Showing posts with label surviving diabetes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surviving diabetes. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Monday, 22 October 2012
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Monday, 20 August 2012
Brenden Hills: Living with diabetes | thetelegraph.com.au
Picture: Thinkstock Source: The Sunday Telegraph
The number 62 never had much of a bearing on my life.
I was born in the 1980s and I'd never lived anywhere with a number higher than 29 on the letterbox.
But 62 changed my life on January 14, 2010, at Neutral Bay Medical Centre. It was my blood sugar level. A normal level is five.
"Have you been vomiting?" the doctor asked. Nope.
"Well, it's not far away, so I suggest you get yourself to the emergency room as fast as you can because I've never seen a blood sugar level this high.
"I think you've got type one diabetes."
And that was it. I did.
At least I'd entered the world of incurable disease with a higher score than anyone else.
Most people get diagnosed when their level hits 20, the doctor said.
Rugby league star Brett Stewart could only manage in the 30s.
There was no explanation for how it happened.
Diabetes wasn't in my family. A great-aunt I'd never met had it, but no one else.
There was some mystery thing inside my body which decided it was time to kill off the important parts of my pancreas and, as a result, my ability to produce insulin naturally.
Insulin? I'd never heard of it.
It's a hormone produced by the pancreas which pushes sugar from your blood into the rest of your body. My pancreas had just packed it in. We'd only just met.
I was now signed up for a lifetime of strict diet and exercise.
At 29 I had to become accountable for everything I ate and drank.
No more boozy nights with the boys topped off with a race to see who could get through 20 chicken nuggets the fastest at 4am.
No more competitive eating at the all-you-can-eat pizza bar.
On the plus side, I'd probably never again be thrown down the stairs of the Bull and Bush Hotel by a bouncer after singing into a microphone I wasn't authorised to.
A run or a surf would now have to be preceded by a complex mathematical equation.
Once on the early-morning bus to work I could feel the sugar level slide and struggled to open a value pack of Skittles that exploded when I pulled too hard in my dopey state.
They ended up scattered all over the bus, but still I gathered a few off the floor and the person next to me and ate some.
Beer became low-carb and flavourless. But at least I have developed a taste for top-shelf spirits, taken neat.
These are tough realities for a man with a fondness for chicken schnitzel and a schooner.
The other downside was my new life as a pin cushion.
When your pancreas stops working, you have to perform its role by injecting insulin.
That means five injections a day. Minimum. Two in the morning, one at lunch and two more at night.
As a diabetic, routine is king. You have to structure your main meals to occur at roughly the same time every day and accompany them with an injection of insulin timed just right to shift the sugar.
The problem is there's a lot of guess work.
Too much insulin and your level goes low, meaning you're at risk of passing out, or death.
Too high for too long and you run the risk of all sorts of medical blowback.
And for some reason it gives you a shorter fuse than Hulk Hogan.
So, you've got to park it in the middle, on the edge of that five-cent piece.
It's weird at first.
I felt like a junkie, jabbing myself with needles five times a day.
It's confronting for others to watch. I still refer to it as "shooting up". At least it goes in the stomach and I don't have to look for a vein.
Before diagnosis, I ate whatever I wanted.
Now I lock my survival lollies in a safe to keep my wife's lack of willpower from killing me.
Workmates love the endless supply of snakes on my desk, but they're always careful to leave me enough to live.
But with your pancreas on the blink the Mars bars or pasta you've been eating push up your sugar level.
When it hits 15 or higher you get thirsty. Really thirsty.
Every drop of water tastes as good as if I'd run the London Marathon with a hangover on a 42C day in a ski suit.
When the levels are wrong water isn't enough.
I turned to sports drinks, which are refreshing but are more sugary than Froot Loops. In the weeks leading up to diagnosis I was so thirsty I must have drunk 50 of them. They pushed my blood sugar level sky high.
Once you are diagnosed with a level that high it's quite a process to bring it down.
For me it took two days hooked up to a drip on a bed that had been wheeled into a Royal North Shore Hospital storeroom due to a lack of space in the rest of the hospital.
Once the adjustment is made, it's about coming to terms with it and just doing it.
So says Manly Sea Eagles fullback Stewart, who is a great ambassador.
That Stewart can maintain a steady blood sugar level through 80 minutes of rugby league shows you can live to your full potential.
"After a while you just figure out what works for you because everyone responds to it differently," he told me. "You just have to plan for everything and eat accordingly."
Wonder how many carbs are in that pic? ha ha
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Friday, 10 August 2012
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Nice Diabetes - What is it all about? - YouTube
Nice Diabetes - What is it all about?
via youtube.com
Nice Diabetes - Sam from Nice Diabetes introduces what the website Nice Diabetes is all about
Sunday, 8 July 2012
If you can walk, you can climb Kili
A blog about the preparation, thoughts, fears and everything else that idly enters my mind leading up to a trek up Mt Kilimanjaro in February 2013. I'm 40 years old, registered blind, love to travel, and up for all kinds of adventure
Inspirational tale from a Type 1 Diabetic prepping to climb Mt Killi
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Medtronic Australia offering free meters for medtronic pump users
Sounds like an interesting offer, Im going to order one and see how it goes
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Things I Can't Stand About My Insulin Pump
My relationship with my pump is complicated. I love it for the control it gives me over my disease, but I detest it for its flakiness, its arbitrary malfunctions, and the host of tiny aggravations that turn it from a blessing into a curse
Its an interesting one. My pump has changed my life and I would never go back to MDI but its not all sunshine all the time.
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
UK News - Revealed: DH plans to bundle diabetes QOF indicators worth over £5,000
Exclusive: GPs will be forced to conduct nine separate checks in each patient with diabetes under Department of Health plans to create a single diabetes QOF indicator worth over £5,000, Pulse can reveal.
Related articlesThe DH is also pushing for a change in thresholds along with the ‘composite indicator', which would include HbA1c, cholesterol, blood pressure and foot checks, in an attempt to boost achievement in the routine assessment of patients with diabetes.
The move comes after a national audit suggested only half of patients with diabetes were receiving all nine checks – a result described as ‘appalling' by patient groups.
But the findings of the National Diabetes Audit for 2010/11, published last month, have been plunged into controversy after the GPC filed a complaint over the data used in the audit.
The DH has launched an investigation into the GPC's complaint, which is due to report in September. In the meantime, it has written to NICE, asking it to look at bundling all the nine checks – currently separate indicators worth 39 points (equivalent to £5,217 per year for an average practice) – into one single indicator.
NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh wrote to NICE last month asking it to consider ‘replacing the current QOF indicators relating to the nine processes for diabetes with a composite indicator measuring the proportion of patients who received all nine of the processes'.
In the letter, he also asked NICE to review ‘the range of target measurements and associated payment thresholds'.
If successful, the new indicator could be included in the 2015 QOF.
But GPs warned the changes could mean much more work for practices and potentially lost income, and the GPC said the profession was being ‘unfairly criticised' because of the National Diabetes Audit's findings.
Dr Bill Beeby, chair of the GPC's clinical and prescribing subcommittee, told Pulse the figures from the national audit were ‘incomparable' to the achievement recorded in the QOF: ‘GPs are not putting in the codes that the National Diabetes Audit looks for, because they're not being asked to.
‘If you look for the wrong thing you won't find it. Some areas are being unfairly criticised as a result.'
GPC negotiator Dr Beth McCarron-Nash said the proposed changes would be considered as part of the normal negotiation process, but added: ‘GPs asked for stability in the QOF and we are mindful of that.'
Dr Stephen Mann, a GP in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, said the change could have a drastic impact on practice income, with the increased number of checks likely to hit uptake: ‘You'll get patients who won't comply, won't turn up, won't want to be monitored.
‘GPs will have to jump through hoops, and if they miss one thing they'll fail.'
Dr Paul Conley, a GP in Basingstoke, said: ‘GPs ensure high-level care for patients with diabetes already, and we've had so many changes to the QOF. This extreme micromanaging of complex clinical processes can have the opposite effect, and GPs feel demoralised.'
A spokesperson for the DH said: ‘We hope to work together [with NICE] and with the BMA and other stakeholders to improve the QOF and support ongoing improvements in quality and outcomes for patients.'
via pulsetoday.co.uk
Good or bad for diabetes management?
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Nice Diabetes - The Video
via animoto.com
Sometimes its the small things that help keep our diabetes nice
Thursday, 28 June 2012
The Way I Am
My 16-year-old son and I spent the day together recently and decided to head out for burgers at lunchtime. Sitting in a rather exposed booth at a restaurant, we chatted and began eating. I wasn't really thinking about anything, just enjoying the rare moment of hanging out with my sweet son, when he remarked, "I'd feel so awkward if I had to do that." I asked him what he meant and actually looked around to see what he was talking about. Then it hit me, as he mimed taking an injection and said, "Having to take shots in front of random people all the time." Moments before, I had taken a shot in my hip, capped my syringe, and popped it back into my handbag without even thinking about it. After 18 years of shots, it's practically instinct for me.
I know he meant it with a good heart. He wasn't embarrassed by me, but, rather, worried about how he'd feel if he had diabetes. I explained to him that I used to feel so awkward about taking my shots that I would literally hide from people to do it. But eventually I realized that I had done nothing wrong and that I am not ashamed of having diabetes. I also told him that diabetes is a part of me and will be forever. "It's the way I am," I said. He nodded and returned to talking about a school friend of his as we finished our burgers.
Still, his comment made me wonder about how other people in my family feel about my shots. I decided to ask for complete and utter honesty from my husband. My question to him was "How do you feel for me when we are out in public and I take a shot?" My husband told me that he doesn't think anything about it. "It's just a part of who you are," he told me. "You have green eyes and diabetes." When I pressed him about how he felt when he first met me, he said, "The only time I felt weird was when we were on our first date and I tried pushing you to have some of the super-sugary coffee drink I was having. When you said you had diabetes, I regretted having pressured you. Now I know better, and I don't think about it at all." It makes me happy to know that he looks at diabetes as just another part of me, like my eye color, and not at all like I have something wrong with me.
When I was 18, I never would have taken a shot in front of other people. I was mortified that I was different. Today I feel a sense of strength when I take my shots. I know that I'm different, but honestly, different isn't always a bad thing. We are different in that we need to be brave and strong each and every day, with no breaks. I still remember those early days of trying to fit in with the other teens, but now that I'm all grown up, I think that being ordinary is highly overrated.
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