how many ppl have gone to the hospital for diabetes ketoacidosis, besides when you were first diagnosed?
well i just got released from the hospital 2day. of course it was d.k.a. ugghhh! i hate being sick.
well feel free to speak your mind.
I was admitted for DKA about thirty times between the ages of 10 -19. Thankfully I haven't had to go through that in a while. I hope you are feeling better.
how do you know if it's DKA? i have been admited to the hospital for being extremely sick ill as a precaution cuz i was young, but i donno if it was DKA. i haven't been hospitalized besides those times(except for procedures and such)..but i was always chasing highs and extreme highs at times when i was younger.
I've been hospitalized for it a few times. Certainly not a fun experience and not because I'm in the hospital but I always seem to get the staff with zero personality. Except the last time I had it, ended up having extended conversations with all the nurses and had a job offer from the doctor. That was nice. As far as knowing, they usually tell me that I have it after they do my bloodwork.
I was in the hospital for d.k.a. at least once growing up. That was in the 70s when we didn't have all the advances we have now. It's still tough in this day and age to get everything figured out to make everything go smoothly.
Just once a few years ago, not fun!
never. i dont even think when i was diagnosed because i wasnt even feeling sick or anything
I've never had D.K.A. Not even when I was diagnosed. I'm afraid though. I don't know what it's like.
well its kinda scary for those of you who have not gone through it. Although most things in life are scary, it's kinda of a wake up call to control your diabetes. This is the 3rd time in the '08-'09 year for me being admitted for d.k.a.
in november, i threw up 13 times in one morning and couldnt keep down food/water(srry if that's t.m.i.) but if my dad hadn't taken me to the hospital when he did, i would have died later on that day. So just always take care of yourself.
thats awful lauren:( i'm glad that you are feeling better now. I have never had D.K.A that I know of. i mean my sugar has gone really high before but I can always get it to come down with a shot of humalog. so here is my question what is the difference when you get D.K.A to having just high bs and why wouldnt you just be able to take a shot and get it to come down? I may sound very ignorant and apolagize for this but this is something that I have never understood and would like to know more about.
D.K.A. is when you have symptoms like not being able to hold anything down and constantly puking (sorry, tmi) and large ketones. DKA means lack of insulin, really high blood sugars could come from forgetting a shot or something. That's why you test ketones so u can tell before it gets dangerous.
when i was diagnosed i had a lot of ketones, the most that the ketostrips will measure and took a few days to comee down
Hey Lauren Fertig...I'm glad to hear that you are through the other end. I don't know about anyone else, but when I went through DKA (multiple times), I felt like I was wading through tar for several days after being in intensive care. It's awful. That feeling of all-consuming thirst, and the pain...and then throwing up...and you are desperate for water, even knowing that the minute you drink it, you will just send it right back up...
How are you feeling now? Don't expect to go from that two day hospitalization to 100% overnight. It's slow going physically, or it was for me. Just take it easy and monitor steadily...I can remember feeling like the turtle in that cartoon (the one where he races the hare)...
I hate that you went through it. I know one time my cat had gnawed through my pump line...that was a rough one. He's a good cat, though. I think he feels like the line shouldn't be there...it bothers him or something. Anyway.
I've never had to go to the hospital for DKA, except at diagnosis. The only other time I've even had ketones at all was actually just in June, and it was not fun. My family went to Silver Creek Falls and took a little hike. I was already a little bit high when we had our picnic lunch (low 200s) but didn't think anything of it, and just gave myself my bolus and had a sandwich, some chips, and then a few Sour Patch Kids (my favorite). Then, we went on a short hike, and on the way back to the car, I started to feel sick. When we got in the car, I checked, and had a reading of over 500, so I did a correction, hoping it would come down like it usually does. We made it just a few minutes down the road when I told my parents to pull over and I got sick on the side of the road. I then proceeded to throw up a several times on the way home. Thankfully, I had thought to bring an extra site change with me that day, so I changed it in the car, and sure enough, the old one was bent, but my pump never told me there was a blockage.
As soon as I got home, I gave myself an injection of 10 units of Novolog, as directed by the person on call at my endo's office. I checked ketones, and only had small ones. But I felt terrible the rest of the day and lost count of how many times I threw up. It got to the point where I was still high, had gone up to moderate-large ketones, but wasn't even thirsty anymore, and whenever I would take a few sips of water (my mom kept making me drink), I'd just throw it back up. (Sorry, TMI, I know.) After checking every hour, and doing two more 10 unit injections of Novolog every 3 hours, I finally started to feel better at about 10 that night, and was able to get some sleep, with my mom checking me a few times throughout the night (I actually had one low).
By the time I woke up the next morning, the ketones were gone, but I still felt like crap from the aftermath of the previous day. And, I also haven't been able to get up the nerve to eat any Sour Patch Kids since then. )=
Besides this time and diagnosis, though, I've never even had small ketones when I've been high. I've even had a few "over 500" readings, and haven't had ketones. So it was a new experience for me after almost 8 years with T1. I only vaguely remember the night I went to the ER and was diagnosed, although I do remember it was even worse, and there's actually a period of time that night that is completely blocked out of my memory. The last thing I remember is my mom getting me out of the car at the hospital and starting to walk up the sidewalk to the ER, and then I don't remember anything until I woke up on a hospital bed and they already new what was wrong with me. I could have sworn that I blacked out or something on the way up the sidewalk, but my mom says I didn't. It must have been really bad then, though, if I don't remember. I do remember having excruciating pain in my back, so much that it hurt to breath, and I'm assuming that was because my kidneys were in such bad shape. That must mean I had terrible ketones.
Anyway...sorry for the long post everyone. I didn't realize how much I had written.
yea, my blood sugar wouldnt go down even with insulin shots. also my skin became like really tight and wouldnt even allow me to put a needle through my skin. it took me 4 trys to get the insulin into my skin but i still had to force the shot in. so its not as easy as taking insulin, much more complicated. Plus one of my friends said i couldnt handle my diabetes behind my back when she doesnt even know the first thing about diabetes.
In the future, to avoid DKA, it's good to treat ketones right away. I'll admit I'm not always great about this, but ideally, you should test for ketones if you're over 240 or sick. (I know you all probably already know this but there could be some 'newbies' who don't. I actually have a friend who was dx'ed w/ T1 10 years ago and no one had ever told her to test ketones until I mentioned it to her last month!) If you have any ketones, you should be fairly aggressive about taking insulin to get your bs down and drink LOTS of water to "flush" them out of your system. Don't exercise until they are gone as this can make it worse. Obviously, if you can't keep liquids down and are sick, you may need to go to the dr. Knock on wood, I've never had DKA in 27 years of T1 -- this advice has always worked for me.
i've never been in DKA even when i was diagnosed, i wasn't in DKA luckily.
What's it like?
Lauren Fertig...with friends like that, who use your illness to undermine you, who needs enemies?!?!? SHeesh. People like that need to just not speak. I'm sorry that this commentary came back to you.
Bri...my experience with DKA was this: you get high blood sugars, so you think to yourself, "Well, I need to do insulin." So you treat the high blood sugars. Then you check later, and instead of your blood sugar going down, it's either at a stand still or going up. You start to feel exhausted, and you manifest all the symptoms of extremely high blood sugar combined with mounting dehydration. So you guzzle water, diet soda, anything cold and sugar free to relieve the thirst. The thirst builds. You check again. You're still high. Then, if you're me, it finally occurs to you to check your pump site, whereupon, after enduring constant trips to the rest room every twenty minutes combined with constant guzzling of water, you see a wispy, dangling thread, your pump line, neatly severed by a cat. You then realize that you have been without insulin for at least six hours and in all that time, you didn't look at the tubing.
So you stumble around looking for a site change. As you do so, you begin to feel nauseated. Your skin feels tight and rigid, and your eyelids stick to your eyes. Your heart pounds. Your breath is indescribably gross. It is like you are breathing sugar instead of air, and there's a nasty increase to the rate at which you breathe. You begin to breathe extremely quickly, exhaling air in gusts. Your arms and legs hurt.
When you begin throwing up, the thirst is almost beyond words. It is illogical and over rides all common sense. You know you will be sick if you drink anything, but you cannot control it. You drink water, and up it comes. So you call EMS. They come to your home. Any cats and dogs that are in the place you live are all around you, trying to give you moral support. When the EMT comes to the door, you are waiting outside. Having made it to the door, you sit there, weak, angry, frustrated, frightened, and desperate. You speak to the powers that be and hope that the medical personnel who treat you don't judge you because you are in DKA and comprehend what's at stake.
The EMT has to help you into the ambulance because by this point, it's difficult to walk, turn your head, or talk without throwing up. You beg the EMT to go ahead and start a saline IV because if he or she waits, by the time you get to the hospital, getting an IV into your dehydrated veins will be nearly impossible.
When the EMT tries to start an IV, it takes at least three tries, and each one hurts like heck. Your skin, instead of permitting the needle to enter, buckles. So they have to push, hard. When the IV hits your bloodstream, however, you feel the fluids hit. Relief.
They give you fenegin (sp?) by IV to stop the nausea and vomiting, and you spend several hours in ICU or intensive care while they administer insulin and IV fluids until your electrolytes are stabilized and in direct proportion to each other (sodium and potassium levels are the most frightening thing about this experience...there's a number ratio that, once passed, can lead to dire consequences).
That's a long answer to your question. Another thing? Sometimes when my blood sugar is very high, I get extremely hungry.
It's been a while since I went through that experience, thank the gods. I hope, Bri, that you never experience DKA. Once the proverbial high blood sugar ball is rolling, especially if you use no long acting insulin (because of a pump, etc.), it can get bad quickly.
Anyway, that's my experience with it one time.
When I was diagnosed my blood sugar was 855 but I was not in DKA, although I had very high ketones. This april I got the flu and couldn't keep anything down, even water. We went to the ER and my blood sugar was in the thousands. I was in DKA. If we didn't go to the hospital when we did, I would be a goner lol.
[quote user="Crochet Nut"]
When the EMT tries to start an IV, it takes at least three tries, and each one hurts like heck. Your skin, instead of permitting the needle to enter, buckles. So they have to push, hard. When the IV hits your bloodstream, however, you feel the fluids hit. Relief.
[/quote]
Excellent description. This is something that has happened to me as well. When they were pushing the I.V. needle in I did not feel pain, my sugar being so high. The next day my wrist was badly bruised and hurt so much.
Just like you said this is not something I have experienced in years. The last time I remember was in 2003.