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Hello everyone, I’m 21 years old and I’ve been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about a month ago now. I’m not really sure what to say, but I’m just really curious if anyone here has the same experience as me. For the past couple of months, I’ve done a lot of blood work for my endocrinologist and primary care physician and they both told me I have T1D according to the lab results. My endo told me that I’m currently in what they call a “honey moon phase” where my body is still producing just enough insulin to keep me going. They told me that it’s unpredictable to know when my pancreas will stop producing insulin. At the moment, they decided to put me on metformin for now. I’ve notice that the medication hardly even helps to bring down my sugar when I get spike. The only reason why I’ve gotten pretty good a controlling my blood sugar is because I avoid carbs and sugar. Does anyone relate to this or does anyone have any advice?

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Hi @carloshuerta498 and welcome to the forum. I’m not familiar with Metformin so can’t speak on it, but you can search for “honeymoon period” and will find lots of discussions on the forum about it. It can be tricky because you don’t know just how much insulin your making at a given time so it can be difficult to determine how much insulin you may need via injection or pump. I understand Metformin is fit Type 2s - whose bodies produce insulin but need help getting it to function as it should (very simple explanation). I’m not familiar enough to soak in whether it is used for Type 1s in the honeymoon period but they’re may be some discussion comments.
Make sure you have an endo who is familiar treating Type 1, and who has a diabetes nurse educator and dietitian who can teach you about diabetes as a whole, how it functions in your body, how to manage, count carbs, and overall live a good life. I suggest you get a good diabetes tracker where you faithfully record your meals, meds, exercise and numbers - and give them feedback on what is our is not happening. Over time you will learn to make adjustments on your own based on what’s happening, but faithfully now stay in close touch so they can determine what changes are needed. You have every right to ask “Why isn’t this working? Would something else be better?” Pepper your team with whatever questions you have - it’s how you learn and they will appreciate your efforts.

hi @carloshuerta498 and welcome. yes that about sums up honeymoon. Metformin is to reduce insulin resistance, and helps curb appetite, it has other indications as well. If you can’t make insulin, metformin will not control blood sugar. In honeymoon, you are making insulin but it is unpredictable and your insulin production can be limited and will eventually stop entirely, so high blood sugar can be observed. Once you can’t make insulin, insulin must be injected, no amount of metformin can reduce blood sugar when you are not making insulin., I hope you have a meter and/or a CGM so you can keep tabs on your blood sugar, I hope your medical team is the right one for type 1 as @wadawabbit said.

Starvation diets can help reduce the need for insulin but it’s a game you cannot win. even a strict keto diet will cause high blood sugar, once you can’t make insulin. If you need to lose weight then low carb can be helpful. At some point you have to inject insulin per your blood sugar and the carbohydrates you are eating.

Typical T1 insulin requirements include a basal (slow acting, all-day) insulin, PLUS a fast acting insulin you take for correcting a high blood sugar and you take when you are eating carbohydrates. This can be in MDI (Multiple daily injections most typical 4-7 shots per day) or by an infusion pump. Typical blood sugar testing requirements are, by finger stick, before breakfast, 2 hours after breakfast, before lunch, 2 hours after lunch, before dinner, 2 hours after dinner and bedtime (7 per day) if you have a CGM this can be significantly reduced because the CGM is continuous and can last 5-7 days.

sorry to hear about your diagnosis but there are a lot of us here with successful strategies. The first year is the toughest. if we can do it then so can you. hope to see you around the forum.

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welcome!
When I was first in the ER in DKA they tried to give me a prescription for metformin but that wouldn’t have helped for me. My dad is type 2 and takes it and from what I understand it’s usually given to type 2 patients because they can still make some insulin, eventhough in the honeymoon stage you’re still making some insulin type 2 diabetics make more (usually) Metaformin helps with producing more but only because their bodies are making some still. Does your endo have you doing any insulin injections at all?

Hello Carlos,
Welcome to the club that no one really wants to join!:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes::wink:.
I was diagnosed when I was 18 back in the 80s, (I’m 55 now), I waa in the UK then and I to was told the same, that for the first couple of months I would go through a ‘Honeymoon phase’, where the pancreas would still produce minimal insulin before stopping completely. I can’t speak about metformin as I thought it was a type2 treatment?
When I was diagnosed it was Christmas so I was given a slow acting, beef based insulin, given instructions on how to inject myself and told to inject a certain number of units, morning and evening and try to avoid too much sugar and carbs - At Christmas!
When I returned to the clinic in the new year, I was a new man, I felt a lot better, I’d even started to gain a bit of the weight I’d lost the previous year and felt a lot less lethargic. I was then shown how to mix my slow insulin with a fast acting and given a new blood test unit with sticks where you had to wait a whole 2 minutes before you got a reading!
I too went through days for the next two to three months where my levels would be low no matter what I did then high because I didn’t put enough mix in. I also got to see a dietician who gave me a daily plan of carb intake and ‘exchanges’.
Eventually things did start to steady and my sugars became better controlled.
I guess what I’m saying is that you have to take control of this situation, this is one of the few diseases where you can determine your own health.
Ask lots of questions, if your uncertain about the response, ask someone else. Right now it’s all going to seem like an insurmountable problem but it will get easier, advances are being made all the time and managing this awful affliction has got more manageable. I moved to the U.S. IN 2007 and I had to ask all new questions but still managed to survive. And you can ask all us veteran t1ds as well! Good luck.

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Hi Carlos,

My daughter was diagnosed as pre-diabetic at 12 by fluke while they were testing for growth issues. She is now 14 and has type 1 diabetes. We go to a pediatric endocrinologist in NYC. At the beginning the doctor had her take her blood sugar before meals and 3 hours after meals. She only took insulin ( Humalog) for meals that raised her blood sugar. As time went on, she got a CGM (Dexcom) and her ratios of units to carbs were increased as needed. Eventually, she needed insulin for all meals. Some time after that, she was put on Basil insulin (long lasting) at night as well. The doses for both had to be increased as needed. The doctor we go to has a whole team that helps us determine these changes as they can see her Dexcom reports. However, over time you learn how to make changes by yourself. Also, recommended taking Vitamin D.

The honeymoon period is perfectly normal. The way it was explained to me is this:

Your body is capable of producing far more insulin than it ever needs. Typically, you only need about 5% of the insulin you’re able to produce. With type 1 diabetes, something (usually the immune system) has deteriorated your insulin production capabilities. But that’s often a gradual process that can take several years or more. At times, you need more insulin than usual, especially if you’re fighting off an infection (like if you have a cold or the flu). People used to think that it was getting a cold that triggered the diabetes, but what actually happened is that the patient’s insulin production capacity had been reduced to, say, 7%. Enough for most days, but not enough when being sick meant you suddenly needed twice as much.

I was lucky to be diagnosed early. My mom recognized the symptoms because her father was type 2. And my sudden eagerness to drink (I hate water) set off alarm bells. So when I was first diagnosed I barely needed any insulin at all. And that kept up for nearly a year. That’s the honeymoon phase. When your body’s insulin production capabilities are just at the borderline of what you need.

But your beta cells will continue to die off slowly, and you’ll gradually start to need more insulin. Even if you avoid carbs (and sugar is a form of carbs - complex carbohydrates like bread and pasta are just sugar molecules chained together into bigger molecules that take a while to break back down into sugars), you’ll still need more insulin than your body can produce.

Enjoy this time. Let yourself ease into things. Learn about diabetes and how to manage it. If you’re type 1, you will be insulin dependent in the not too distant future.

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