# Hi everyone



## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

Hello there, my name is Wendy aged 52 and I was diagnosed in February this year after spending 2 weeks in hospital with severe DKA being intubated for 6 days so it’s been a long slow progress recovering but I am a lot stronger now thank goodness although I don’t know if I will ever get my head around the diabetes!


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## Ralph-YK (Aug 5, 2019)

Welcome to the forum Wendy.


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## rebrascora (Aug 5, 2019)

Hi Wendy and welcome
I too was diagnosed in Feb of this year at the age of 55. Thankfully, whilst I was symptomatic with a very high HbA1c of 112, I didn't go DKA. They started me on typical Type 2 oral meds for 6 weeks before realising that insulin was necessary and I was eventually tested and confirmed type 1 last month. In some respects that may have been an easier route to come into this as I had several weeks to learn low carb eating and get my head around the diagnosis itself before I had to cope with insulin.

Which insulin(s) are you on? Do you also take Metformin? How stable are your readings? Mine have been pretty unpredictable until recently and eating very low carb and keeping bolus insulin (NovoRapid) to a minimum was the only way I could prevent having lots of hypos.
How have you been managing?
The people on this forum have been the mainstay of my support and education with this complex condition and I hope that the community will prove as much of a beneficial resource to you too.


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## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

Hi Barbara 
Thank you for your reply. I am on novorapid and Lantus. My levels are either up or down just when I think I am getting to grips they seem to go haywire so it’s very frustrating, I haven’t had much support from the hospital if I’m honest I was basically left to my own devices to start with although it is getting slightly better. My husband and family are a brilliant support! I am going on a Karen course next month so that should help too.
Hope you are coping ok.


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## welshy1 (Aug 5, 2019)

Welcome to the forum Wendy.


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## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

Ralph-YK said:


> Welcome to the forum Wendy.




Thank you Ralph


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## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

welshy1 said:


> Welcome to the forum Wendy.


Thank you


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## rebrascora (Aug 5, 2019)

Hi again Wendy

Sorry to hear that you are also struggling to balance your BG levels and that you feel a bit unsupported by the Health Care Professionals. It does seem to be a bit of a lottery as regards getting back up from them and I wonder if they really realise how scary it is in this early phase of diagnosis and management. There are not many other conditions where they give you enough medication to kill an elephant and send you off with so little supervision to work out how much of it you need and when. I haven't heard of the Karen course but I am down for DAFNE (dose adjustment for normal eating) in October. I could have been on DAFNE last week but it was cancelled due to lack of interest. October can't come soon enough although I have had a recent development that looks like my readings may be stabilising..... Some people experience what they call a honeymoon period after Type 1 diagnosis when their pancreas continues to produce a little insulin here and there and cause your BG to drop just when you least expect it. I thought I was just starting to balance things reasonably well a few weeks ago getting most of my readings between 5 and 10 and then suddenly it went up to 10-12 and even as high as 15 even when I was eating a very low carb diet. It seemed to be stuck up there even when I took an extra unit of NovoRapid here and there to try to bring it down, but occasionally it would drop to 3 or 4 for no reason and then go back up to 10. I increased my Levemir (the equivalent of your Lantus) by two units and it is now slowly coming down but it is much more stable than it has been since I started using insulin, so I am guessing this is my pancreas completely running dry and puttering out and I am hoping this will make management of my diabetes much easier and more predictable from now on. Of course I could be totally wrong and there is some other explanation, because there are so many variables which have an impact on BG levels. Only time will tell. Hopefully you will see a similar thing happen and management will become easier thereafter.


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## Robin (Aug 5, 2019)

I love all these acronyms. Karen seems to be a DAFNE type course specific to this hospital. Welcome to the forum, Wendy, I was diagnosed with Type 1 at the age of 51, there are a lot of us 'late starters' on the forum.


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## rebrascora (Aug 5, 2019)

Kings Mill as in the bread??.... ie some sort of sponsorship? Seems fundamentally wrong if that is the case, since bread is a bit of a villain when it comes to diabetes?


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## Robin (Aug 5, 2019)

rebrascora said:


> Kings Mill as in the bread??.... ie some sort of sponsorship? Seems fundamentally wrong if that is the case, since bread is a bit of a villain when it comes to diabetes?


Ha! I thought of the bread first! It seems to be King's Mill hospital, not Kingsmill bread!


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## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

rebrascora said:


> Kings Mill as in the bread??.... ie some sort of sponsorship? Seems fundamentally wrong if that is the case, since bread is a bit of a villain when it comes to diabetes?


Kings Mill is the hospital Barbara


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## WendyWoo (Aug 5, 2019)

Robin said:


> View attachment 12063
> I love all these acronyms. Karen seems to be a DAFNE type course specific to this hospital. Welcome to the forum, Wendy, I was diagnosed with Type 1 at the age of 51, there are a lot of us 'late starters' on the forum.


Thank you Robin


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## grovesy (Aug 6, 2019)

Robin said:


> View attachment 12063
> I love all these acronyms. Karen seems to be a DAFNE type course specific to this hospital. Welcome to the forum, Wendy, I was diagnosed with Type 1 at the age of 51, there are a lot of us 'late starters' on the forum.


I was going to ask was KAREN the local version of Carb counting. I have not heard of this one before.


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## Ralph-YK (Aug 6, 2019)

Robin said:


> Ha! I thought of the bread first! It seems to be King's Mill hospital, not Kingsmill bread!


Would it be named after the bread though?
[Edited]


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## silentsquirrel (Aug 6, 2019)

Ralph-YK said:


> Would it be named after the bread though?



Not quite sure if you are joking, Ralph, but no, we have a Kings Mill Lane in our town, named after the ancient mill at the bottom of the hill.  Long before the bread!


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## Ralph-YK (Aug 6, 2019)

silentsquirrel said:


> Not quite sure if you are joking, Ralph, but no, we have a Kings Mill Lane in our town, named after the ancient mill at the bottom of the hill.  Long before the bread!


Sorry, yes an attempt at a joke.


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## Flower (Aug 6, 2019)

Hello and welcome @WendyWoo , glad you've found us 

That sounds a really tough start to diabetes, DKA is so very frightening. I hope things are starting to settle for you and you're regaining your strength.  Hopefully the course will help you along plus you get to meet others living with diabetes in your area. 

Diabetes is quite a mind bender with a very steep learning curve at first with no time to readjust to the new situation. If you've got any worries, questions please ask as there's always someone around on here to offer advice and support.


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## silentsquirrel (Aug 6, 2019)

Sorry, jokes often go over my head!


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## WendyWoo (Aug 6, 2019)

Flower said:


> Hello and welcome @WendyWoo , glad you've found us
> 
> That sounds a really tough start to diabetes, DKA is so very frightening. I hope things are starting to settle for you and you're regaining your strength.  Hopefully the course will help you along plus you get to meet others living with diabetes in your area.
> 
> Diabetes is quite a mind bender with a very steep learning curve at first with no time to readjust to the new situation. If you've got any worries, questions please ask as there's always someone around on here to offer advice and support.


Thank you Flower I’m just about getting there now, I try to stay positive but it’s been a tough year with one thing and another!


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## Matt Cycle (Aug 7, 2019)

Welcome to the forum Wendy. I'm still learning 33 years later!    Nothing off limits in terms of diet with T1.  You'll hopefully learn about this on your course.  It's a good place to mix with other T1's as well.  It'll be based on DAFNE (Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating) - the clues in the name 'Normal Eating' i.e. what people normally eat.  It's all about adjusting your insulin for the carbs you eat.


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## rebrascora (Aug 7, 2019)

I must confess I very nearly refused the DAFNE course because of the "Normal Eating" part because I now eat very low carb and want to stick with that as I feel it has other benefits, but the consultant told me that "normal" is what the individual considers normal for them, so it will still help me with my very low carb eating.... I know that the dietician who is taking my course is not a fan of low carbing (interestingly, she is a very large lady herself) and whilst she is very friendly and pleasant and wants to be helpful, she very much toes the line as regards government guidelines etc, so it may be interesting!


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## Oslo65 (Aug 7, 2019)

Evening Wendy,

Welcome to the forum, sorry to hear of your first experience with diabetes, not the best.

I was diagnosed a number of years ago, lost my job (was working at sea and they weren’t keen on a type 1 “liability”) had to reinvent myself, career, home etc. Spent a number of years denying diabetes and more years excluding family and friends from my condition. As a result of that I did the whole DKA thing about 5 years ago, seemingly it was touch and go for a while, but can’t recall as I was out of it for a while, but that was the wake up call. 

Lesson learnt = I can, have and will continue to adapt to what comes my way, but can only do that with the support of those people around me and forums like this, as a dumb, stubborn bloke I wish I had figured that out years ago

You will be fine, just don’t forget to ask/talk about diabetes with your friends, GP, DN etc, and especially those in this forum

Take care 

Oslo


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## SB2015 (Aug 8, 2019)

Welcome @WendyWoo , from another late starter at 53.

It is a steep learning curve at the start and 12 years on I am still learning, mainly from others on here.
I too did DAFNE, and found it very useful as it taught me to adjust my insulin to match what I want to eat, whatever that might be.  Since then I have chosen to reduce my carbs (although not to the ‘low carb’ level) in order to reduce the size of the post meal spikes.  This was not considered on the course.  My only gripe with the course was their focus on using easy ratios.  I was on Multiple Daily Injections (MDI) and had already adjusted my ratios and started adjusting my insulin.  The DSN was insistent that it was too complicated to use numbers other than multiples of 10.  I ended up teaching the group here w to use their ratios to work out their doses (perhaps it was me being a Maths teacher that helped). Useful as quite a few of us were on 1/2 unit pens.  Another big benefit of attending the course was spending time with others that had T1. 

Glad that you have found the forum and look forward to hearing more from you.


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## louloulou (Aug 8, 2019)

WendyWoo said:


> Hello there, my name is Wendy aged 52 and I was diagnosed in February this year after spending 2 weeks in hospital with severe DKA being intubated for 6 days so it’s been a long slow progress recovering but I am a lot stronger now thank goodness although I don’t know if I will ever get my head around the diabetes!


Welcome Wendy I was newly diagnosed in October after being in intensive care its really hard to live with when huge shock and everyday is a challenge hope you are well Lou


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## WendyWoo (Aug 8, 2019)

Matt Cycle said:


> Welcome to the forum Wendy. I'm still learning 33 years later!    Nothing off limits in terms of diet with T1.  You'll hopefully learn about this on your course.  It's a good place to mix with other T1's as well.  It'll be based on DAFNE (Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating) - the clues in the name 'Normal Eating' i.e. what people normally eat.  It's all about adjusting your insulin for the carbs you eat.


Thank you Matt, sorry for the late reply. I am looking forward to the course, hopefully I will feel a little more confident afterwards.


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