Living with fears
Living with diabetes brings all sorts of extra worries, in the short and long term. I remember my Endo once saying to me that diabetes was a full time job and to be gentle on myself when it came to trying to fit everything into life. I am sure we all have fears. People have fears about all sorts of things. As people with diabetes, we have additional things to get scared about.
Do you have that?
For me, there are two 1) hypos and 2) getting a gastric illness. I have had awful experiences ( all of which I have survived) where I have been vomiting and these two fears come together with me going hypo and trying to shove glucose or lollies or lemonade in while throwing it up. And then later, the highs and the ketones.
I also have a child who had such bad gastric reflux disease as a baby, he had his stomach tied to prevent this. It means he can not vomit and any signs of a gastro and he has to take heavy duty medications to stop him getting into trouble.
So when there are bugs circulating our family run! Last night my 5year old threw up overnight and again this morning. I am hopping on a plane tomorrow. The paranoia is setting in – what if I get sick when I am away alone? Do I cancel my trip?
Do you think someone without diabetes would be thinking about that? Probably not. The “what if’s” creep in and then my mind is off and running. So this time I have decided to be mindful and just see what happens. To make a decision tomorrow. To try and focus on how I am feeling now and not how I “might” feel. To try not to let the fears and worries crowd my mind.
Wish me luck.
Do you have 1 big fear about life with diabetes? Please share – a worry shared is a worry halved 🙂
Helen
xx
Helen Edwards
Founder and Director Diabetes Counselling Online, person with type 1 diabetes for 35 years,mum of 3 and blogger at www.recycledinteriors.org
Yes my biggest fear of living with Diabetes is that I could have a very low BGL over night and I’m not alerted to the fact it is dangerously low and then my body starts to shut down. The big fear I have with this is I live alone at home and if this was to happen I would be found dead by either my family or my landlord. How can I prevent this from happening in future?.
I have T1 diabetes and I have had the worry about having hypos at night or waking in the morning with a really low blood sugar level. Although it is impossible to prevent these things happening I have felt much better about coping with the problems since deciding to take my sugar level before going to sleep. I know roughly what it should be to enable me to get through the night and wake with a reasonable level. If my level is lower than this then I drink some Lucozade or similar drink with high sugar content to increase it. I think careful monitoring can really help.
I share this fear as well!!! I have actively avoided any sick people at all since my D diagnosis. I just don’t want to deal with being sick and the highs and lows that come with it.
I have had many bouts of severe vomiting – once I was in hospital and the staff thought I was having heart attack, Twice it has been so severe I have been to hospital in an ambulance and needed to spend time in hospital due to ketones. I went to an ENT who did many tests and decided that I needed to cut the salt as it was causing an imbalance of fluid in my eardrums which in turn caused the vomiting. He felt it was a complication of the diabetes! It is really hard to cut the salt so dramatically, especially when you dine out but I seem to have achieved it and have found a happy balance of keeping salt to an absolute minimum most of the time so that when I go out I can indulge a little. I am really scared of the vomiting attacks as they are really scary. Diabetes is such hard work – there are so many things to worry about and focus on.
I agree entirely Helen. I always check my BGL as I go to bed and like to have it at about 10 – depending on the insulin on board – then I know it will be Ok all night. You are right – check, check, check!