day 2 of wego health

time for introductions:

i'm 17 , a college student soon to be student nurse in september. I also happen to have several invisible illnesses. From the outside you would see a healthy seventeen year old , unless you notice my insulin pump, you couldn't tell my body is seriously screwed up. So to introduce my health conditions-

Asthma

I have had asthma since i was very young, if i'm honest it is quite mild and its very predictable as to what triggers me and very rarely gets out of control. I'm pretty bad at taking my medication for this which is a preventer inhaler twice a day and then the blue inhaler when i have asthma attacks, i probably should be better since my peak flow is around 100 below what is expected of a girl of my age

 (asthma.org.uk)

Raynauds

basically means my blood vessels in my feet don't work properly and in cold or when my bloodcount is high they often turn black. Really annoying when i want to wear open shoes in the winter and can't! 

Hypothyroidism

so as well as killing off my pancreas, at around the age of 10 my immune system killed off my thyroid as well. although it has made a valiant attempt to do some work for the past 7 years i now take 125 mcg of thyroxine every morning to replace the hormones i've lost. When my hypothyroidism flares up i will become extremely tired to the point i will easily sleep 15 hours a day and i get terrible headaches and start losing my hair

Type 1 Diabetes

This is the biggie for me. type 1 is an autoimmune condition which means instead of attacking viruses etc like the immune system is supposed to, my immune system produced antibodies against my beta cells which produce insulin. Insulin is essential to survive so since the age of 2 i've had to take some form of insulin every day whether that be through syringes, injections or now through an insulin pump. That doesn't mean my diabetes has got worse , just the way we manage it has got better. There is no clear reason why the immune system attacks the pancreas, milk antibodies, lack of vitamin D or the coxsackie virus are among many of the theories. The things we know about the reason though - It isn't caused by eating too much sugar and It isn't caused by being overweight. We also Type 1 can not be cured (neither can type 2 diabetes for that matter) , we will be insulin dependent for life and will never be able to come off it, We can eat sweets and chocolate we just adjust insulin for it, yes its tough, yes there are days i absolutely hate it but it won't ever stop me. 

a day in my life with type 1 diabetes and this was a pretty good day i can have days where im anywhere from 1.7 (30 mg) to 30 (540) mg)-

wake up at 3 am and don't feel right extremely thirsty my bloodcount is 18.3 (329 mg). i went to bed the previous night at 6.7 (120) and had no food. by all logic it should stay steady. I do a correction dose of 1 u to 3 mmol to get it down below 10 i do 3 u through my pump

by the time i wake up at 9 am my bloodcount is 7.0 (126 mg), Hannah 1 Diabetes 1 . i then go take a bath do a small amount of insulin to cover being disconnected from the pump

bloodcount before lunch - 7.4 (133) big lunch today Mcdonalds a chicken nugget medium meal with diet coke - chicken nuggets 22 g carbs fries 44g carbs plus the sauce which is around 11g carbs so total 75g carbs i do 1 u to every 10g at lunch so do 7.5 u for my meal plus a correction dose of .4 u and extend it over half an hour to cover the fatty content which means the glucose is released slower.

2 hours post lunch my bloodcount is now 10.4(187) , slightly higher than i'd like so as well as a snack of 10g which i do 1 u for i give a correction 1 u to bring me down to 7 mmol (120mg) .

tea time, the correction hasn't worked i'm still at 10.2 (183) i have a meal of chips eggs and beans and 2 slices of bread which works out at 75g carbs (love the days it matches up but i do round to nearest 5 or 10 normally cause i'm lazy), i do 7.5 u for the carbs plus .9 correction as i want to between 7 - 10 for going to bed. i do a multiwave bolus for this over 15 minutes so my insulin matches my food release

i go to bed on a 9.3 (167) . not perfect but it holds steady till morning unlike the previous night.

i could do this day exactly the same all over again and would get completely different results . My ratios often change as does how much basal (background) insulin i need. so there's my type 1 diabetes 101 introduction to my life.