My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 3

Ignoring all of the emotional content for the time being, its important that a diabetic views sex as exercise, and like any exercise provisions of the extra carbohydrates is crucial.  So ignoring the biology, one has to seriously decide is this a:

• short sprint with no warm-up (hopefully by mutual consent :-)

• ten minutes warm-up then a short walk

• ten minutes warm-up then a long walk

• twenty minute warm-up and a short walk

• twenty minute warm-up and a long walk

• thirty minute warm-up and short walk

• thirty minute warm-up and long walk

• .....

And then there are the marathons for the younger members who don't have work to go to or kids to take everywhere and do all nighters at the festivals. LOL
Using the sports example each of the scenarios will require different preparation and unless planned well in advance and catered for the outcomes could be good or not so good.

• Try and test your blood fifteen - twenty mins before

• If low I drink a quantity of lucozade beforehand, if high I drink a mouthful.  I'm afraid slow release dry wheat biscuits will not suffice

• I always try to ensure I have a bottle close at hand to top up

• I always had some longer lasting 'biscuit' or cake to eat afterwards to ensure there is no post exercise hypo

• If I start to run out of steam I top up 

My best advise if this is all new to you (don't worry nobody ever told me about sex and diabetes) is to keep a little diary:

Time and Date?

blood sugar before?

carbs taken?

warm up time?

walk or run time?

Did you feel hypo?

What were the symptoms?

Headache?

blood sugar after?

It isn't necessary to do this for a long time, but a pattern will emerge quite quickly.

In fact I'll create a tiny database to go on the iPad/iPhone for people to try out, and I'll make it password protected.

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 2

Well it didn't take me more than a few hilariously bad attempts to realise that the Doctors and medical experts obsession with achieving and maintaining a constant low blood sugar was not going to do much for my sex life with the cocktail sausage and the damp squib being but a couple available options without appropriate planning and preparation.

The first thing a diabetic needs is a sensitive and sympathetic partner with a sense of humour and who won't take it personally if there is a bedroom failure. I always smile when people say sex is something to be taken seriously 'really' only with your clothes on.  Otherwise you may as well be mud wrestling with warm white chocolate for the mess it makes and the grunting and the sweating and thats before you've even switch the television off.  LOL

The first thing to consider is that if I have a severe hypo whilst playing at missionaries, then I will become a literal deadweight. The more energetically one goes about such things the more sudden is the decline. I imagine many partners do not take lightly to being squashed, although for others it may be what they are seeking. Now you may have pretended for a few moments in the past that you have become a dead weight, but the real thing is much much heavier and more scary and difficult to move, to breath as any judo enthusiast will tell you and unlike the films people tend not to collapse in convenient positions so they can be easily rolled off.

But I've jumped in at the deep end, as we men have occasionally been accused of doing.  It was deliberate.

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 1

As a male diabetic I can tell you Type 1 Diabetes and sex has all the makings of a comedy of errors for a number of physiological reasons and you may as well try walking a tightrope with a blind fold on if you don't make preparations.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, blood pressure and blood sugar are linked and given that a certain crucial part of my male anatomy is literally pumped up by blood pressure, it does take much imagination to realise that if my blood sugar drops then my blood pressure also drops and so does any chance of operating the crucial anatomy.

So if I stoke up on carbohydrates beforehand, I just need a bread role to play hunt the hotdog.  But if I fail to have sufficient carbohydrates it will end in a case of find the cold cocktail sausage. ;-) LOL

Now for non diabetics this isn't an issue, unless they get drunk, because getting drunk on an empty stomach will make you hypo and therefore liable to be playing in cocktail sausage territory.

So before having sex I need a cunning plan.

A sad side effect of this is it takes most of the spontaneity out of the event, because this is the only true case of the business saying:

" If you fail to plan you plan to fail " and your attempts will very much end with a damp squib.

 Arg, but I hear people say, have some extra carbohydrates.  But like with the squash game I regaled you with in a previous blog, if you take loads of carbohydrates and your partner says "sorry I have a headache" then you'll definitely get one too from a very high blood sugar and be up all night peeing honey and figuring out how you can put such a high reading in your diabetic record for the nurse or doctor to comment on.

So what to do?

TBC

My Diabetes - How I Deal With Eating Out

Having explained the difficulties I have experienced with eating out the question is what I have done to try and avoid the pitfalls.  The thing to remember is that its only the carbohydrates that are the issue and have to be taken in balance with my insulin.

If its a night out my partner wants to do with her golf friends that she knows will have no real meal time, then I gracefully decline.  It's nice for the non-diabetics to have a normal mealtime without having to worry about me eating on time.

If I want or need to attend then:

• I eat my carbohydrate allowance as a meal before going out. This is usually something very really simple, fish fingers and oven chips. 
• I then attend the meal and eat everything that doesn't contain carbohydrates in the main course.
• Quite often I get to eat some of the pudding, as it often arrives several hours late and about the right time for my mid evening snack.

As always I carry 3 or 4 biscuit bars (12 - 15 carbs) in my pockets and a bottle of lucozade in the car.  I always carry more carbs than I need for the event so that in the event of a breakdown etc I know I have enough to take me through to the next lunchtime. 

There have been many times when I have been told categorically that the meal will be on time, and that we will be sat down to eat by 7pm only for the fickle finger of fate to step in and mess things up.  So although I often end up paying for a meal I don't get to eat all of, its worth it for my health and my peace of mind.

Learning Points

• Unless I'm cooking the food it may be late
• My urgency has the potential to be an emergency if not planned for
• I don't expect other non-diabetics to understand and even if the do they may not be in control
• I always carry plenty of food and never leave the house without it
• As soon as I get home I test my blood and if its high I taken an extra few units of short acting insulin to bring it back down gracefully

My Diabetes - My Diabetic Diagnosis

From 1977 - 1980, I trained as a Registered Mental Nurse, and had come into contact with people with diabetes, I had learned something of the history and I knew a little about the signs and symptoms. In September 1980 I became an undergraduate of Behavioural Sciences at a UK Polytechnic.

The summer of 1981 was warm, and therefore I did not immediately notice that I was drinking more than usual.  However, as the summer turned to Autumn I realised that I was beginning to look thinner than normal after having a flu jab and was drinking a lot.  I'd also found a local store that sold 'Cream Soda' a sweet drink from my youth and had begun drinking it in the summer heat to quell my thirst, but it appeared to make it worse.

By early October I really felt like I was 'dying of thirst' and it came to a head when I was in a local cafe that specialised in very large pots of tea. Shortly after it arrived on the table and without thinking I picked up the milk jug tipped it into the pot and started drinking from the pot. Debbie my partner was with me, and she looked at me and asked what was I doing and was I going to leave any for her?

I looked at the jug, looked at her and said, I have no idea what I am doing but I think I have must have diabetes mellitus.  Suddenly it all made sense.

In the school of nursing we'd been told that in the old days before urine test reagents (tablets), certain nurses and patients would taste a sample of the diabetics urine, and the sweeter it tasted the more severe was the patients hyperglycaemia 'excessive sugar in the urine'.  Knowing this trinket of knowledge, I excused myself and went off to the bathroom placed my finger it my stream of urine and tasted it. It was sweeter than the sweetest Honey and smelt heavily of the sugar puffs breakfast cereal.

I came back to the table and told Debbie I have diabetes. It was a Friday and we went straight to the Polytechnic doctor and told him what had happened and said I have diabetes mellitus.  He was polite but dismissive and said it was most likely an infection or reaction to a recent flu jab.  After some discussion he agreed to take blood or urine sample and said I was to come back the following week, and it was nothing to worry about.

By time we got back home I had urinated an embarrassing number of times and I noticed my legs felt literally like they were filled with treacle and my eyes were a little out of focus.  I said to Debbie, I don't like this I need to flush the sugars out of my bloodstream and so ate very little in the way of carbohydrates over the weekend and drank lots of water.

By Monday I was still urinating a lot, due to the large quantity of water I was drinking.  As I had very little in the way of carbohydrate intake, my urine was tasting less of sugar. When I went into the Behavioural Sciences department there seemed to be a bit of a panic on and asked a member of staff what was going on.  She informed me that they had been looking for me since Friday, that they didn't have my address and the doctor needed to see me urgently.

In the Doctors surgery, he informed me that my blood sugar on the Friday was way past coma levels and he was amazed I hadn't collapsed into coma.  I explained to him that I'd eaten virtually no carbohydrates all weekend, that I'd drank nothing but water and it was a three hike up hill from the surgery to my residence.

He took some more blood and urine, and arrange for a nurse to visit me that afternoon to give me Insulin.

My Learning Points:

1) My excessive urination without excessive drinking was an early warning sign that me kidneys were trying to flush something out of my body.

2) My excessive thirst on a cold day when I hadn't eaten lots of salty things or taken any anti-histamine tablets meant my body needed the fluid.  As my thirst was accompanied by excessive urination then it told indicated to me that I may have diabetes.

3) Tasting my urine is a quick, simple and not at all unpleasant test.  Urine is mostly sterile unless you have urine infection.  Also due to the sensitivity of the tongue to salt and sugar you need only the tiniest amount.  Normally urine is salty and insipid and never sweet if its sweet it shows the presence of sugar.

4) Had I not taken immediate action of reducing my carbohydrates to virtually nothing and drinking water, my blood sugar when have continued to rise causing me serious problems.

5) My prompt action prevented me from needing to be hospitalised with the condition.

TBC