In the beginning

Gosh!  This journey is a rollercoaster!  One minute I am down, down in the dumps because I have some bad news or high blood sugars, then I am soaring on a high after a day of blood sugars not going over 10!  Over the last few months I have learned so much about diabetes so I thought I would try and write a diary.

To go back to the beginning - my symptoms started last March 2014.  I was going to weight watchers to try and lose some weight, and was bumbling around losing about 1/2lb per week.  But suddenly - about the time of my birthday, I started losing 2-3lbs per week - every week despite eating more or less what I liked.   Not that I was complaining about a nice weight loss, I could do with losing a stone (14lbs) or so but I started feeling thirsty and going to the loo a lot.  I also suffered from terrible leg cramps every night, sometimes I had to get up and walk about the bedroom!  I looked up my symptoms and 'diabetes' kept coming up.  I was sure that I could not have diabetes as I had never been massively overweight and I exercised a lot.  I only knew about type 2 diabetes and knew from the media that it was a problem for people who were obese and took no exercise.  It took a few weeks to pluck up courage to go to he doctors.  I hadn't been to see a GP for quite some time so felt really nervous about it!  Luckily I saw a really nice young female doctor who was very sympathetic and she arranged for me to have a 'fasting' blood test that week.

Of course my results were dreadful!  My Hb1Ac was 13.5%!!!  I had an appointment with the practice nurse, which actually didn't happen until 2 weeks later.  She prescribed gliclazide, and scared me silly when she told me about the possibility of hypoglycaemia!  We were going on holiday 2 days later, and I wondered how on earth I was going to tell if I was having a 'hypo' on the back of the motorbike!  Well, my blood sugars were way above any possibility of a hypo, ranging from 11mmol/l to 28.8mmol/l - mostly above 14mmol/l!  After my holiday I increased the gliclazide and added in Metformin.  I was backwards and forwards to the GP surgery and the pharmacy, sorting out a medical exemption card etc.  I had hardly ever had a prescription before so it was all new to me!  I felt well and truly in the system.  My blood sugars were still not coming down by much, so another drug was added: Sitagliptin.   I was beginning to read about Low carbohydrate diets on the internet, so I tried cutting down on the carbs for a few days.  So during the last week or two in August I was getting lower sugar results -but  mostly between 9 and 12 mmol/l.  

I was still questioning as to why I should get type 2 diabetes as I was not overweight and had exercised regularly most of my life (not that I would say I was a particularly sporty, athletic type mind you!).  Eventually the nurse booked me an appointment with the specialist diabetes nurse who comes to our surgery once a month.  Well, she took one look at my blood sugar readings and said that I should be taking insulin.  So began my insulin journey...