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[Photo 1: Travelling] [Photo 2: Flint] [Photo 3: Diabetes] [Photo 4: Biketrials] DiabetesI'm a type-1 diabetic. I became diabetic when I was 22. What is "Type-1" diabetes? In a nutshell, I have a chronic immune/hormone desease. My immune system produces an antibody that kills the cells in my pancreas that produce insulin. Type-1 diabetes is somewhat genetic, but is mostly environmental in the sense that the immune system needs to be told to produce that specific antibody. When I was 22, that happened. I was diagnosed on April 28, 2001 in Uppsala, Sweden. A regular person's blood sugar glucose level is about 4.5-5.0 mmol/l. When I was diagnosed, I recorded a level of 49.5 mmol/l. As a diabetic, I do a pretty good job at keeping my glucose level in the range 4.0-10.0 mmol/l. How is "type-1" different from "type-2" diabetes? Only about 5% of the diabetics in the U.S. are type-1 diabetics such as myself. The vast majority of the rest are "type-2", which is a totally different desease that causes some of the same problems. A type-2 diabetic is insulin resistant, in the sense that their body is inefficient with insulin production/use. They can still produce insulin, but their body can't use it well. On the contrary, my body can use insulin very efficiently, it simply cannot produce it. The health consequences of diabetes are rather severe, for both type-1 and type-2. Still, the risks for a type-1 are greater simply because we have absolutely no control ourselves over our insulin use besides manually injecting all of what we need ... you almost always over or under-inject. In any case, according to the American Diabetes Association, as a type-1 diabetic I have over a 50% chance of blindness, over a 50% chance of amputation (usually a leg/foot), over a 50% chance of kidney failure, over a 50% chance of a stroke, and some other nasty stuff in my lifetime. The side effects of type-1 usually start 10-15 years after becomming diabetic. Some people get lucky and never experience any side effects. But, the life of the average type-1 diabetic is about 10-20 years (depending who you ask) shorter than average people. When I became diabetic, I had about 6 months of total stress trying to learn basically how to eat and manage my life all over again, always being high or low with my blood sugar. After that, I spent about another 6 months really learning how to control it well. I'm still learning, and I still have problems, but it's much more a part of me now. I did get rather depressed when I realized all of the consequences that I'm going to face later in life though, and considered how many years this desease is likely to take off my life. But, in the end it's just something that every type-1 diabetic comes to terms with and I'm mostly over worrying about it. What does bother me, however, is how type-2 diabetics compare me to themselves. Compared to my body, their bodies have an amazing amount of control over their blood glucose levels. I inject all of my insulin, and contrary to popular belief, there is no direct relationship between the amount of sugar/carbs/calories you intake and the amount of insulin you use. You also need to consider things like physical activity, stress levels, sickness, sleep, and so on. It's a horribly complex thing to figure out when you become a type-1 diabetic. I think being technical minded helped me a lot. I really embraced certain parts of my desease and tried to learn about them as best I could. My daily routine I inject insulin usually 4 times per day. I'm currently using two types of insulin: My fast acting insulin is what I inject before each meal. For that insulin, I'm currently using NovoNordisk's Novolog. I inject .1 to .18 ml per meal usually, depending on the situation. My long term insulin is NovoNordisk's N. I inject about .45 ml of N every day, usually around 9 at night. I inject both insulins via pens that are somewhat similar to micropipets that you would find in a chemistry lab. The needles aren't huge, but once you do a few thousand injections you do start to get tough patches under your skin and they can hurt sometimes. I don't have set times when I test my blood sugar. I test it whenever I don't know what it is. Still, I go low and I go high a few times every week. My body used to have a huge reaction to low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). But, after it happened a lot, I lost the reaction. Now, I only notice that my blood sugar is low through my thought process. I'm not at all "normal" when my blood sugar goes low. I either get angry, confused, or I say something that doesn't make any sense at all. When my blood sugar goes high (hyperglycemia), I feel my body enter diabetic ketoacidosis. My blood becomes acidic to the point that I can smell it when I exhale, I become dehydrated, and I have this weird feeling all over my body that I can't really describe. The damage that is done to the body in diabetic ketoacidosis is largely the cause of the complications of diabetes later in life. The costs Per month, I have the following expenses: Testing supplies, generic from Wal-Mart: $50 Novolog insulin: $156 N insulin: $93 Needles for insulin pens: $35 My student health insurance covers a maximum of $1500 per year in prescriptions, which I rather obviously exceed. I also have a $25 copay on each prescription that my insurance does cover. I also need to visit the doctor, opthalmologist, and endocrinologist. Only specific parts of those visits are covered by my insurance, but the University of Vermont has so far been very good for me. As of October 2004, if I approximate the number of times I've had to poke myself with needles (either injections or testing blood sugar) since I became diabetic, it would be about 11,700 times.
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