In your experience what are the most difficult things about having to control your diabetes?
I think getting rid of the hypo that I would have, because on one or two occasions my mum had to call an ambulance because I would lose consciousness but I wouldn't know about it. She was quite worried because they say it can affect your brain and other parts of your body and she didn't want that, and it was quite a struggle getting rid of that.
And I also sort of do quite a bit of exercise too, so she was worried about letting me go to the gym.
And can you tell me about those occasions you had these hypos and you lost consciousness?
It usually happened during the night, so when I was younger my mum would wake up at say two and six o'clock in the morning to check on me. And on, when she didn't I would just go to bed and wake up in hospital, or with ambulance people around me, I wouldn't really know what was happening but I guessed that I'd had a hypo.
It was for quite a few years that's why I got transferred from my local diabetics clinic to the London one. But my HbA1C would be high because my mum would give me glucose to bring my sugar levels up, but then afterwards they'll go really high as well, so it wasn't working for quite some time.
Do you remember how long ago you had your last hypo?
I think it was last week.
And how was that, I mean at night also?
Yeah before I've, only in the morning, it was a, around three so I just took some glucose and then I'd had something to eat afterwards, which is what they tell you to do, like not just to have glucose on it's own 'cause that's bad.
Where you studying until late or?
I think I was just a bit more, I had PE during the day so that might have, did something, but I wasn't really sure why.
How does it make you feel to have these hypos?
If I go really low then, that you feel hot and sweaty and it is, it's not something that you'd want to be every day, and so like when you start walking and you can't walk properly, and you feel like it, it doesn't feel right and so my mum can sort of tell as well, or when someone's talking to you, it's like you can hear them but, it's kinda distant.
I'm sort of in a daze when it happens it's like, I'm not following everything that's happening around me so, I won't notice when a definite change when I'm in a hypo and I'm not in a hypo which is, so gradually I'll come back to normal? I won't really notice anything.
Sometimes it'll be more the concern that of my mum would have, like if I was to go out later on during the day she'd be a lot more wary and wouldn't be as happy as letting me go. So, sometimes it will feel like it's holding you back but, it's just that, I've always thought of it as another part of being diabetic. Which is something else that you have to deal with. |