Tester Tantrums…

Over the years it has been known that my temper can get out of control at times of stress, it is a lot better than what it was when I was a child / teen, I have put many a hole in doors at home from kicking a door open…thinking about that actually I made a hole in a door last year as an adult from a temper ‘tantrum’ as my wife calls it 🙂 .

I read a very interesting blog this morning about the lack of mental and psychological support for T1D and its true, this is a life threatening disease which if not handled correctly on a consistent basis will be fatal…and you know what?? It is mentally and physically draining and this is not addressed professionally.

Anyway, my story today is about ‘Tester Tantrums’ from T1D, I laugh about it now but they come with a cost…

I thought about writing this story when I looked down at my blood sugar tester (aka my tester) after pricking my finger to draw blood for testing for the 8th time that day. What triggered my memory about the last ‘Temper Tantrum’ was the cracking of the LCD screen all around the outside of my tester, as I have a chuckle to myself about how this particular tester defeated my tantrum I must tell you that in the 15 years of living with my friend T1D I have lost count of how many testers I have had and probably just under half of these have been destroyed in one of my tester tantrums.

So this is a typical day that causes a tester tantrum…I wake up in the middle of the night low or high, I correct the level with either Glucose (low blood sugar) or with insulin (high blood sugar), 30 min – 2 hours later I get up and test again to make sure it has corrected, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t…I will wake the next morning sleep deprived and all ready cranky, test my sugar level and it would be high or low again due to over/under correcting or some other random thing my body decided to throw at me during the night (coward likes to kick me when I am asleep), this roller coaster goes on over the day because I still have to go to work and I still have to eat and do all the normal daily things, by the time it gets to the afternoon my blood sugars over the day look like the green lantern ride at movie world and I am even more cranky and tired than the morning.

I reluctantly test again and what do you know, its high again!!! This time my reaction is to either Hulk Smash the tester or throw it across the room at the wall… BAM CRASH SMASH, bits of tester and test strips go everywhere, now I am left with no tester and a big mess and I don’t feel better, at least I don’t have to look at that bloody thing giving me crap readings any more (short lived).

So back to my current tester, same situation of the day and same Hulk Smash, but lo and behold no impact??? So again I Hulk Smash and throw but it doesn’t break, just has a little crack in the screen, my tester tantrum has been defeated and I now know it is pointless with this one, so I use it all the time to avoid another tester tantrum.

Hulk proof tester, well done brand named tester which I got for free!

The T1D Roller coaster is temp out of service…

I have returned home from a short week away for work, my last post was about going on the Paleo way of eating and in that week away I started eating like a caveman.

I am happy to say that the ups and downs of the T1D blood sugar roller coaster and mood swings of my friend T1D have been subdued! My blood sugars have been in the normal range all week, apart from once where it went to 2.2 mmol (mood swing??). I am feeling great, I am not sure whether this is a placebo affect or I am actually feeling different, all I know is that I am enjoying what I am eating, I do not feel hungry, my blood sugars are behaving and my insulin dosage has nearly halved and you know what?? The food is actually really tasty.

I am actually starting a new blog to coincide with the Paleo diet, you can read it here -> t1paleobetic.wordpress.com, I have been taking photos of what I have been eating and will give you notes on Blood Sugar Levels and general health etc. (if your interested)

So it seems to be working for me, I do however get that ketone feeling in the morning sometimes, but blood sugar levels are fine.

Word of warning with this type of eating…keep a toilet near by in the morning, OMG!! 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I know this is not going to eliminate the need for insulin and cure me…but its the closest thing to a ‘normal’ life at the moment.

Next stage is back into the cycling with the diet…

Kyle

Everything thats goes up must come down..

I had some awesome mountain biking today through some great tracks and hills, gotta go up those hills to come down the good tracks…what an effort getting to that point though.

All night I had really high blood sugars which I could not get down, finally this morning they were down to single digits..1 hour after breakfast up we go again, once again my blood sugars were climbing that hill, more than likely looking for that sweet downhill ride..

I pulled it down to having too much scar tissue at my infusion site making the insulin harder to be absorbed…stuff the pump, I used my injections instead which are a lot harder to control because unlike the pump you have one injection which lasts you 24hrs, making you plan your day at that point of time…anywho, half way through the mountain biking we stopped to admire the awesome view of the beach, I tested my sugars while we were there and what do you know, low blood sugar reading, only 3.2, I over corrected a little on glucose knowing that I would still be exercising…another half hour of riding and we stopped at the local bakery for a pie and a sit down, I tested again but this time I got a reading of 1.9…WTF??? I should not be conscious at that level, but thankfully I was.

Once again I corrected and after a short rest we headed home, by this time I was knackered, 5 hours sleep and a rollercoaster of blood sugars wipes you out like you wouldn’t believe…few hours later and I feel worse because they are up again looking to score that sweet downhill ride (17.8), so its true…what goes up must come down, but clearly what goes down must go up??

Blood sugar wise, today has been a right off so I am giving up on today and hoping for a better start tommorow.

Midnight Madness

Good morning / good night…what ever it is at the moment. No training today or yesterday, so my blood sugars have been playing up, literally UP, its just gone midnight and I can’t sleep and I feel like crap because the last 12 hours have been like pushing shit up hill (never really understood what that means)…I have just tested my blood sugars for probably the 10th time this afternoon and its 15.2, after taking a big dose of insulin 2 hours ago for a level of 17.5. But my friend T1D has PMS at the moment and is rebelling against my every effort to bring it down…if it wasn’t for the fact I am down south ready for an awesome weekend of mountain biking and catching up with my best mate, I would be very upset…so instead I am going to watch crappy midnight TV, drink copious amounts of water and test my blood sugars every hour until its back to normal.

Have a good sleep 💤😃

0% Body Fat is not your friend…

Don’t get me wrong I enjoy the physical benefits that come with training hard and generating a toned body…its just not a great thing for a T1D.

I woke up this morning with an itchy and sore stomach abdomen ( how can you have an itchy stomach??? its inside your body haha), I am talking about my skin… Yesterday morning I changed over my insulin delivery set, this basically comprises of a tube, an insulin reservoir and a needle encased in a cannula (a 13mm tube that sits under the skin to delivery insulin to the subcutaneous tissue), any who I changed the injection location to my stomach abdomen because I have over used my butt, yes you heard right my butt!!

These ‘sets’ stay on for 3 – 5 days, depending on how sensitive your skin is and how much insulin you use, butt because of how much fat I don’t have on my abdomen (due to trying to keep fit and cycling heaps) the cannula sits too deep under the skin and touches nerves and muscle, so if like me you cant lie still at night and roll onto your front, the cannula pushes deeper and you wake in the morning with a stabbing feeling until you change it again, urrgggg…not only that but it usually causes the end of the tiny cannula to bend or kink which then limits or stops delivery of insulin, which isn’t good, that’s like removing an oxygen bottle from someone with a collapsed lung, oh and the adhesive of the set causes me to get a rash after exercise, something to do with the sweat.

So controlling body fat is sort of like controlling the glucose / insulin balance, you gotta have some but not too much, just make sure you don’t look like Arnie and have none!!

On a positive note, being on the pump is awesome for fine tuning insulin delivery and for great control during exercise.

-TrainingT1D

Positive Spin (pun intended)

I know there are some T1D (cycling and non cycling) reading my blog, so this is for you…

Yeah life with T1D sharing your space and being in your face all the time is hard and its so easy to crawl into a corner and roll your self in a ball whimpering (I know cause I have been there), but you know what I have discovered???

T1D makes me train harder and smarter, so don’t use it as an excuse to hate the world, use it as an excuse to train harder!

I am a MAMIL

Middle Aged Man In Lycra – agreed I am only 32, however I like the name 🙂

I love endurance cycling, especially with mates. Training my diabetes to work with me during rides has been a mission and actually still is…once you get it under control, your body changes in some way and then your back to the beginning again, but that’s OK I enjoy the challenge.

Being an endurance cyclist is not easy, doing it with T1D sitting on your handlebars is even harder, let me give you a little comparison of a typical start to a 6am group ride as a T1D;

5am, wake up, test blood sugar levels – probably higher than what they should be as the excitement of a ride tends to shoot them up for some freaking reason, take a little bit of corrective insulin to get them down to around 10mmol…pack a sandwich bag worth of lollies in your jersey, make sure you have fast acting liquid substance (watered down juice), enough carbs to last the ride, spare bike tube, tyre changing gear, CO2 canisters and shove my spare insulin and blood sugar tester in there somewhere as well.

Have a small amount of carbs, approx 20 – 30grams and a black coffee (white coffee will shoot my blood sugars up), take a tiny dose of insulin to make sure I have some active in my system but not too much cause that will cause a low blood sugar during the ride, which will in turn make me loose energy, focus and conciousness..not especially attractive during a group ride. Easy cruise to the start point of the ride, hopefully not hang around for more than 10 minutes as blood sugars will start to creep up after the carbs and then my muscles will start to hurt.

6am, ride…and the next management plan begins

Life with my ‘friend’ T1D

I thought I would give you a bit of background so you can better understand my blog and to help new diabetics help understand their new life…

I have been a Type 1 Diabetic since just after Australia Day in the year 2000, what a great start to the year, the world didn’t implode, explode or go to hell like was predicted on the stroke of midnight. However about 2 months later, my world imploded.

‘..I think you have diabetes Kyle, can any one take you straight to the hospital right now?’ – this was a phone conversation I had with my GP after she got my blood test results back; all I could think about was an elderly friend of the family who had Type 2 and lost her toes because of diabetes and how sick she was…do I really want this for my life I thought???

My Mums art scalpel was on the kitchen bench in front of me as I was talking on the phone and I had dark thoughts… but I rang my Mum to take me to hospital instead, the next year was a crazy roller coaster of near death experiences, my blood sugars were so erratic that I would fall unconscious at the drop of a hat and wake up in hospital with some sort of sugar substance smeared on my mouth and down my top, I even passed out in a toilet cubicle whilst testing my blood sugars and some poor sod I worked with had to jump the cubicle to rescue me (and put his foot in the toilet bowl).

You get so much information in the form of books, pamphlets, instructions and diaries when you are diagnosed that it is information overload, I remember having a melt down the first week I got home from my 2 week stay in hospital after being diagnosed, I collected all the information and threw it out my bedroom door, slammed the door and jammed something heavy up against it and stayed in there away from the world as long as I could… I can’t imagine what my poor Mother was going through (sorry Mum, I love you).

Since then the roller coaster ride is still there but has gotten more like bumper cars than the green lantern at Movie world.

I have an obsession for training and keeping active and boy does that screw with your blood sugar levels but I am out to prove the professionals wrong, you don’t have to be afraid of being active with T1D, you are told that the disease requires strict control, especially with eating times and the things you eat, no no no you can’t eat that and you must eat at the same time everyday.

Screw that, Diabetes has to work with me and my training lifestyle and not the other way round and you know what, we have a great ‘friendship’, some times we get moody at each other but most of the time we work together as team…

This is me and my T1D life…