that my blood sugar would rise after I stop, it seems sensible.  But it doesn't, the blood sugar stays at a reasonable level as my body goes about repairing, refreshing and building muscle my body and the effect last for days or longer.  But if I laze about it all goes back to being untoned.

Mind you I go through quite a bit of it so tend to buy in bulk packs:

Here is a link for Amazon UK 12 x 330ml pack:

And Amazon USA 24 x 330ml pack:

Thats if you can't pick it up in your local store.

In fact a large percentage of the hypos I had when I first became diabetic were post exercise (of any sort) where I had reduced my insulin only to find I need extra carbs as I was going hypo. Then my blood sugar shot through the roof as I had high carbs and reduced insulin. So I had to take a little insulin and I'd bounce back and forth like a game of hyper & hypo ping-pong.

I've also noticed that maintaining my insulin level but using lucozade, my recovery time post-exercise using the is significantly shorter than my non diabetic friends and as they tend to wilt as I just seem to get more in shape, fitter, stronger and more irritating as I want to continue.

But each to their own, this is just how I deal with it.

TBC

My Diabetes - The Clinic

Despite having some basic understanding of what diabetes was, when I attended the clinic for the first time I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  Urine sample in the box, weigh you, prick the finger, take some blood, photograph the eyes etc

I met the teams specialist diabetic nurse, who was very nice and said if I needed to ask any questions then to come and see her.  I was met the dietician who told me about exchanges and how much carbohydrate I could have and if I had any questions to ask to come and see her.  I then met the consultant who told me how my diabetes was, what insulin he wanted me to take, and to see my doctor to arrange for needles, syringes and insulin.  I then met the nurse again who showed me all the places I could inject.

After over an hour I was going hypo, as my appointment was 13:30 and it was 1 hour late (this is quite often the case due to heavy workload) and now it was 3:30 and I was going hypo.  I hadn't wanted to eat my biscuit at 3pm in front of any of them as I had a chocolate biscuit and they were against chocolate biscuits.

So I nipped into the loo and ate my biscuit.

By the end of the session I didn't know what I knew but I was loaded up with all sorts of diabetic diaries, reagents, leaflets sample and so on.

It was only after I'd left I realised that although lots of people had said if I had any questions to ask, I had no idea what to ask and there wasn't any time in the process to ask.

Learning Point:

• I should have done a little reading on diabetes before attending clinic
• I should have made a list of the kind of things I needed to know 
• I should have written down new things as they were explained to me
• I should have not been afraid to keep asking for clarification
• I should have spoken to some of the other diabetics
• I should have joined the local association
• I should have eaten my biscuit whoever was there, never delay for others

TBC

My Diabetes : Diabetes Does Not Stop Me Having Fun ! Here's Safe Free-fall Flying :-)

Okay enough of the Diabetes management stuff for a few minutes.

One thing I have never let my diabetes do is to prevent me from doing crazy things.  However, given that a vast majority of injuries in fun sports are often caused to people trying to save somebody else who has gotten themselves into difficulty, since I've been diabetic I've tried not to put others at risk for my stupidities.

Free-fall Parachuting is fun but, as we diabetics know if your sick it could be a bit of a problem trying to consume a large amount of glucose in the back of a bobbing light aircraft whilst still throwing up... I haven't done that by the way I just like to plan ahead ;-)

Also, in reality as a newbie the amount of time you actually free-fall for yourself is pretty short, then a lot of dangling.

So here's a great way I got the flying free-fall fun of the wind in my face in a serious vertical Airkix wind tunnel.  Nothing got hurt (not even my pride with the silly hat they made me wear), and if I need to stop, I could just step out of the airflow.

If you have a recently diagnosed young diabetic (or oldie young at heart) who thinks he'll never be able to do anything remotely silly again, I thoroughly recommend it and I've been diabetic for 32 years and it hasn't stopped me.

My Diabetes - Safe Airkix Free-fall Flying Fun

Malcolm

My Diabetes - What did I do to try and avoid diabetic hypos

In reality it is impossible for me to avoid ever having a hypo, the real question is how can I lessen the chance of having a 'severe unexpected hypo' which would require the help from others.  What I quickly realised was that the most important thing to do was to discover 'My Hypo Early Warning Signals' so I could prevent a mild hypo from becoming something much worse.

The way I went about this was to make the conscious decision to become more aware of my internal self and my body. Before I became diabetic I didn't pay that much attention to my body. I knew:

1) If I was tired, I slept.
2) When I was hungry, I ate
3) If I ate bad food, it made my ill
4) If I I ran a long distance, I became stiff
5) If I stubbed my toe, it hurt

These were all the normal things, but I knew I had to go further.

So for a short period I kept a note book and gradually I began to notice things:

1) If I had to get up in the night to go for a pee
  --> my urine test at breakfast showed high sugars
2) If I woke up in the morning with a basketball bladder
  --> my urine test at breakfast showed high sugars
3) If I woke up in the night soaked in a cold sweat
 --> I was experiencing a night hypo and need to drink a high glucose drink
4) If I woke up in the morning with a tiny cold penis
  --> my urine test at breakfast were blue and very low
5) If I had an extremely full bladder and hadn't drank much
  --> my urine test at showed high sugars
6) When I broke out in a cold hypo sweat I smelt a kind of musk on my skin
 --> I was going hypo and needed to eat
7) If the images before my eyes started to get blotchy like looking through cloth
 --> I was going hypo and needed to eat
8) If my lips started to tingle and my chin became cold and numb
 --> I was going hypo and needed to eat
9) If I started to look red face and get a headache
  --> my urine test showed high sugars
10) If my calfs and thighs started to feel like they were full of treacle
  --> my urine test showed high sugars

This observing becomes a form of biofeedback, from evidence and feelings I very quickly became aware of my body and its needs and the signals it gave me when it was in distress.

Learning Point:

If I wanted to be in control of my diabetes, I had to know what it did to me and how those things, felt, tasted and smelled.

The most import thing I learned was:

The hypo is not my enemy trying to cut me down, its a friend warning me that I need to do something to prevent things getting worse.

TBC