It took a lot of work and proving myself to the people that would okay it. A whole year of showing that I was willing to put the work in. Having a pump means doing lots of blood sugars, watching what you eat so that you can input the right amounts and looking after injection sites even more so as the cannula stays in for days at a time.
So for a girl that found it hard to do regular blood test I really put the work in, did at least 4-6 tests a day and had weekly contact with my nurse.
My nurse took it to the meeting that goes over all the candidates and I was lucky enough to be accepted. All my hard work had actually payed off this time, it felt great.
They had me go on a week long course to make sure I was carb counting properly, to go over the effects of food, drink, exercise and daily life. Going over blood testing and injection sites and how different insulin's work in all different ways. It was like being a new diabetic, it was really interesting, the first time around I'd been to young to take it all in and I was learning things that I'd either forgotten or things had changed since I was first diagnosed.
It was also really nice to be around other diabetics, it had been along time since I'd been around others and last time it was kids at the diabetic camps.
Once I'd been on the week course and they knew I knew what I was doing and could be trusted to look after myself they had a day where they went over all the different pumps and what they could do. Essentially they all do the same, but some where more fancy or technical then others. You can get simple ones that look like pagers or uber smart ones that look like smart phones. You can also get fancy sensors that sit under the skin and test your blood for you and cool blood meters that bluetooth the results right to your pump.
It was really fun picking out the one that was just right for me. The major thing that I was really worried about was injecting the cannula. I have a real phobia about cannulas and having to inject them myself was really hard to get my head around. I've got a special gadget that kinda does it for me, although I still have to press the buttons.
The whole process of getting the pump was like starting again, I could put the past behind me and start off fresh.
Monday, 2 November 2015
Sunday, 18 October 2015
The Pump part 1
So this week I thought I'd talk about the insulin pump. I am on the pump and have been for a few years now.
We first heard about the pump when I first started to get really ill and then I was ill often as you know, My mum had heard about it and she did a lot of research. It seemed like just the thing I should go on now that I was so out of control and was becoming insulin resistant. So we approached the hospital about it, at the time they where only funding a few people, where as now a days they try to get new diabetics on as soon as possible and anyone else that meets the criteria.
For anyone that doesn't know the insulin pump is like an artificial pancreas, you have a constant feed of insulin and then you just type in the carbs when you've eaten and it calculates what insulin to give for that. Each person is different and so the pump can work a lot better with individual needs, say like the dawn phenomenon where an injected background insulin just can't work properly, you can set up a certain plan for different levels of insulin and different times.
So the hospital said no because my control was way to bad, which yes it was but the whole point of the pump is to help get the control and then keep it,as long as the pump works for you, like I said everyone is different and not everything that's a miracle for one person will be the same for another. They said if I get better control then I could get the pump, there is a lot of work that you have to do when you have the pump, mainly blood testing, but I guess they wanted me to prove to them that I was willing to put the work in. So I did, I worked my little butt off and crawled back to being in control, once that was achieved I went back to the hospital, they again turned me down, said I was too in control and didn't qualify for the pump any more. That greatly pissed me and my mum off, we had both worked hard at me getting to where they said I had to be, even though when I had first gone to them I had all the criteria for the pump. They had dangled it like a carrot and promised something they weren't willing to give, so I didn't care anymore. My thoughts at the time where, if the hospital aren't willing to help me when they said they would, why should I bother then. Silly I know.
What we didn't understand was that independent people that worked with diabetics all the time and the pump said I was the prime person to get a pump, they even talked to the hospital on my behalf. They just didn't seem to want to listen.
This encounter put me off the whole team at the hospital, I didn't feel like I could trust them and that they certainly didn't care about my health. I even stopped going to my appointments. It's not like they didn't say anything new when I went in for my check ups, always the same, you need to have better control speech.
I really put me off the insulin pump too. Not so much the thing it's self but it seemed to good to be true and everyone seemed to be getting them now, which really rubbed it in. I was very bitter about the whole thing, still kind of am, if you can't tell.
But that was the old team I had, It all changed for me when I went into the care of the young adult clinic. Fantastic team there.
I will tell you, yes looking after your diabetes comes down to you and what you do or don't do but it helps all the more when you have the support you need, whether it is family, friends or the clinicians behind your care.
That's when the idea started to come again, from my nurse not from us.
Sunday, 27 September 2015
Footsie
Most doctors go on about looking after your feet and they are right on this one. They are one of the first things that can show signs of high blood sugars, apart from the actual blood sugar and can be one of the first things that can cause a lot of trouble.
They high sugars can cause lots of things, like we have discussed through out this blog and another way for the body to show signs is infections. Little infections on the side of the nail, real painful and can bet worse real quick if not looked after. I used to always have one some where on one of my toes, not often on the big toes but they where a constant and painful. All you could do is treat the infection and try and get your bloods down, although these seem to happen when it's a prolonged sugar high rather then the odd one here and there. If these aren't looked after or treated then they can develop into worse infections and later even in amputation if it's that bad. There are a lot of diabetics out there that have had horribly high bloods and horrible control for so long that things start to give, the feet is one.
But that's not the only thing that can happen, of course. As you know I have nerve damage, although now it's getting better, it was so bad at one point that I couldn't feel most of my feet, so that mean what I was walking on. One huge factor of this is you can't feel the infection growing at first only when it's bad, but also you can't feel when your shoes don't fit properly. I had huge amount of blisters, so much so that I now have scars on my little toes and the back of my heels for them. Now blisters normally aren't to bad, just annoying and painful, sometimes you have to go through the pain to break in a good pair of shoes, that's life, but you have to watch them and be careful. I couldn't feel them at all at one stage just like not feeling the infections. Because of this I would go on wearing the shoes all day, often when you know you might get blister you either pack another pair of shoes or you buy another cheap pair. There where several occasion where I'd be out all day not notice that they had been building and then get home to find that I had blood in my show, there's only so much the skin can take from friction. Obviously this was bad, but you would just go on a deal with the situation, not wear those shoes again for a while, then try again until they where broken in. (and I'm not talking heels or sandal types here more like the converse/trainer types) But there was this once when I went to visit family in Canada, just had to have these cool trainers and I wore them for the rest of the trip and didn't notice that a blister was forming and getting bigger, after a while I did and tried to sort it out, it was healing. It was one of the first days back home and I hadn't been doing much in the day, leg was hurting a bit but didn't take much notice, until later that evening we when to the shop to get something for dinner and I couldn't put weight on my heel.
When we got home Ma had a look and was horrified. I had this huge blister that wasn't a blister so much any more and redness and swelling going down my foot and up the back of my leg. It looked like I had blood poisoning. I could loose my leg if it wasn't treated soon. So we went to the A&E. Turns out it wasn't blood poisoning (so lucky with that!) and all they did was take the dead skin off and bandage it up, told me to keep it clean and look after it. But because of that I am so paranoid about blisters now, I'd never want it to get that bad again, all because I couldn't feel it happening until it got too bad.
If you can't feel what your wearing on your feet then you should be doubly looking after them, keeping them clean and making sure if anything does happen that it gets looked after properly and straight away. It's easy for things to get bad and then that's when it get worse. I was extremely lucky, I could easily have lost my foot because of my stupidity.
This is why the doctors look at your feet and lecture you about their care. So I'll say it too. Look After Your Feet!.
They high sugars can cause lots of things, like we have discussed through out this blog and another way for the body to show signs is infections. Little infections on the side of the nail, real painful and can bet worse real quick if not looked after. I used to always have one some where on one of my toes, not often on the big toes but they where a constant and painful. All you could do is treat the infection and try and get your bloods down, although these seem to happen when it's a prolonged sugar high rather then the odd one here and there. If these aren't looked after or treated then they can develop into worse infections and later even in amputation if it's that bad. There are a lot of diabetics out there that have had horribly high bloods and horrible control for so long that things start to give, the feet is one.
But that's not the only thing that can happen, of course. As you know I have nerve damage, although now it's getting better, it was so bad at one point that I couldn't feel most of my feet, so that mean what I was walking on. One huge factor of this is you can't feel the infection growing at first only when it's bad, but also you can't feel when your shoes don't fit properly. I had huge amount of blisters, so much so that I now have scars on my little toes and the back of my heels for them. Now blisters normally aren't to bad, just annoying and painful, sometimes you have to go through the pain to break in a good pair of shoes, that's life, but you have to watch them and be careful. I couldn't feel them at all at one stage just like not feeling the infections. Because of this I would go on wearing the shoes all day, often when you know you might get blister you either pack another pair of shoes or you buy another cheap pair. There where several occasion where I'd be out all day not notice that they had been building and then get home to find that I had blood in my show, there's only so much the skin can take from friction. Obviously this was bad, but you would just go on a deal with the situation, not wear those shoes again for a while, then try again until they where broken in. (and I'm not talking heels or sandal types here more like the converse/trainer types) But there was this once when I went to visit family in Canada, just had to have these cool trainers and I wore them for the rest of the trip and didn't notice that a blister was forming and getting bigger, after a while I did and tried to sort it out, it was healing. It was one of the first days back home and I hadn't been doing much in the day, leg was hurting a bit but didn't take much notice, until later that evening we when to the shop to get something for dinner and I couldn't put weight on my heel.
When we got home Ma had a look and was horrified. I had this huge blister that wasn't a blister so much any more and redness and swelling going down my foot and up the back of my leg. It looked like I had blood poisoning. I could loose my leg if it wasn't treated soon. So we went to the A&E. Turns out it wasn't blood poisoning (so lucky with that!) and all they did was take the dead skin off and bandage it up, told me to keep it clean and look after it. But because of that I am so paranoid about blisters now, I'd never want it to get that bad again, all because I couldn't feel it happening until it got too bad.
If you can't feel what your wearing on your feet then you should be doubly looking after them, keeping them clean and making sure if anything does happen that it gets looked after properly and straight away. It's easy for things to get bad and then that's when it get worse. I was extremely lucky, I could easily have lost my foot because of my stupidity.
This is why the doctors look at your feet and lecture you about their care. So I'll say it too. Look After Your Feet!.
Sunday, 13 September 2015
Nails
Like a lot of people out there I like to look after my nails. They are the only thing now a days that I can do what ever I like with, long, short any colour, because of work now. But like anything on the body they are one of the things to suffer when you get sick, no matter what you have, if your ill long enough they start to show it.
I like to have my nails long, not to much so, but I prefer them that way. I keep the nail varnish nice, make sure it's not chipping. Buff, trim and moisturise and do a general care every time I repaint them. But it was really hard to keep them nice and try to grow them long when I was ill. Having been so ill for so long made them brittle and hard to look after. They started to warp too. You could really tell on my thumb nails, going slightly wavy and getting worse the longer I stayed ill.
They snapped so easily and in such jagged ways too, nothing seemed to help. I used strengtheners and special gels but it was all useless.
But when I got better my nails stopped breaking so much, they still do now and then, but when you work in retail they have a habit of doing that and now that I'm out of retail stabbing hard surfaces with your finger doesn't help matters either (I have a bad habit of doing that for some reason). But they don't break spontaneously. They look healthy, I didn't realise that nails could look sick and that mine did, until they weren't anymore.
You have to keep them healthy just like anything else on your body. I might take better care of mine then most people, or go a little over board in caring for them now, but I don't want to end up with them being like they where. I don't ware false nails because even though gel is better then acrylic they still damage the nail bed. I might ware nail varnish a lot, but I do all I can to protect them as much as possible from the varnish.
It's hard looking after something you never thought could be a problem to start with. All these small things that go wrong that you never think would be linked all add up in the end.
I think we take the small things for granted in everything, but it's the small things that count in the end.
I like to have my nails long, not to much so, but I prefer them that way. I keep the nail varnish nice, make sure it's not chipping. Buff, trim and moisturise and do a general care every time I repaint them. But it was really hard to keep them nice and try to grow them long when I was ill. Having been so ill for so long made them brittle and hard to look after. They started to warp too. You could really tell on my thumb nails, going slightly wavy and getting worse the longer I stayed ill.
They snapped so easily and in such jagged ways too, nothing seemed to help. I used strengtheners and special gels but it was all useless.
But when I got better my nails stopped breaking so much, they still do now and then, but when you work in retail they have a habit of doing that and now that I'm out of retail stabbing hard surfaces with your finger doesn't help matters either (I have a bad habit of doing that for some reason). But they don't break spontaneously. They look healthy, I didn't realise that nails could look sick and that mine did, until they weren't anymore.
You have to keep them healthy just like anything else on your body. I might take better care of mine then most people, or go a little over board in caring for them now, but I don't want to end up with them being like they where. I don't ware false nails because even though gel is better then acrylic they still damage the nail bed. I might ware nail varnish a lot, but I do all I can to protect them as much as possible from the varnish.
It's hard looking after something you never thought could be a problem to start with. All these small things that go wrong that you never think would be linked all add up in the end.
I think we take the small things for granted in everything, but it's the small things that count in the end.
Monday, 31 August 2015
Medic Alerts
Medic Alerts are wonderful things to have for all kinds of problems. But being diabetic we defiantly need something along those lines.
There are several different companies and several different formats you can get medic alerts from. It can take awhile to find the one that is best for you, it can also get expensive while finding this out but the great thing is now a days there is a great variety out there that when I was younger i never had.
I first started with a necklace, it was a nice silver one with one of the saints on the front, you could unscrew the front and there was a folded up piece of paper with my details on, but it broke at school one day and the teacher being nice offered to fix it for me, I never got it back.
Then I moved on to bracelets, I had this lovely silver on with the inscription on the back of a flat silver plate with the medic alert symbol on the front but that soon went so I moved onto a kind of sports Velcro bracelet that had a small silver plate with the symbol on that you could flip over and it had my information inscribed on the back, I still have that one, I went through several different colours of that type but I still have my black one.
I finally got to the point where I felt I didn't need one, all the people that I hung around with, my family and teachers knew I was diabetic so why should I need one. Which is a stupid outlook because just because someone knows you have diabetes doesn't mean they know how to help if something goes wrong, like wise if something did happen you might not be with people that do know what is wrong and can help (there was this one time when it was bad and I was on my own and people just thought I was on a bad high). It pays to be cautious.
Medic alerts may seem stupid or not very fashionable but they are there for a reason, to help you. I got around my problem of not liking them, because at the time I didn't like the look of any of them and the one or two I did happen to like where so ridiculously expensive it was stupid. So for my very first tattoo I got a medic alert. Now I'm not saying that's for everyone and not always a great solution to finding the right one, but it worked for me. It will always be with me, in plain sight and I can never forget it or loose it.
They seem like such a small thing but they can help in a big way, if you don't have one, please have a serious look into getting one, you can find several nice ones for a good price and what's a bit of money when it could one day save your life. You can't hope for the best for every situation.
I can't help but think if I had carried one with me for most of my teens that maybe in one or two situation I would of got the help I needed (they the before mentioned bad trip). I wouldn't have got so bad, because when you do get to those stages you can't help yourself.
There are several different companies and several different formats you can get medic alerts from. It can take awhile to find the one that is best for you, it can also get expensive while finding this out but the great thing is now a days there is a great variety out there that when I was younger i never had.
I first started with a necklace, it was a nice silver one with one of the saints on the front, you could unscrew the front and there was a folded up piece of paper with my details on, but it broke at school one day and the teacher being nice offered to fix it for me, I never got it back.
Then I moved on to bracelets, I had this lovely silver on with the inscription on the back of a flat silver plate with the medic alert symbol on the front but that soon went so I moved onto a kind of sports Velcro bracelet that had a small silver plate with the symbol on that you could flip over and it had my information inscribed on the back, I still have that one, I went through several different colours of that type but I still have my black one.
I finally got to the point where I felt I didn't need one, all the people that I hung around with, my family and teachers knew I was diabetic so why should I need one. Which is a stupid outlook because just because someone knows you have diabetes doesn't mean they know how to help if something goes wrong, like wise if something did happen you might not be with people that do know what is wrong and can help (there was this one time when it was bad and I was on my own and people just thought I was on a bad high). It pays to be cautious.
Medic alerts may seem stupid or not very fashionable but they are there for a reason, to help you. I got around my problem of not liking them, because at the time I didn't like the look of any of them and the one or two I did happen to like where so ridiculously expensive it was stupid. So for my very first tattoo I got a medic alert. Now I'm not saying that's for everyone and not always a great solution to finding the right one, but it worked for me. It will always be with me, in plain sight and I can never forget it or loose it.
They seem like such a small thing but they can help in a big way, if you don't have one, please have a serious look into getting one, you can find several nice ones for a good price and what's a bit of money when it could one day save your life. You can't hope for the best for every situation.
I can't help but think if I had carried one with me for most of my teens that maybe in one or two situation I would of got the help I needed (they the before mentioned bad trip). I wouldn't have got so bad, because when you do get to those stages you can't help yourself.
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Getting Metal.
Getting piercings can be fun and cool looking, but you have to be careful on so many things when getting them and we diabetics have to be doubly careful.
Getting my first piercing was a real hassle, I was in primary and I really wanted to get my ears pierced, Ma held out for as long as she deemed fit and then for my 10th birthday I had my ears pierced at our local hair dressers.
It took a long time for Ma to get the letter from the Doctors to say I was okay to get them done, we had to go through a lot of hoops to get that letter, but it was so totally worth it and I was so happy.
But when I started to get really ill my ears would get infected, I developed a really bad reaction to anything but silver, it was a real pain and .. well .. painful too. You see, not having control over your sugars can send everything thing else spinning, including piercing. That why I contemplated taking them out and getting them done again at a later date, which I never did.
So when I wanted to get my lip pierced, Ma made me a deal (which she thought I'd either fail at or not go through with) and said if I could keep my bloods in control for a whole year she would pay for it to be done for my 16th. I worked hard for it and I still have it pierced. Ma was not happy that day, but a deals a deal.
It was hard to go through it all and not being able to lay on your side because your ears are to painful isn't worth all the hassle when they can stay lovely when your bloods are all in control, My lip (knock on wood) has never been infected and that's because I've worked hard to keep everything on the level. It was hard work at the start and I had to clean it several times a day for a long time while I was trying to get everything in control. It was hard work and even though I wanted more, I waited until I was more stable.
You have to remember that a piercing is still an open wound all prettied up and you have to take care of it, so when you can't control your bloods, how can you take care of it properly? Why go through all the pain, hassle and money to get it done and then have to take it out just because you couldn't be bothered to look after yourself. You can cause real damage that way.
So when your thinking about getting some metal. not only do you have to think about what your getting and what type, there is also the place your getting it at, because if they don't have the right certificates, it doesn't matter how careful you are, infection could be the last of your problems. Always do your research and always make sure your healthy enough.
Getting my first piercing was a real hassle, I was in primary and I really wanted to get my ears pierced, Ma held out for as long as she deemed fit and then for my 10th birthday I had my ears pierced at our local hair dressers.
It took a long time for Ma to get the letter from the Doctors to say I was okay to get them done, we had to go through a lot of hoops to get that letter, but it was so totally worth it and I was so happy.
But when I started to get really ill my ears would get infected, I developed a really bad reaction to anything but silver, it was a real pain and .. well .. painful too. You see, not having control over your sugars can send everything thing else spinning, including piercing. That why I contemplated taking them out and getting them done again at a later date, which I never did.
So when I wanted to get my lip pierced, Ma made me a deal (which she thought I'd either fail at or not go through with) and said if I could keep my bloods in control for a whole year she would pay for it to be done for my 16th. I worked hard for it and I still have it pierced. Ma was not happy that day, but a deals a deal.
It was hard to go through it all and not being able to lay on your side because your ears are to painful isn't worth all the hassle when they can stay lovely when your bloods are all in control, My lip (knock on wood) has never been infected and that's because I've worked hard to keep everything on the level. It was hard work at the start and I had to clean it several times a day for a long time while I was trying to get everything in control. It was hard work and even though I wanted more, I waited until I was more stable.
You have to remember that a piercing is still an open wound all prettied up and you have to take care of it, so when you can't control your bloods, how can you take care of it properly? Why go through all the pain, hassle and money to get it done and then have to take it out just because you couldn't be bothered to look after yourself. You can cause real damage that way.
So when your thinking about getting some metal. not only do you have to think about what your getting and what type, there is also the place your getting it at, because if they don't have the right certificates, it doesn't matter how careful you are, infection could be the last of your problems. Always do your research and always make sure your healthy enough.
Sunday, 9 August 2015
Teeth
Nobody really thinks about the impact on the teeth. Medicine can a profound effect on your teeth, as well as other things.
I teeth weren't in the greatest of conditions to begin with, but when my sugars started to go out of control, I didn't notice that why were getting a little worse, then add on the whole fact of the throwing up when the DKA hit every 6 months, that really puts things on a downward spiral.
They went a horrible glow in the dark yellow, I didn't like smiling wide, or showing my teeth. Things didn't help with all the kinds of medication I was on, or they would pump into me. Teeth may be strong in some respect but are the first to show signs of things happening.
You have to look after your mouth, once the enamel has gone, it doesn't come back, most of mine has gone, if any is still there. My teeth with always have a yellow tint, even though I try very hard to look after them and they are whiter now. You can't help medication, sometimes it's just a side effect. All you can do is try your best in that case. But keeping control can help a lot, keeps the sugar content down, less damage can be done.
But you got to think, it's not just your teeth. Once they start going so does other things and having nice breath will go right out the window. Some of that was from being ill, but a lot is from the mouth just not being looked after properly and swilling mouth wash ain't gunna cut it. It may help, but not properly.
Some people don't care all that much, but you can tell a lot about a person from their teeth. It's a major part of you that everyone sees, no matter how hard you try you can't hide those babies. And once they are gone, their gone.
It's not hard to look after them, and it's not hard looking after your sugars either. Somethings can't be helped, but the little things matter and they can add up real quick when you let things slip.
Having those pearly whites aren't in the cards for me, but I sure try my best to look after them as much as I can. At least I worry about how I smile ... or laugh for that matter, any more.
Diabetes may be a hidden disease but it sure can have a very obvious effect on things thats aren't hidden.
I teeth weren't in the greatest of conditions to begin with, but when my sugars started to go out of control, I didn't notice that why were getting a little worse, then add on the whole fact of the throwing up when the DKA hit every 6 months, that really puts things on a downward spiral.
They went a horrible glow in the dark yellow, I didn't like smiling wide, or showing my teeth. Things didn't help with all the kinds of medication I was on, or they would pump into me. Teeth may be strong in some respect but are the first to show signs of things happening.
You have to look after your mouth, once the enamel has gone, it doesn't come back, most of mine has gone, if any is still there. My teeth with always have a yellow tint, even though I try very hard to look after them and they are whiter now. You can't help medication, sometimes it's just a side effect. All you can do is try your best in that case. But keeping control can help a lot, keeps the sugar content down, less damage can be done.
But you got to think, it's not just your teeth. Once they start going so does other things and having nice breath will go right out the window. Some of that was from being ill, but a lot is from the mouth just not being looked after properly and swilling mouth wash ain't gunna cut it. It may help, but not properly.
Some people don't care all that much, but you can tell a lot about a person from their teeth. It's a major part of you that everyone sees, no matter how hard you try you can't hide those babies. And once they are gone, their gone.
It's not hard to look after them, and it's not hard looking after your sugars either. Somethings can't be helped, but the little things matter and they can add up real quick when you let things slip.
Having those pearly whites aren't in the cards for me, but I sure try my best to look after them as much as I can. At least I worry about how I smile ... or laugh for that matter, any more.
Diabetes may be a hidden disease but it sure can have a very obvious effect on things thats aren't hidden.
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