Hi y'all. I'm Bren. My 16yo son Bobby was diagnosed Wednesday evening with Ty1 Diabetes. We are still adjusting to the whole evolution. He's only been home from the hospital since Friday night . I think he's now taking it better than I am. I have a constant knot in my stomach and here Isit at work andhe'shome and I'm worried todeath about him, although he does text/call and lets me knowhis levels and what he figures he should be giving himself for insulin. I do my own calculations here and confirm his. So far, so good.
When we took him to ER on Wednesday, his BG was 705. 4 hrs later, when the ambulance came to take him to the Chldren's hospital, it was 412. Now it's much lower, but fluctuates a lot which is normal for a few days (so we were told) He's also noticed a blurriness in his vision (so much so that we had to go get him a cheap pair of reader glasses from the drug store. The doctor said this should go away once his body adjusts to the insulin. I sure hope so.
I just wanted to pop in and intro myself and plan on reading the forum looking to capitalize on the knowledge here. Any advice you can give me on dealing with this would be welcomed and appreciated.
"Now it's much lower, but fluctuates a lot which is normal for a few days (so we were told)" Fluctuating BG has been the story of my life. Sorry, but it's not going to be for just a few days. There are many things that affect BG level besides food and insulin. Variation in the amount of exercise is probably the most obvious one. Every day is different! The blurry vision should clear up soon, but the reason for it is that the fluid in the eyes has become loaded with glucose, and your son has been adapting to it while his beta cells were failing. Now that he's getting the insulin he needs, the fluid in the eyes will start returning to normal and eliminate the need for the reading glasses.
Juvenation is a wonderful resource for you and your son. I wish I could have used it when I was diagnosed.
I'm Allen, and I was diagnosed at age 22 just last year. It was definitely a shocker, especially almost being finished with college, no family history, and knowing nearly nothing about Type 1. It's definitely a learning experience. I definitely recommend going with your son to pick up a (good) book about Type 1--I highly recommend Type 1 Diabetes: A Guide for Children, Adolescents and Young Adults -- and Their Caregivers by Ragnar Hanas, M.D. Also, JDRF offers some toolkits that I think you can request from their website. Their adult toolkit was really helpful to me at my diagnosis, because nearly all of the other materials I came across were too "kid-friendly."
I also experienced the blurriness when I started my insulin regimen and that will go away within the next 5 days or so.
Lastly, I couldn't have dealt with everything on my first few days following diagnosis. My parents' help was definitely needed and appreciated. But, after a few weeks (and definitely after a few years), please understand that your son might want to start taking charge of his own treatment with less of your help. I had "the talk" with my mom a few months ago about it, and it has really been beneficial for both of us!
Best of luck, and please feel free to message me, or have your son message me if either of you have any questions. It's quite a learning experience at first, but will soon become fairly routine. The resources and conveniences available to diabetics are endless--you can do it!
Welcome to Juvenation!!!! Sorry to hear about your son joining Club 1. I am still pretty new at this, 2 years this Aug. Yes,, it just may take a while. the vision does clear up. One thing I will bring up is now that the bg is starting to get better, your son my feel low at normal levels (80-120), I know I did as my body returned to normal(?). This may or may not apply. Don't compare meters with a + or - 20% it makes some crazy. LOL Every one here will give lot's of good advice and have relly good knowledge about living with this!!! How are you taking care of it, Lantus, Novolog, etc....???
Thanks all of you for the warm welcome. I hate hate hate that Bobby has to deal wth this. But knowing that there are far many more people in worse shape than he is humbles me somewhat. He (we) can get through this. He cando anything he wants to do. Diabetes doesn't keep him from that. He's tha master of his own destiny . Not everyone is so lucky to have a disease that they can live long and happy lives with.
I ordered him a silcone alert bracelet. He'll have no problem wearing that, it will go well with is "Livestrong" one. We went out Saturday and he chose a pouch that he would be comfortable wearing that holds all supplies-to-go. It's like a small messenger bag that he an wear slung over his shoulder. He's loaded it and is comortable wearing it. He spent all day yesterday making a chart on a dry-erase board that has a weeks worth of tracking on it. He can see at a glance how things are looking. I'll take a picture of it later. He's real proud of it and it hangs inthe hallway outside his room so he can have easy access to it. His "formula" is written there and places for allis meter readings and howmuch insulin and carbs he gets/takes everyday. He does a good job at reading packaging to count carbs and eats healthy anyway as his Dad and I have been on WW for the past 18 months. So all in all, he's going to make the subtle changes he needs to pretty easily.
This is his last week of school (3 half days for exams) But he is not going. He'll be able to take all his exams throughout the summer. One teacher has already exempted him from taking the final. :)
He takes 27 units of Lantus @ night and is on Humalog during the day.
I'm so impressed with his organization! A lot of us struggle with organizing all these numbers we have to remember and tweak on a daily basis!
Hang in there and let us know as soon as you have questions. People on here are great about mentioning if it's something to call the doctor about or a "simple" answer you just haven't learned yet. There's so much to learn, but take it day by day and do the best you can, and this year will get easier and easier for you.
There are a lot of teenagers on here, so your son may want to join us too. (:
everyone has already given you great advice already. :o)
welcome to juvenation. this is the best place for you and your son to come for friendship, support, and information. we are all here for you and your family. good luck to you :o)
I don't know if welcome is a good thing to greet someone who is new, but welcome to the exclusive club called Type 1 Diabetes. When questions arise and your or he need help ask away, I know there are many good resources on Juvenation that will be willing to help out.
I also have a teenage son newly diagnosed on April 6, 2010. We spent his entire spring break in the ICU in Madison Children's Hosp. I came upon his high blood sugar completely by accident. My husband was recently diagnosed with Type II. The monitors that were given to my husband were sitting on the kitchen table. I told Alex (my son) to let me take his blood sugar one evening. I did, and it didn't even register on the meter. We used the other meter and it said "above 700". I called the local nurse "hot line" and they suggested I take Alex to the hospital "just to have it checked out". There started our roller coaster ride! His blood sugar was well over 900 and they rushed us by ambulance 2 hours away to Children's Hospital. At first it didn't seem to really sink in with Alex. A novelty, I guess... A couple of weeks after we got home Alex started to realize that this isn't going to go away. He got into a funk and had a couple of rough days. We talked and come to find out, he was feeling kind-of "smothered and nagged" that we were continually asking about his numbers and worried about what he was eating all the time. We all agreed that his dad and I would try to "back off" as long as we could see that he was managing things o.k. by looking in his book and checking on him "regularly" not "all the time". We also talked with his doctors about his feelings and they agreed with this too. We did explain to Alex that since this whole thing was new to us too, that we needed to check in with him regularly for our own piece of mind and to make sure that things were going in the right direction. It was hard to give up such an important process to him when we didn't even know much about ourselves! But I think that he is able to handle it better than I could have at his age...
Things are much better now- we look in his book often and can see that he is able to manage things quite well. Hang in there and let me know if I can help you out at all.
Welcome Bren, I am 43 yrs old and dx'd in Feb 2010. It came out of nowhere. My A1C's were 13% when I started my last check up they were 6.1%. His organization is key. Let him do that as much as possible. Keeping a food journal has helped me alot also. Experimenting with different foods makes you realize you can eat. If he starts with good habits now I would hope that will carry him through his life. I lost 28lbs and now run 3 miles a day. Sorry this happened but there are many people who have this and we can all stick together.
heyy bren tell your son that life goes on and that yes it takes time to get used to a life change like diabetes but i have had it for 11 years now and im 14 and complication free!!!!! have your son come on this site i kno it really helped me!!