[[0017]] The bane of a diabetics life... HYPERS/HIGHS

I have already written about hypoglycaemia over here so I felt it was time to write about the other end of the spectrum, hyperglycaemia (or highs as I will call them from here on out).

These are quite honestly the bane of mine (and I am sure other diabetics) life. Sometimes the highs cannot be helped, such as illness or stress, but other times, it doesn't matter how hard you try to keep your blood sugars stable, the highs just keep coming and coming and coming no matter what you do to try and stop them. Highs can also be deadly or just make you feel really sick and lethargic, amongst other things. I have actually suffered inadvertently with diabetic bulimia (diabulimia) due to constant high blood sugars, but that is a post for another date! 

Back to the post and what it is all about. Well, I will explain what hyperglycaemia is, symptoms of highs, how to treat highs and a couple of stories (alas, these will not be as funny as my hypo stories sadly, but they are poignant and bring the point home about how hard it can be to try and keep control of diabetes in an ever stressful world, or in my case, my not so ordinary world.

What is hyperglycaemia?

Hyperglycaemia is a result of too much glucose in the blood stream (check out the illustration above, those glucose molecules are definitely not making us feel very good). This can cause blood sugar readings to be very high, in my case, the highest I have achieved is 30mmol/L (be sure to check out my previous post about measuring blood glucose) but sugar levels can read higher than this, or in the case of my blood glucose metre, HI (which I think is about 35mmol/L but don't quote me on this). It is best to try and treat highs as quickly as possible, but this isn't as easy as treating a hypo... this can take longer to achieve and in my case, is not always successful.

The chart above shows just under a months amount of blood results... everything above the red line is out of range for me, or high. A lot of people have their highs set to 10mmol/L but mine is 15 due to the fact that I have struggled to keep control over the years so for the longest time, anything below 15 was decent enough for me. 

Looking at this, I realise how badly controlled my diabetes can be sometimes, especially towards lunch/afternoon. I'm still trying to figure out why I have the highs around that time of day, even when I have carb counted my breakfast and lunch, but that is a mystery for another day and not this post. 

How does hyperglycaemia happen?

Hyperglycaemia occurs due to a build up of glucose in the blood, which can simply be a result of an imbalance between the amount of insulin injected into the body and the amount of carbohydrate in food that has been eaten (although high levels of glucose can occur for other, not as common reasons).

The main causes of hyperglycaemia are:

• not enough insulin injected at meals
• not injecting before/after a meal or a sugary snack
• skipping meals
• illness
• non-diabetes related medications
• levels of physical activity
• stress/anxiety
• colder weather

As you can see, there are many factors that diabetics need to be in control of to help prevent highs from occurring. And it is vital that sugars are not high, as persistently high blood sugars can lead to diabetic complications later in life, such as:

• cardivascular disease/strokes/heart attacks
• diabetic peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage)
• diabetic retinopathy/diabetic maculopathy (damage to the small blood vessels in the eyes, leading to blindness)
• nephropathy (kidney damage/disease/failure)
• issues with the feet, such as infection, ulcers, blisters which can lead to amputation
• infection in the teeth and gums

What are the symptoms of hyperglycaemia? 

Hyperglycaemic symptoms I find, are not as obvious or noticeable as symptoms of hypoglycaemia. I have found that the symptoms of highs are subtle and only noticeable to myself... and the symptoms that I do get are very frustrating and certainly annoying to have. I have found that in a way, there are two stages to high blood sugar symptoms, the more common ones for when blood sugar levels are elevated for a shorted amount of time, then a second bunch for when blood sugars are raised for a longer period of time. 

Symptoms of short-term hyperglycaemia include:

• headaches
• dry mouth
• increased thirst
• urinating more often 
• feeling fatigued/lethargic 

Symptoms of long-term hyperglycaemis include:

• nausea/vomiting/making yourself vomit
• acetone/pear drop smell on the breath
• shortness of breath
• feeling weak
• sleeping a lot/falling asleep
• abdominal pains (in particular, around the kidney area)
• mental disturbance/confusion
• urine that smells sweeter than normal/pale coloured urine

Hyperglycaemia is a very serious problem, and the build up of glucose can result in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in which toxic ketones build up in the blood stream. This can lead to hospitalisation but if left untreated, can become severe and result in coma or death. DKA is classed as a medical emergency and most people with diabetes do end up in hospital if DKA occurs.

Ketones - why are they so deadly?

I shall do a proper big post about ketones and DKA in the future, but I figured a small section about them could help those who have friends or family members with diabetes as ketones can be spotted quite easily by other people.

Ketones occur when there is not enough insulin in the blood to convert glucose into energy, so the level of this sugar increases as the liver in turn, begins to turn fat into energy instead. This causes ketones to be formed in the blood which are toxic and require medical help immediately. Ketones lead to DKA, which occurs as ketones build-up to ever increasing toxic levels. 

A symptom of hyperglycaemia as mentioned above, is the unique smell of acetone/pear drops on the breath, which is often associated with ketones, as this smell tends to only be noticed when a diabetic's body has been in hyperglycaemia for a long period of time. IF YOU EVER SMELL KETONES AROUND SOMEONE WITH DIABETES, CHECK THEIR KETONES AND/OR CALL 999 IMMEDIATELY.  

How do you treat hyperglycaemia?

I personally find that highs are harder to treat than lows. I guess this is because it depends on why you are having the hyperglycaemic attack in the first place.

The easiest way to treat hyperglycaemia is by taking insulin, which as a starting point until diabetics have found their ratios, is a unit of insulin to reduce bloods by 3.0mmol/L. I also learnt in hospital, to drink a lot of water too, which can help flush glucose from the body (although this is not as effective as doing insulin, however it is best to do both of these at the same time).

But this only works if hyperglycaemia has occurred due to not doing enough insulin or physical activity; hyperglycaemia caused by illness and stress for example, can be more difficult to treat. 

One of the biggest problems that I have personally had in trying to control my blood sugars, is the result of stress on them. I have mentioned briefly in posts prior to this one, that stress has predominated my life from an early age and as I got older, I tended to brush my own health and mental health problems under the carpet to deal with everyone else's issues, and neglecting myself is the reason why I ignored my diabetes so much. I tended to inject when I could feel dry mouth and even then, I wasn't injecting to lower my blood sugars but just to get rid of the dry mouth. 

Stress causes high blood sugars due to the fight or flight response that is in-built within us from an early age. When put in a situation that causes stress, the body releases glucose from the glycogen (concentrated glucose) that is stored in the liver. In people without diabetes, the release of hormones that is a result of stress and deal with stress cause  this glucose to be released and the blood sugar rises, however insulin is also released but in type 1 diabetics, this does not occur. This can cause blood sugars to rise in those with diabetes and this kind of sugar I find, is difficult to medicate for. This also occurs when diabetics are struck with bugs and illnesses outside of their control... for example, when I had gastroenteritis last year, I was medicating but even though I was not eating food, my blood sugars remained consistently high, no matter how much insulin I did; it also turned out I had ketones when dealing with this illness, which was another reason I was admitted as well as the neuropathy. I have since learned that if I ever end up with an illness like gastroenteritis again, that I do need to go to hospital straight away and obviously, call 999. You live and you learn after all!!!

In these situations I find its best to do everything you can to beat the illness, such as drinking a lot of water to help flush the bad stuff out of the body and increasing medication. If you are lucky enough to be able to predict when an anxious moment is coming, then do a little extra insulin, but honestly, unless you are logging every little thing that causes you stress, it is hard to know when you will become anxious or stressed, especially if it is spontaneous. Can you believe it, but some people's blood sugars can go up due to anxiety caused by a scary film! 

That is it for now folks! I hope you enjoyed this post about hyperglycaemia and how to treat it as best you can. Needless to say, all diabetics are different and what is said here may work for some but not for others. All information provided is based on my own experiences, but please, get talking to everyone else out there and find out their stories too!!! I also hope you're looking forward to future posts hinted at in this post, such as DKA and diabulimia, cold weather with diabetes and more!

Also, a big thank you to all those of you who are still following and reading my posts but also a big thank you to a member of a diabetes group I recently joined, Taz Marie, who gave me the idea to write about highs and eventually DKA and a couple of other interesting posts/interviews coming in the future!!!

[[0009]] Week 3 Overview

Well, I can safely say this week has been a lot kinder, thank goodness!!!

This weeks blood results chart.

I shall start with the weekly blood tests first, get the nitty gritty of the diabetes part out the way to explain the rest of the week!

The one big thing that I notice here is... WAY LESS HYPOS HALLELUJAH! There have been a couple but they have been a little simpler to deal with. And luckily for most of them, I had something at home for them (except last nights, where I had to resort to golden syrup on a spoon and some not so tasty out of fate mini marshmallows😫).

Week 2 was rife with hypos, but I received some tips from a diabetes group on FB about drinking something like milk before bed to help stop sugars dropping in the night, alas, only had hypo drink so I had a couple of sips of that and it helped with a couple of night time hypos (as you can see, I hypoed last night as nothing sugary for me to have before bed!!!). It's actually pay day tomorrow so I am planning on buying some milkshake powder and milk and plan on having either warm milk before bed or a milkshake, and hopefully that will help me stop having night hypos, so watch this space!

I have had a few more hi results but, these don't alarm me too much because the amount of his I am having nowadays is a lot less than last year, which is a massive relief. This means I am getting some kind of diabetic control back in my life. Its ridiculous as I have had the condition for 27 years and cannot remember a day without it but yet it has taken me all this time to get some kind of good results. Better late than never is what I keep telling myself, but... some damage has already been done, sadly. 

Me and my lil mini me.

All in all, it has actually been a pretty okay week. I got to spend a lot of time with my youngest sister Lola and her dad this weekend which has been absolutely lovely and has brought sooooo many smiles to my face! They recently moved to their new home which I am so honestly thrilled about, and I got the joy of making up some of their furniture (which is one of my super secret loves haha, give me flat pack any day friends!!!). It's just so amazing to see two lovely people so happy and just, omg, my face hurts from smiling so much. Plus OMGOSH Lola has some AMAZING toys that I so wish they made when I was younger, like this super cute modern little kids kitchen, which is all smart and silver and black and just WOW, love it! 

Honestly, my little sister Lola-Lollipop means the absolute WORLD to me. She asks questions about me having diabetes and I love explaining it all to her. This weekend I was telling her about all the cool food I can eat that I don't have to medicate for, as her dad bought us Peperamis to snack on and I learnt this week at work that they have no carbs in therefore, new snack I don't have to med for! SO AWESOME! Not only that, but, I love how smart and clever Lola is, and she honestly reminds me of me when I was a kid... heck, she even looks like I did when I was little which is so creepy scary cos we may have the same mom, but different dads! Love her so so so much and I am so so so so happy I got to spend the weekend helping her and her dad in there lovely and beautiful new home. It's so good to see her happy and smiling, and knowing she is happy and smiling makes me feel so super happy too 💓💛💚💙💜

Fortnite streaming shenanigans.

In other news, streaming is getting better and better! I had some salary sacrifice left over from work, so decided to use it to get me and Jakey McBooty a capture card for streaming and OMG it makes such a difference to our streams and I absolutely love it! We still aren't the most professional, but we are having so much fun with everything related to it and its helping me come closer to doing one of my three dreams, which is streaming Pokémon games! (And maybe Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy too!!!) I don't know when I am going to start streaming from my own channel as of yet as need to set up things with stream labs and work out streaming and audio from my switch but needless to say, this capture card is an absolute game changer and a half!!! Also got to stream with my lovely friend Pete and his daughter as well (who I have been informed is pretty damn good on Fortnite) and my brother hopped on as well... so much fun! Roll on future streaming days! 

We've been planning some illustrations as well as future things to stream as well, one being a couple night on Valentine's day with a lovely take out and drinks and potentially trying out Minecraft for the first time! Honestly, everything is so super exciting right now, I'm so happy!

Super Insulin Pen, the Super Hero of
Team Super Insulin.

Also this week, well, today actually, I applied to be a social media ambassador for my favourite charity, JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund). You'll see me talk about them quite a bit if I am honest, I love the work they do (and one of the taglines in the application thanks was "help make type one, type none!"and I love it. We fundraised for them for their Game2Give campaign last year in which we raised £200 for the charity, and we should be at least be doing that twice more this year as well (it's going to be awesome now we have a better streaming set up!!!). But no, it's something I have thought about doing for a while, what with writing this blog now, along with the fundraising in the past (altogether we've raised about £320ish altogether) and then my dissertation in which I made kid friendly leaflets explaining what T1D is and so on... using social media to help promote awareness for T1D research and finding a cure is something I just had to do. Which leads on to my second dream in which I would love to work more for Type 1 Diabetes, whether it remains social media and writing, to fundraising, talking to people and educating and so on... its something I need to do. Plus, once my health and medication is sorted out, I may look into becoming a community support ambassador for JDRF, attending events and liaising with others, raising more awareness and so forth. I'm so so happy I took this leap and I look forward to writing about future developments, and who knows, I might be able to get my diabetes illustrations to a bigger audience in the future! 

Bob and Betty,
the insulin producing
Beta cells of the pancreas.

My one last dream is to write a book of my life, or a screenplay, called "Ordinary World?"... maybe I will apply for that masters in creative writing and publishing... one step at a time though, I don't want to overwhelm myself!!!

So, next week doesn't look too bad... although I have my first ever appointment with the diabetes team at my local hospital on Tuesday which I am a little bit terrified about. I have not seen a diabetes team there in YEARS, for the sheer fact I hated going, hated how I was spoke to as a kid and just... I don't even know, I hated going. I have accepted it now though and for the sake of my future and mine and Jake's future, I do need to go. But I have so much I need to tell the doctor about... and not only that, this doctor doesn't know me like my nurses at my surgery do, he doesn't know my history and why my diabetes has been a trash show all these years... so for the love of all that is holy, I hope they understand because I don't want to be terrified of going again. I also know that I'll be doing one of my old favourite jobs on Friday at work, but I haven't done it since I went in to hospital last year, and I currently don't know how my foot or my nausea will cope with it... so... long story short, next week will either be absolutely fantastic, or horrible as hell.

As always, watch this space! And thank you to my new followers and for those who have read my blog! I noticed my more informative post about cold and diabetes has done really well, so I think I am going to try and do another informative post this week, maybe even explain how T1D happens with my old trusty illustrations!!!

Laters lovely people 💙 And thank you so much for sticking by me too.

[[0007]] Week 2 Overview

Howdy folks, I'm finally back with this weeks diabetes and life overview and boy, hasn't it been a bloody week and a half! 

I'm not gonna ramble on too much about the bad shizzle that happened this week, you can read all about it by following this link right here!!

Long story short, it was hell. So many low blood sugars resulting in a day off work (which I am rather pissed at myself about, alas, sometimes we cannot control these things). I still don't know what happened, but I am more than adamant that it is due to my nighttime Lantus insulin because absolutely nothing else makes sense to me anymore! Also forgot to mention in that bad day blog post that I had to blood test every hour or two on that Tuesday day off just to make sure I didn't let my blood sugars drop again and oh God, my finger tips still feel it now.

I do hope it is enough for the consultant to let me go on to the Libre though... although I have heard

there is a shortage in the little things at the moment, but I don't see him till a week on Tuesday so maybe eventually things will sort out? I do realise that I need a constant glucose monitor at this point as it'll be easier to monitor the trends in my bloods in relation to food and carbs (especially if I have to carb count soon, urgh). I do hope as well, that it means I can finally go on to the long acting Tresiba insulin my dietitian told me a lot about, after all, the diabetes doctors at my local hospital supposedly all swear by it, and I honestly thing a change in long acting meds may be what I need.

So, what else has happened this week? WELL, for the first time in the longest time, I finally went out to play some Pokemon GO (the game that helped me and Jakey meet!) as it was Piplup community day today and it meant I got to meet my lovely friend who caught loads of Ralts for me on another community day that I was unable to attend, so I finally got a shiny Gardevoir for my Pokemon collection, wooo! Very happy about that oh yes!

I haven't been out much to play the games I love as I am always worried nowadays that I might hypo at any time, especially this week but I am so glad I went out. Saw lots of friends, got lots of shinies (and 19p croissants for dinner, absolutely banging!) and all in all, just had a fantastic three hours out the house! I need to keep reminding myself that it is okay to go out and not every day is a bad hypo day or neuropathy day, it's at least good to go and try and do the things I absolutely love! I also have to remember that the neuropathy isn't horribly bad in my foot yet and that I am lucky it is not in my left foot, so I need to make the most of not having both feet in pain whilst I can!!!

SO, up above is the graph of the blood results I have taken this week... at least I can say there has definitely been a lot less hypos and a few more blood sugars in the correct range, but the fact my hypos out number my hypers is still a bit scary to see. Thankfully, the last two days, I have woken up with blood sugars between 6 and 7.5mmol/L which isn't bad. The change I made, is that I try to drink something a bit sugary before bed and so far, it seems to be working. I do however, need pay day to hurry up so I can get some milk to drink before bed as that is slightly better than digging into the hypo supplies to stop night time hypos. I'm going to pray so damn hard that I don't have anymore morning hypos next week... I have honestly had enough of them!!!

My mental health, sadly, has taken a dip this week... which is scaring me a little bit and of course, I am worried that it may scare Jake a little too. I am waiting for counselling though so fingers crossed that helps! What I know has not helped me is the fact I do not sleep my solid 6 hours that I used to do on my old antidepressants... so again, something else to speak to the doctors about at my appt in a weeks time. Long story short (again), when I was in hospital, they changed my normal Mirtazapine (only antidepressant that helps you sleep) for Duloxitine, which is a drug for diabetic neuropathy that is also an antidepressant, but that new medication honestly hates me, and the stresses of this week and the lack of sleep has really made my mental health suffer to the point I've had thoughts that absolutely terrify me. I won't act on them, thankfully, but it has spurred me to get these meds changed so I can at least be on my old meds again with something new for the neuropathy... watch this space I guess!!!

I have tried a few tactics to help me sleep, and boring and repetitive seems to be the way to go for me haha! So, many of you may know I absolutely love Pokemon and have done for years and the new game for Nintendo Switch is absolutely AMAZING (and so British it hurts haha) but I have however completed the Pokedex and the game so what to do next? Simple, SHINY HUNT.

I both enjoy and regret starting this, but its so boring and repetitive at times that it just makes me fall asleep so I'm gonna stick at it for now. Not only that, I may have caught the shiny bug at last!

With previous Pokemon games, I never really went out of my way to hunt shinies, if I got them then great but if I didn't then meh, whatever. But... with some friends at work doing the same and seeing how cool some of the new generation shinies look... I had to get in on it! My first one had to be Dreepy, that derpy dragon looking thing in the picture. There is a method called the Masuda Method in which you use a Pokemon (in my case, a Ditto) from a foreign country and if you have the shiny charm as well, you luck drops to 1.500something in getting a shiny to hatch out of an egg. 250ish eggs later, I got Dreepy! Next was Galarian Zigzagoon (which not shiny, is black and white and looks like it should be in KISS haha!!) but I wanted this one so when evolved into its majestic blue and red glory, I could call it David Bowie and after 62 eggs, I got him too! AND THEN we get Impidimp, and although not confirmed to be based on Lincoln Imp, we assume it is... but the shiny is so cool... try telling that to my brain and I should have given up because it took three/four nights of constant game play and 608 eggs lates, finally got the shiny little guy... but ho damn it was hell.

Supposedly another tactic is shiny encounters in the wild which I haven't done before so I am going to try that out over the next couple of days... and then back to eggs to get my shiny yellow Lucario for my team haha! I am slowly making a list of shinies I want to find so fingers crossed, that will keep me busy until the DLC expansion passes are out in June and Autumn this year.

My, thats a lot of Pokemon talk but honestly? Playing so much of it has chilled me out and made things a little better this week. It's honestly kept me going, given me something to look forward to whilst waiting for Jake to get home to me after work (I still hate being on my own) and it's giving me something to do in my lonely lunch breaks too! Which brings me on to something else I have been thinking about as well, especially with the shiny hunting and expansion passes coming out, but after mine and Jakey's streaming session on Saturday night (catch us next week on mixer playing Fortnite again), I think I want to use my personal mixer to stream Pokemon games, such as community days on Pokemon GO and well, the new content coming out, as well as shiny hunting cos supposedly people like that. Plus, Saturday just gone was the first time my Fortnite gameplay was live for people to see, and I think I had some alright moments... the buzz is real and I want to stream more!!! Especially if I can help raise more money for JDRF with it in the future too.

Well, that's it for my week guys! Ups and downs and geeky glory... pretty normal in my not-so ordinary world!!! Not to see what next week brings, alas... time to go do more shiny hunting haha LETS DO THIS! 

[[0006]] A not-so-good day in the life of a diabetic

So, I should have posted on Wednesday, but honestly? Things have been an absolute mess on the diabetes scale of things so, now I am somewhat recovered (and waiting for a Jakey to get back from work), I figured it was a good time to write about a bad day in the life of being a type 1 diabetic. 

So, you may have seen my post on Monday about Hypo Hangovers after I had a hypo before work and then my bloods rocketed after. Well... let's just say that things got worse. 

I was very tired when I returned home, so had dinner and did my night time bloods and Lantus insulin (which as of about a week or so ago, I had lowered to 24 because I kept getting hypos in the morning). This was a good four hours after I had eaten so everything that happened after was definitely the result of the Lantus long acting insulin and not the one I do before my food. It got to 10pm when I ded my bloods, they were 6.4mmol/L so to be on the safe side, I drank some of my sugary drink and went up to bed to play on my switch till I fell asleep.

I didn't fall asleep though. Frustratingly, my mouth started to taste weirdly metallic and my lips and tongue felt funny, so I came to check my bloods... they were 3.1mmol/L! The sugar did nothing!!! I downed as much sugar as I could and my bloods eventually rose to 4.5mmol/L which seemed safe enough to go to bed and I got a small amount of sleep. My other half had to wake me up to check my bloods again, and they had reached 10.1mmol/L, a but high, but not too bad so I tried to sleep, but around 4.30am, I started stirring and tossing and turning and even after a wee (which normally solves the problem) I still couldn't settle. My alarm for work went off... and, my blood sugar was 2.9mmol/L.

I'm actually super lucky I work in a hospital with an amazing management team of whom I get on very well with, and I also think it helps that I have always been blunt and honest about my health to them. Jake had pre-warned them the night before that I had essentially had a two hour long hypo and we were struggling to get bloods up and stable. It had been discussed a while ago after another hypo incident on my way to work, that if I ever hypoed in the morning, to not come to work, which I did not do on Monday but on this Tuesday, I honestly had absolutely no choice. I couldn't go in and more so, since the Friday before... I had had about 5 hypos, maybe 6 (as I didn't blood test one of them). Again, I am lucky my management team at work are so understanding and respectful to me and my health condition, as they also allowed the other half to have the day off with me as well, so that he could keep an eye on any more hypos I may have (I am not the most logical whilst having a hypo) but to also make sure we could both tackle my food and meds and document everything throughout the day as we tried to get me back to some kind of normal. 

Honestly, I hate taking time off for my diabetes. I really do. I am meant to have this thing under control and stable and I honestly, just don't. It's always been a struggle. There have been many times I have hypoed before or during work and I have still gone to work or stayed at work... if I think about it, the only way I won't go to work if a hypo happens is when I have had little to no sleep, but... even then I don't listen to what is best for myself.

I know that Jake was very worried about me and its understandable, we haven't actually dealt with this amount of hypos together before and I know it can be scary, especially the beginning on Monday night when we couldn't get them up over that two hours. He did really well though and it makes me realise that I genuinely need him around as much as possible, even if it;'s just to check and make sure I am okay. It's made me think as well, if he wasn't around, how would I cope if I was living on my own? What would I do? Who would I turn to? And that actually terrifies me too. I don't think I could survive on my own anymore. 

Because Jake (and myself) were worried about me being on my own on my Wednesday day off, Jake asked my brother to come up and stay with me for the day, which was so lovely, I think he might come on some more Wednesday's I have off!!!  

He made the most amazing breakfast I had ever eaten, which was chocolate and salted caramel stuffed french toast and omg, it was heavenly. I misjudged my meds and didn't take enough but, it just felt good to not have to worry about having a hypo that whole entire day and thankfully, I didn't have one. Either way, my brother is an amazing cook so I'm def excited to see what other things he will make when he comes to visit!!!

I also struggle a lot when Jake is at work and I am home on my own, not health wise, but mentally, I think? Like, the house is too quiet, I don't know what to do, who to speak to or anything and I end up feeling weirdly lost and alone. SO having my brother over on the Wednesday was awesome, because it made the day go so much faster and meant Jake would be home sooner, even though he was coming back at the same normal time, it just felt quicker than last Wednesday which was a horrible, horrible Wednesday for me (which I think I mentioned in this post).

So after a good day... things kind of went down hill that night. I don't know what happened, I don't know why any of it happened... but I just did not sleep. I felt tired, I was exhausted, but I just couldn't settle down. I managed about 20minutes of sleep before Jake came up to bed, and after that, I slept on and off in ten minute bursts, but spent most the night awake. I had another hypo at 3am as well, which I made some toast and drank some sugar water to fix, but then I just lay in bed, wide awake and the mental health kicked in.

It was horrible, so so horrible. I haven't had issues with any kind of bad thoughts for a while but a mix of no sleep and hypo just made my brain churn out the worst possible things it could. Things had been somewhat okay on my new anti-depressant (a future blog post by the way, keep an eye out!) but I had been doubting them as an anti-depressant for a while, more so as they don't knock me out like my old meds used to and sleep helps my mental health a lot. SO lying there on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, with horrible things running through my head, did not help me with the rest of my day. Don't threat though, been speaking to amazing people at work and I should be back at counselling again soon, so watch this space. I also have a meeting with the diabetes team in just over a week and I will be begging for a medication change.

Because I could not sleep at all, I decided to just go to work because no point lying around and I already had one day off that week, I didn't want to lose another bank shift! I managed to survive until 4pm when I started having another hypo, so I was allowed to leave work. I got home, had dinner then went straight to bed and honestly, I needed that sleep as I felt a bit better today.

Touch wood, I have not had a hypo today and my blood sugar was good this morning, at 6.5mmol/L. 

It's given me a lot of questions and things to think about though. According to people I have spoken to online, I am having way too many hypos so I could be in the running for a constant glucose monitor, which I am actually interested in, alas I am unsure if I can get one. I also strongly believe that I need to come off Lantus as my long acting insulin, and be put on something called Tresiba, which my dietician told me about... supposedly less night time hypos so I'm praying I have enough evidence for my new consultant on the 28th January. I've also been given some pointers I am going to try when we have a bit more money, such as drinking a glass of milk before bed, to see if that stops me having a hypo in the morning.

Either way, I am praying that the worry is over for now and I can just enjoy my weekend, hypo free!!! I need a break dammit!!!

[[0005]] Hypo Hangovers... are a thing.

This blog is brought to you by the fact I started my week... with yet another bloody hypo! And then had what equates to a hypo hangover for the rest of my shift at work. TYPICAL.

I woke up a bit woozy this morning, couldn't really feel my typical hypo symptoms but I knew my body wasn't quite "there" so morning blood test showed be I had woken up with a hypo. I should have figured that out myself, considering I'd been tossing and turning half an hour previously and had a lot of vivid dreams.

So, did my normal treatment of a cup of sugary drink then bombed out to work cos I didn't want to miss the earlier buses.

And my bloods did get sorted... but upon going outside for a break with my team leader, I STILL felt like I was having hypo symptoms. SO clever me checked again and my blood were now 12mmol/L.

I spend a lot of time chatting to my team leader when I am at work (she's a gem omg) and she coined a good term for these after hypo effects, thus Hypo Hangover was born. And damn, what a hypo hangover! Sometimes when I have a hypo, I struggle to use my hands and lose some of my upper body strength. And today's problem was, even after the hypo was gone, I couldn't even open a door! I also couldn't stop shaking and my legs felt like jelly for a good half of the day, very odd.

Hypo hangover makes sense though. There have been times before when I have had a hypo in the middle of the night and once its sorted and I have got back to sleep... when I wake up in the morning, it's like I haven't rested at all, I am exhausted, no energy, my limbs feel heavy. It's not just during the night though, say I have a hypo at work, if it takes longer than the normal 10 mins to sort out, or it keeps going down before it goes up, I end up getting home and absolutely crashing for the remainder of the day.

Hypos and diabetes really are crazy crazy things. It's interesting how they can affect us all in different ways, or sometimes the same!

Have you ever had a hypo hangover before? I'd love to know!!! After all, there are plenty of us type 1 diabetics in the world so I know there has to be someone else who has been through similar!!!

[[0004]] Week 1 Overview

Hello everyone! I've reached 150 pageviews, so thank you! I only hope from here out on out, the blog continues to grow and hopefully help teach people and support others too. I've decided that on each Sunday, to help encourage me with my diabetic control, that I will post an overview of the week, so in that I can see any trends and good days as well as any bad days and places that I need to improve.

1) Me and Jake before our first live stream of the year!

So to kick things off, what have I been up to? So, as well as starting a blog about type 1 diabetes, another New Years resolution that myself and my fiance had was to start live streaming a little more. This was because of the 24 hour event we did last year to raise money for one of my favourite charities, JDRF in which we raised just over £200 to go towards research into finding a cure for type 1 diabetes. We enjoyed the stream so much, and its also a dream of Jake's, that we wanted to start streaming more... so as of this Saturday, we will now be found on mixer (Queen and McBooty) every Saturday and once a fortnight (starting Tuesday 14th January) and we hope to keep this up throughout the year! We will also be participating in further 24 hour fundraisers for JDRF in the future, so keep a look out for us! And feel free to pop us a follow on mixer too~

2) Cuddles with my baby princess. Actual cuddles!

Since being taken into hospital last year and realising some big changes needed to occur in my life, I began taking a Wednesday off work. This is mainly to recuperate after two full days in a row at work, allowing me to rest up my foot before going back to work for Thursdays and Fridays. 

Don't get me wrong, I miss working full time, but this was for the best for me, and I am not losing out too too much now that Jake works full time too. I tried to work three days in a row last year and I was absolutely exhausted and in a lot of pain... so never again from here on out. 

So what did I do with my day? Spent most the morning with my two cats, Pom Pom and Magnus, in bed, as I was told by the other half to actually have a rest day and not touch any cleaning or tidying until the weekend haha! I won't lie, I had an amazing and chilled Wednesday morning, because Magnus came to sit on my chest (which she used to do a lot as a kitten to keep warm, but not so much anymore) and then she slipped to a small gap between my arm and side, and placed a paw over me like a proper cuddle and honestly, I had the most amazing nap like this, it was bloody wonderful! 

I have been struggling a lot emotionally this week, a lot has suddenly changed which is funny because I knew the changes were coming but they still hit me like a brick. I actually used to be really independent, and then I met Jake and realised I didn't need to be as much as a hard ass as I was before (trust me, there were damn good reasons as to why I was such an independent hard ass, but that is a story for another day). I may have got too used to having him around all the time, making me food and looking after me and so on, as this was the week he finally went on to his night shifts and even that they start three hours after my own shifts, that equates to an extra four hours of being home on my own, and then a whole day with my Wednesdays off too. It's sad, but I miss having someone to travel to work with and have lunch with then travel home and have dinner with, but I'm sure I will adjust in time... hopefully. Or pray he gets a day shift like me, I can live in hope!

Wednesday again was a weird one. I ended up needing to go to the shop, but couldn't find jeans to wear and cried about that and went back to bed to wake up to a massive hypo. So, I tried to wear Jake's jeans but I'm a lil too big in the butt for them to do up, so had a cry about that. I then cried because I stubbed my toe, and because Spotify came out of my account when it shouldn't have, and when I couldn't find socks and then because the house was too quiet and all in all, Wednesday morning was great but the rest was just utter stress. I got through it though. I just hope the next Wednesday off is better... I know the emotions and crying was because of the hypo... but oh God, I felt so stupid.

3) Bar graph of the weeks blood
test results.

SO, blood results and stats for this week! Because yes, I might not be in a Science role at the moment, but you can't take the Science of the ex-Masters biosciences student so graphs and stats can be sadly and oddly satisfying!

Both graphs display the same results, but I know for some people, one is easier to read that the other, so take a peak at whichever you like! (Personally, I prefer the bar graph because pretty colours but the line graph is much easier to read and see the changes in blood sugar results).

These results are dated from the 6th to the 12th January, and looking at the results, they are interesting.

I still haven't been able to stabilise my blood sugar results, which still infuriates me (and sometimes, makes me just want to give up with even trying).

4) Line graph of the weeks blood
test results.

I have technically had six hypos this week, although only five are shown on the graph. This is because when I took one of the results, the one that said 4.0, I ended up having a hypo on the bus home so had to quickly sort it out when I got off at the bus station, thank goodness for the local coop that is there! 

You'll also notice that towards the end of the week, I ended up having three hypos in the space of about 36 hours. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but, I either have one hypo or three in a short space of time, no more, no less haha and I have honestly just got used to it! These hypos started just after midnight on Friday night, I was very tired so I think I went to bed early, woke up having a hypo, then woke up in the morning having another one. I was then fine for the rest of the day, then had one this Sunday morning when I woke up! Thankfully, we knew I would end up with a third so we managed to pick up some hypo drink and snacks yesterday so it was easy to sort out... the two hypos previous? Not so much... that ended up being a result of scraping together the last of the Christmas sweets and chocolate, two thirds of a pack of biscuits and Pepsi Max with sugar mixed in to it... it worked... but definitely not my ideal way of fixing my hypos.

Good news for next week however is that thanks to my Dad, we went food shopping today so managed to stock up on big bottles of sugary energy drink and a couple of other bits, so we should be okay for the next two weeks until our big payday! 

5) Weekly blood result stats

I guess I kind of did my own little science experiment with myself this week as well. On Thursday night, I left my insulin pen at work, which meant I couldn't have any dinner when I got back from work as no medication to counteract those carbohydrates, noooo! This was the day my blood sugar was 4.0mmol/L after I finished prepping a massive clinic at work. I could feel my lips going a bit tingly and my concentration draining, so I had a hypo drink and left to go home then realised I didn't have my insulin with me and I was absolutely famished! So began the hunt for finding food I could eat that I did not need to medicate for. 

When I was in hospital, I learnt that there are some foods and snacks that I don't need to do insulin for as they have no carbs or sugar in them and until then, I honestly had no idea about any of this at all! One of these things is cheese... absolutely no carbs so I can eat as much as I like and not need to do a drop of insulin and because I absolutely LOVE cheese, I could not have been more happy about this. But finding something cheap was going to be a lot harder. There was nothing in the shop near the bus station so I checked the one nearer to my house, and there they had these amazing mini sweet chilli peppers stuffed with cream cheese and when I got home, I devoured the heck out of them. My body was so ready. When Jake got back from work, I did another blood test and the result was still really good, 4.9mmol/L! That was because of the energy drink I'd had at work to stop my hypo and nothing to do with my peppers and cheese... so now I try to make sure I have more cheese and vegetable snacks so I don't have to med before I eat (which helps me feel a little bit more normal, which is nice in my not so ordinary little world). I've decided when our finances are a little better, I am going to do a kind of insulin fast in a way, where I will be able to check if my night time basal dose of Lantus insulin is correct, by only eating foods I don't need to medicate for (this includes meat as well as cheese, eggs, small bags of crisps and vegetables).

And finally, the overall blood stats for the week. I'd say to not pay attention to the average of 10.1mmol/L as this is a culmination of all the results, so does not take into account the blood sugar results when I have not tested. I am going to try to do more results next week as well as begin to count the amount of carbohydrates in my foods before medication, although I already know it may take me a little longer to adjust to doing that one. Overall, I am pleased with my evening blood results more so than my lunch time ones at work as for some reason, they always seem to run a little higher so I know I need to look into that further... but all in all, that is it for this week! And thank you all again for reading and sticking by me throughout this all! 

 

[[0002]] Shiny new things

I figured my first proper blog post should be about my blood test kit... something pretty damn important when have diabetes. 

I'll be honest with you all, I have NOT been the greatest diabetic of all time (maybe not the worst, but definitely not that great either) and I would typically only do blood test readings whenever I was poorly with a bug or cold, or when I was having a hypo, to make sure I was having a hypo. I've never really liked any of my blood test kits, or I would use them for a week and ignore them as I got run down with life, work, stress and so on. SO yes, I own up to the fact I haven't been great and that my eyes and partly my right foot are not all the blame of stress, even though that has been a major factor.

Shiny new box for my GlucoMen Areo 2K blood test metre.

I know I mentioned in my opening post that I went into hospital in October, and while I was there, I met one of the nurses from the diabetes team at my local hospital. I had had a concern that my old kit was not reading my bloods as well as it could have, in comparison to the hospital kit, so she brought me this shiny new one (quite literally, look at that box!)  

Indeed, I was dubious at first, but when I got home, I realised just what the newer blood kits could do. This one in particular, the GlucoMan Areo 2K is able to use NFC to transfer all the blood results over to my phone, so I can see my results instead of writing them down in paper or blood test books (which I would ALWAYS lose). I can also include the amount of insulin I have done and the amount of carbs I've eaten (but I will save that for another entry, carb counting is a whole new ball game I'll be introduced to in February!)

In typical Queenie fashion, and thanks to the fiance somehow having badges in his bag when he saw me in hospital, I decorated the kit appropriately, as shown... gotta have some geeky Pokemon on there, and hey, might encourage me to use it some more!

It is a bit bulkier than my last blood test kit, but to be honest, I actually like how it works and what it does. The fact everything can be put on my phone means the little scientist in me can see graphs of my pretty results as well as see my average blood results over time and standard deviation of all my results too (thank you University of Lincoln for teaching me something haha!) It also means I can see trends and ultimately (as I am still learning), I'll be able to see trends with the things I eat and the insulin that I do, so I can better control my blood sugars. 

Bar graph showing blood results over a period of a month. 

I've taken a screen shot of one of the graphs from the period of 05/12/2019 to 05/01/2019 to show you all! (And yes, this makes me a little bit excited, how sad haha!!!) Personally, I like the bar graphs because they are pretty and colourful and I kind of figured it be one of the easier things to explain as well.

What are blood test results?

SO, to start with, type 1 diabetics don't produce insulin, and long story short, insulin is needed to deal with glucose levels in the blood. Without insulin, the level of sugar in the blood rises (so after eating food or drinking certain drinks), which can lead to Hi blood sugar levels, also known as hyperglycaemia. Prolonged exposure to high levels of blood sugar can lead to problems later in life, for example, diabetic retinopathy, in which small blood vessels leak fluid into the back of eyes, which can lead to blindness. So, diabetics use blood test results to see what their sugar levels are and can therefore act accordingly.

How is blood glucose measured?

So blood test results can range from anything between Hi (reaching above 30mmol/L, can you believe) and Lo, which I think one of the lowest blood readings I've had since I was diagnosed has to be 0.5mmol/L, but that was a long time ago. I guess I should explain the measurement, mmol/L (millimoles/litre)... I think there are a couple of different measurements that you can use, for example mg/dL (milligram/decilitre), but I've always stuck to what I've known since I was a child. 

An adult without type 1 diabetes, should have an average of 4.0-5.4mmol/L blood glucose level, which if you look at the graph, would be around the middle between 0 and 10. In my case, that doesn't necessarily always happen, and this could be due to many MANY different factors.

Why are Queenies results EVERYWHERE?

So if you've been looking at the graph, you can see that the little bars are here there and everywhere. So firstly, you will notice that there is a high reading a low reading, indicated by a dotted line across the graph space. Low level is any result less than 4.0mmol/L and if this happens, sugar must be administered to bring levels back to a normal range. 

Te high level is marked at 15.0mmol/L for me. This varies per individual, alas after my time in hospital, the nurses were always happy when I got a result less than 15, so it just kind of stuck. 

This 15 doesn't mean that is what my average should be though. 15.0mmol/L is pretty bad, and for a long period of time over the last fifteen years, my averages have tended to be 11.5mmol/L. Because of this, the nurses at my local doctors surgery have tried to help me make my averages into single figures, so my average blood glucose aim for me is between 5.0-10.0mmol/L.

My blood sugars are all over the place for many reasons, either not doing enough insulin with a meal, or doing too much and not finishing my food, misjudging my level of physical exercise but a lot of the time, the results which are above 20 are usually because I've suddenly become very stressed or anxious... one of the biggest problems in my life as a diabetic.

How do you do a blood test?

It is so so easy to do a blood test nowadays, and kits have come such a long way since the older days. You have a finger prick device, which you dial back, hold against your finger and press a button and a tiny needles punches your finger drawing a small blob of blood. You then drop this on the blood test strip which is connected to the machine, it counts for five seconds and boom, you have your result! So simple, I might even do a little video of it one day to show you all! 

SO yeah, I have come to love this little piece of technology and I am getting better and better at using it, considering my years of hardly blood testing at all. And recently, I saw how much this has paid off, alas I am rambling now, so I shall leave this entry here for now, but please come back for more int he future! Also, feel free to ask me any questions in the comments, and I will answer them for you as soon as I can!