Treatment

I was first put on injections and once I had got used to injecting myself betwee 4 and 6 times a day and learning to carb count it was easier. And my sugar levels became more stable, which is shown by the fact that I was the first person in my clinic to get their sugar levels down to 4mmols within a couple of weeks (the average is between 4 and 7 for everyone). After a couple of weeks my insulin ratios changed, insulin ratios equal the amont of insulin that you put into your body due to the amount of carbohydrate that you eat.
I started off on: 1 unit of insulin for every 10 grams of carbohydrate this increased to 1 unit of insulin for every 12 grams of carbohydrate and because I did do and still do quite a bit of sport when doing sport I had to use the ratio of 1 unit of insulin to every 17 grams of carbohdrate in the meal before to prevent myself from suffering with a hypo during sport.

Since being diagnosed with type one diabetes I probably do more exercise than I did on average before hand. I completed GCSE PE and gained an A in that which is something that I wouldn't have thought I would do, although I did stop swimming competively about a year after being diagnosed it was to do with commitments to school. I go to the gym for a couple of hours a week as well as running between 2-6km several times a week. Some people think i'm mad but I do it because this way it enables me to keep better control over my readings.

I never really got confident injecting myself I mean I would do it but it sometimes took a while for me to be able to when I researched this online I found out about another form of treatment. The insulin pump, there are several models currently available but they work in similar ways, by giving the diabetic insulin at certain intervals via a small infusion site in their stomach it means that your readings are much less likely to fluctuate wildly therefore giving the diabetic greater control as well as improving their health alround. I was transferred and given the pump which I had for a year and a half despite there being some issues. I have no regrets about the pump as it has helped me enormously especially as I now have no awareness if I am having a hypo or a hyper which is something that around 15% of diabetics suffer with.

Background

After being diagnosed it was scary and frustrating as I had never heard of diabetes before and I didn't know what it was. Neither did any of my friends or family, this meant that whenever I suffered a hypo or hyper then instead of just making sure I either injected insulin or ate something they reacted a bit like headless chickens which isn't the most comforting thing in the world, about 4 and a half years on it has improved but not to the point where I feel confident that if anything was to happen and I was to pass out that my friends would realise what was wrong.

Diabetes isn't the worst illness to have in the world as it can be managed but at 12 or whenever you are first diagnosed it doesn't matter if your told that as you still think that it's something major. Which it is. Many people automatically assumed that I developed type one diabetes due to a poor diet, this isn't the case as that is to do with type two diabetes which generally occurs in adults over the age of 40.

Introduction to Diabetes

I'm 17 years old and i have been living with type one diabetes since the age of 12. When I was first diagnosed the thing that helped me msot was readign about what other people had achieved even with diabetes, this is the purpose of this blog hopefully to help people understand that yes someone might be diabetic but they are still a normal person and they don't deserve to be treated any differently to anyone else.