Well here’s a few things I figured out.
Reason why you have diabetes type one! DNA, it’s genetic and well you have no choice or God said hah!
Being an ass toward family, friends, coworkers etc. apologize now for future indiscretions. The sugar levels are going to mess with all of your emotions and any analytical thinking you do. It’s very , very, very, frustrating! Which raises your stress level, etc. so plan for it to happen. Warn people it’s not you being an ass but it’s a reflection of how the disease affects you and your attitude towards the world in general. Then practice counting to 10 before you open your mouth. Trust me it’s ( your mouth) is gonna get you in trouble. Especially if your sarcastic in nature, normally for being funny, it is gonna come back to bite you in the butt.
Most importantly!! Good days and bad days don’t always truly reflect what you are doing. Ie. following a certain diet, Drs orders, yada yada yada. Those days may just be good or bad because you are T1D. For me, I’m very regimented in my treatment, I analyze every thing! No patterns, no specific triggers, no days of to heck with it I’m gonna eat anything I want I’m not sick! If you do the last one your gonna pay for it physically, be it weight gain, diarrhea, feeling horrible, somehow your body will get even with you for being “bad”.
Those days suck and you can only blame yourself. But it goes into item 1, increases frustration! Back to square one!
The more you feel you’ve got this disease under your thumb, it can and will most likely slap you down and say so you thought you had me under control! That’s why everybody says manage diabetes. Some days go great and your lovin’ life, other just flat out suck!
Even tho I keep in range above 90% of the time, the last %ages can be a real pain. It’s got a lot to do with how you react to lows. I’ve found it best to treat them slowly and methodically. Example, your alarm goes off, I set mine at 80, gives an extra 5-10 minutes. Sometimes you need it. Can’t find a soda or you feel really lousy and you don’t feel like responding immediately. But point is based on reading I treat myself by a set plan. I get the alarm and I go to my fist remedy. I wait 15 minutes, check levels and see if it’s rising. If not, I go to remedy #2. Wait again and check, if we’re rising I’ll stop if not go to #3 or #4, whatever works to stop the low.
I drop really fast, faster than the alarm setting on the app, so I turned that off. I average going low 3 to 5 times a day so it’s routine for me.
The last and most important thing to say!!! Take all that everyone tells you about diabetes under consideration. EVERYBODY reacts differently to like situations. You may follow the textbook or write your own script. That’s what you have to figure out, what works for you and only you!! I even include drs advise here for me, because they tell me do x,y,z and I’m screwed. If I follow my own thoughts, usually not too bad. I listen and tell Drs my concerns and ask what if I do this? What’s the worst that will happen? At first they were not understanding of me, me questions or my results, when I did not follow their instructions exactly. Until I proved to them, that if I did it their way, it was a bad thing for me! Now most of my drs trust my judgement and let me do it my way with their advise on how to keep me as healthy as possible. That takes time and you gotta be able to scientifically prove your statements. Not easy to do, but it can be-done. My first A1C reading was a 13.7! When I was first diagnosed. Since then I have run between 5.3 to 6.0. I lately have consciously brought my level up from 5.7 to 6.0 to try and stop nighttime lows. Only sleeping in 2-3 hr shifts really gets old after a few years.
Ask me anything, I’ll help if I can! This disease is a daily discovering of some new issue I have to deal with today.
Hopefully, you won’t have to deal with the things I do, but be ready for it if you do!
Charlie