#Diabetes - #Norovirus #Attack 30th December 2013 05:36

#Diabetes - #Norovirus #Attack  30th December 2013 05:36

blood test 15 mmol, decided I need to increase the Humalog to 6 units to bring it down to 12 -13 could hold back on the nausea and was sick luckily the fluid I'd taken has dissolved the pills so job done, I then drank some more fluid as the thing to avoid besides hypo is dehydration. I then checked the alarm was 08:15 before going to sleep.

My Diabetes - 30th December 2013 02:30

Blood Test 12.3 feeling aweful lots of hot  flushes trying not to be sick for a few more hours took 4 units of Humalog and set the alarm for 05:30 took 2 more paracetamol, really pleased I'm maintaining the 12 -13, most important thing is to avoid a severe hypo and a stay in hospital.

My Diabetes - Norovirus 29th December 23:40

Knowing that i needed to take my usual collection of Pills and could risk being sick I gave into the nausea and vomited soon after waking, I the  tested my blood after washing my hands and before sterilising  them with alcohol.  My blood sugar was 12.3 and I took all my pills with a little milk along with stugeron hoping it would prevent me throwing up for the next 4 hours or so.

I then took another 4 units of Humalog and 8 units of  Levimir, then I set the alarm clock for 02:30 and went to sleep.

My Diabetes - Norovirus 29th December 2013 21:00

Just after 21:00 I tested my blood sugar after vomiting again, thankfully it had now come up to 13 mili mols which from the past i know is a good level to allow me to control it in 3 hour blocks with just short acting insulin with a risk of serious hypo ( for me),  after testing my blood I took 4 units of Humalog and no carbohydrates.  I then took two paracetamol for the pounding headaches and half a glass of squash and set the alarm.  For 23:30.

My Diabetes - Attack of Norovirus day 1

I tried really hard to avoid Norovirus and as I haven't been out much recently I thought I'd missed it.  Then went to pub a few days ago and yesterday afternoon I realised my sugars were going low so kept topping up with carbos all very weird.  Them 16:00 I had a lie down and some more lucozade. Unfortunately  things just got worse.  At 18:30 29th December 2014 I recognised the nausea and luckily by 18:45 I was being sick.  Now you may think the word luckily is a strange thing to say, but 15 mins later I'd have taken 20 units of Humalog and sickness after that would have been a major problem as I discovered some years ago, unlike the films insulin and no ability to keep anything down is a major problem.

After being sick, it was apparent from the nausea that this wasn't going to be a one off as the nausea came in waves.

I tested my blood and it was 4.4 despite all the extra carbos all day.

So I took 10 grams of carbos and no insulin and went to bed setting the alarm for 2hours
and taking a large glass of water with a little salt in it, blood testing meter and a bottle of lucozade.

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 - Film 'Broken' starring Tim Roth ( Most Realistic Diabetic Portrayal I've seen on film)

Nearly every movie I have ever seen with a character with diabetes was awful verging on dangerous.

The typical scenario is some major event is going down e.g. a planes crashes in the desert where the is no water and certainly no carbohydrate,  and everybody is desperately trying to find the insulin to give to the 'hypo' diabetic... argh.. it would kill them quite quickly by hypo seizures, coma etc.

As I say to my friends and colleagues, if you find me in difficultly give me carbohydrates, if I perk up in 15 mins then all is well if I don't then the slightly higher sugar can be dealt with later.  Don't ever give me insulin or let me take it without testing my blood.

Don't the medical advisers to these corporations know anything about diabetes.

Then a month or so ago a close friend who also works with people with disabilities asked me to watch the British film "Broken" as she wanted my opinion.

At last a great film with an almost accurate portrayal of diabetes.

The story is quite simple with the portrayal of 'normal people in normal life' and an 11 year old insulin dependent diabetic girl called 'Skunk' (newcomer Eloise Laurence) who lives with her brother and single parent father (Tim Roth)  in an english cul-de-sac.  Like all of us we don't get to pick our neighbours and Skunk is living next to the school bullies.  Skunk also has a neighbour with a learning disability who she treats with kindness and respect, so what could go wrong?

I found the movie gripping, its portrayal of how normal life is for Skunk despite her diabetes was really positive, and the local boy with other difficulties is no harm to anybody.  But then lies and discrimination from the bullies and ignorance and intolerance cause everything to rapidly spiral out of control with devastating consequences.

I thoroughly recommend this as a film.

Here is what Amazon UK

and Amazon USA

This video deals with some adult themes so you may not be suitable for younger children, so I suggest adults watch it first before showing the kids.

Please let me know what you think if you watch it.

Malcolm

My Diabetes - A Great Night Out Clubbing Ends in Accidental Coma

In the eighties when we were both young students, D was visiting her relatives and I decided to go out on a Friday night drinking and clubbing with a friend.  I promised D that I wouldn't  drink too much and would be careful.

We had a really good night but I got just a little greedy and when offered one of the road I took it.  I got home feeling a little worse for ware, tested my urine which didn't seem too bad, so I took my insulin and had my supper and went to bed.  Then the room began to spin slowly then a little quicker. It wasn't long before I realised that I was going to be sick.

I got up and was sick, and went to lie on the bed and rapidly began to realise I was going hypo, so I went down stairs and drank some lucozade and went back to bed, only to have to visit the bathroom again.  I realised that I was alone and potentially in trouble and repeated the cycle a number of times.  The last thing I remember it was around 3 am and I was sitting on the kitchen floor, so I didn't fall over, and eating a biscuit.

When I woke I was absolutely frozen and shivering violently.  I looked up at the clock and it was around 11 am.  I was a little annoyed with myself for not foreseeing what would happen if I got sick and making plans.  I realised I'd missed my 8am insulin so the whole day would need to start from now, but I was hungry and my head was killing me.

So I decided I'd go over the road and get some fresh bread from the shop and a paper.  I asked the guy for the fresh bread and he said they only had yesterdays, which was a little unusual, and I then started rummaging through the papers.  But as I did so I got increasingly confused as the papers were not the Saturday papers I had expected, they were Sunday papers.

Then it hit me like a brick, on a winters day I had been curled up on the kitchen floor unconscious for over 32 hours in what must have been a coma, luckily the low temperature and the few carbs I had consumed must have reduced my metabolic rate and thankfully I suffered no longer term damage or worse death.
D coming back and finding me dead on the floor would not have been good.

Normally my body would have broken down the glycogen etc in liver and muscles and then the fat, but alcohol inhibits this process from happening until it has been dealt with.

Learning Points

• I realised that my youthful drinking days would have to be moderated
• I realised that a simple night out partying can rapidly develop into a medical emergency if I wasn't careful
• I realised that I was in control of the drinking, the offer of one for the road however kindly offered had to be balanced with the potential outcome
• I learned over the next few months that I didn't need to get blind drunk to have fun
• I realised that after a few drinks, any more I drank did little but to pee my money away
• I realised that the less I drank, the easier it was to get the enjoyment part of it with very small qualities, a cheap night out ;-)
• In deciding to moderate my drinking early in my diabetes,  I had accidentally prevented myself from getting some of the major diabetic complications in later life made worse by excessive drinking with diabetes
• I realised that each day was a new adventure

TBC