Category: Diabetes Distress

Chronic Illness, Depression, Diabetes Distress, For Diabetics, For Family & Friends, For Medical Professionals, Mental Health, Type 1 Diabetes

Stress, a Pandemic, and Everything Else…

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Is the pandemic stress getting to anyone else?

I feel like the stress of the pandemic is continuing to catch up to me in new and weird ways every day. I am quite sure this is not chronic illness specific, and instead is the direct result of being in a state of constant vigilance with just staying alive for the past year and a half plus.

Humans aren’t meant to be in a state of fear, disbelief, or really in any state but equilibrium for this long. Between the uncertainty, the changing guidance (which is how science works!), and having a ton of extra things to remember all the time (do I have a clean mask in the car? Does this outfit have pockets that support the size hand sanitizer I have with me right now?), it occurs to me that managing a chronic illness and managing the pandemic stuff are not that different. Add in the stupid advice and opinions of people who are totally not qualified to give it or have one and you essentially have a LOT of the diabetic experience.

The pandemic has been hard on everyone, and I am no exception. Prior to the pandemic I had learned a lot about my body’s response to stress thanks to a tough job with some unreasonable expectations. I got sick all the time and my blood sugars were consistently running higher than average (around 180-200 on average). The pandemic showed me some new things, including the fact that I love food and my bicycle, and that those two things are complimentary, but neither one is easy on my diabetic body on its own.

I also have learned a lot about how my diet and insulin needs vary tremendously during times of stress. Cortisol is not my friend. Recently I’ve experienced a big change in my job, long term career goals, and self-expectations. I’ve also been balancing friends and family; issues and goals. I’m thinking about the future A LOT and my blood sugars look like it.

One day recently, for instance, I ate blueberry oatmeal for breakfast. I was working on a couple of stressful meetings and had listened to the news while I was answering email. This was a folly. I took NINE UNITS of insulin for my 45-carb breakfast. AND I STILL WENT HIGH. All of this to say, stress shows diabetics how damaging it can be, but it’s important for EVERYONE to remember this, even if your oatmeal goes down fine and you don’t experience weird, momentary insulin resistance whenever you have a bad day.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve been working through some solutions to handling this stress and wanted to share them here:

  1. Drink more water and clear fluids. Good advice for everyone because, hydration. If you happen to be a diabetic who also has experience with stress/blood sugar induced UTIs, the constantly needing to pee will be good for that. It will also force you to occasionally go into the bathroom and get away from your desk.
  2. Get more sleep. Truly. Sleep deprivation is a stressor to your bodily systems anyway, so being actually mentally/emotionally stressed on top of it is not helpful. Also, sleep deprivation does WILD things to blood sugar and insulin resistance.
  3. Get better sleep. Back away from the screens earlier if you can help it. If you’re me, just try to stop falling asleep looking at Brooklyn 99 memes on Pinterest with your phone in your hand. Also, wear something different to bed than what you’ve been lounging in, and create a “routine” of sorts, even if it’s just pajamas-check blood sugar-brush teeth-go to sleep.
  4. If the news stresses you out (see the blueberry oatmeal situation above) try going for a walk or getting some other exercise while you’re listening to help contradict the stress hormone effects. Then turn the news off. A lot of it seems like a rerun of bad shit anyway.
  5. Find foods that are healthy and can safely be stress eaten. I’m an emotional eater. I eat happy and I eat sad and when I’m stressed having something to crunch on makes a world of difference. I find that air popped popcorn, carrots with low-fat ranch, and fruit with some protein on the side (Peanut butter, yogurt, and string cheese are my usual go-tos) are all good options. That said, everyone is different. Find your healthy stress food and stick to it.
  6. Walk away. Feel like you’re going to explode? Yelling obscenities at the screen (or a person)? Did you seriously consider throwing something? Stand up and walk away for a minute. Truly, just one minute can make a huge difference. I pet the dog, I pet the cat, I walk downstairs to refill my coffee, and all of these things help me keep my sanity and my professional and personal relationships. Sometimes I walk away to find my Xanax when my blood sugar is 400 and I’ve passed the point of being able to calm myself down. It’s about balance.
  7. Unclench your jaw. Seriously. It’s clenched and your brow is furrowed. Let your mouth hang open for a second. Pretend you’re shocked and do your best Pikachu face to help un-furrow your brow. Pain is also a blood sugar trigger.
  8. WALK AWAY FROM THE CAFFEINE FOR A MINUTE.  The shaking from the caffeine is not helping the nervousness your central nervous system continues to claim. Caffeine also impacts blood sugar. Ask yourself-is a cheetah chasing me, or have I just had three cups of coffee on an empty stomach? 
  9. Set boundaries and keep them. You have an appointment-keep it. You have plans with friends or family-keep them. Don’t cancel for work unless it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t make yourself crazy doing things you “think” you should do instead of things you should and can do. Again, balance. You don’t want to talk about a subject that stresses you-don’t. You want a different pedicurist because this guy is hard on your hands and you don’t trust him with your feet (a real example)? Ask for someone else. Set boundaries for yourself in every area of your life and then stick to those even when they’re hard.
  10. Say “No” when you don’t want to do something and ask for something when you do want it. Resentment builds up when you don’t do either of those things; disappointment sets in when you only do one and expect the other to follow. No, I can’t take on one more project right now. Can someone please give me a hand with this? Justin, can you please handle dinner so I can ride my bike? (Etc., Etc., you get the point!).
  11. Figure out what foods you absolutely can’t consume while you’re stressed out. There are some for all of us. For me, several of these items are traditional comfort food (like mac-and-cheese or pizza). It sucks, but eating those things is just going to cause me hours and hours of painful blood sugars. Not worth it. Find alternatives and learn to love it, or doctor it up to make it what you want.
  12. Take notes. I frequently bitch about my body feeling like a science experiment, but really, the principles of effective science experiments apply. Take notes on what certain foods or situations cause you pain or impact your blood sugar. Write down how much insulin you took, what stressed you out, etc. Try to duplicate those experiences (when it’s safe to) to verify the results. Then take those notes to an actual doctor, CDE, or therapist and use their fancy-science based degrees to help you make informed decisions about your care and the way you handle stress.
  13. Finally, take care of your needs first whenever you can. There’s a reason why they say on airplanes to put on your own mask before you help the people around you. You’re not useful to yourself or to other people when you’re not taking care of yourself to the best of your ability. I love this expression and it’s fitting here: “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm”. Truer words have never been spoken. If you don’t care for you, there won’t be a you to care for anyone else. Chronic illness makes this process just take less time than it does for other people. So take care of yourself and then you can take care of others.

Featured Image Credit for this article: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/calming

Diabetes Distress, For Diabetics, For Family & Friends, For Medical Professionals, Type 1 Diabetes

Some more thoughts on 30 Years in here

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Warning: This is another anniversary post. Anniversaries are funny; they keep coming every year (if you’re lucky).

Also, Trigger Warning: Some mention of death, chronic illness, and abuse.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years this year.

It’s hard to believe mostly because it doesn’t seem like that long-they say “time flies when you’re having fun”. Consequently, it also flies when you’re living your life, busy, having fun, AND have a chronic illness.

Type 1 Diabetes affects millions around the world each year, but back when I was first diagnosed it was not that common. For a long time, I was the youngest person in my region to be diagnosed and survive, which is a strange label to have placed on you from the age of two on, but it’s what I was given to work with.

I’m a believer in the butterfly effect; one of those overly enthusiastic, “everything happens for a reason” people. And while I don’t believe in a vengeful God, I do believe that my chronic illness was meant for me; given to me for a reason.

I can look through my life and think of the negative things diabetes has provided. It was a source of agony as a child; personally and for my family. As a young child I was the subject of abuse at the hands of people my family trusted to care for me; I was nearly killed from that abuse when adults withheld food that I had already received insulin for. I lost friends who didn’t understand that you couldn’t “catch” diabetes and afraid for themselves, they didn’t want to be friends. I struggled with my weight, with my peers, with having to educate adults, having to advocate for myself medically; I struggled with guilt, fear, grief, anxiety, depression…the death of friends and the fear of losing my own life and limbs.

That said, I can look through my life and see far more good things. From that abuse, I learned about the importance of strength of spirit and the impact of kindness. I became a steadfast advocate for children and people with disabilities.  I developed my voice and my confidence early and found that I didn’t need to care what other people thought; life was literally too short for that. I learned that you can tell a lot about people from what they do for others in weak moments, and I learned that there are a lot of different ways to show love.  I gathered friends who, even when they didn’t understand, listened and cared and hugged me when I needed it. I got physically strong and by the time I was 16 I understood more about my body than most grown adults.

Now I’ve spent years digging into my own past, my own psyche, and healing wounds. I’ve dedicated my life to helping others to live their best lives; professionally, personally, and healthily, in whatever way I am able to do that best.

And now, now that I’m 30 years in, I feel like I’m starting a new chapter. As a child and teen, and even in my last 10 years of adulthood, I never really felt confident that I’d get here. I wasn’t sure I’d live this long, and I wasn’t always sure I wanted to. Losing people along the way from the same disease that I was coping with day in and day out was incredibly challenging. Deciding I was worth this much work, personally and for my family, was hard. It’s financially stressful, emotionally taxing, and physically demanding.

Then I hit 30 years old. I got married to my best friend in the world, surrounded by the many people who love me and two of the medical professionals who helped bring me to that moment. I got to thank those two medical professionals at my wedding for helping me get to this point in my story.

So what now?

That’s the question at hand. I admit as I come upon this 30th anniversary with Type 1, I can’t help but be overcome with a combination of strong and deep feelings. I feel happy that I’ve gotten to do so many things in my lifetime and that I’ve gotten to spend so much time with people I care about. I feel relieved that I’m still in pretty good health overall and excited and grateful for future opportunities to improve and charge ahead. Some days, I feel like a strong voice in a strange storm; a gorilla beating on my chest and yelling, “Come at me Bro!” into the void at a pancreas that’s long dead inside me.

But I also feel guilt. I feel survivor’s guilt; I feel like that for every bad decision I’ve made, for every time I hurt someone else, or caused myself or someone else harm in some way, that maybe I don’t deserve to still be here. Honestly, I feel grief. I still experience grief at the loss of normalcy after 30 years, and I grieve how quickly this disease forced me to “grow up”. No second grader should have a grasp on their own mortality the way that I did, and I grieve for the little girl inside me that still believes in Santa Claus, but knows that she may not wake up in the morning if she does too many handstands and cartwheels after her evening snack.

And I feel uncertainty. I’ve often said I’m going to write a book someday entitled “I’m not supposed to be here”. Because by all scientific accounts, this was not an eventuality or even a probability. My sitting here, with all my limbs, with all my eyesight and original parts and pieces, was a possibility, but not a probability when I was diagnosed in 1991. I would be lying through my teeth if I said that in my deepest heart I believed it when I so confidently said I would live to be an old woman. But now…now that I’ve accomplished another milestone, I can’t help but think about what’s to come, good and bad, and what I’ll do from here.

A friend recently pointed out that I’ve lived my life at a drop dead run. I moved as quickly as I had to make the most of the time I had. I didn’t know how long I had, so I needed to fit in as much as I could. Thing is, I didn’t always plan for the future because it didn’t feel like a thing I had to worry about. If I got there, I’d come up with a plan, but I’d adjust as needed because it wasn’t likely.  Now I’m finding that I need to adjust, which could make this next part of my life the most interesting of all. I have all the time in the world (as far as I’m concerned anyway). I want things; things that take time; things that are worth waiting for that I didn’t allow myself to want. And that friends, is the most exciting part of this anniversary. Now I want stuff, and I’m going after it, no matter how many years it takes.

No one knows how many years we get in this life, or how many we get out of it. As I’ve celebrated this anniversary this past weekend, I’m drawn again to looking at the year ahead with optimism, anticipation, and even some trepidation.

Mostly, looking ahead, I’m excited for all of the things I want and a million more opportunities to help other people get the most out of their lives. I’m also looking forward to more of the everyday opportunities to live and enjoy life. I feel like that’s something everyone can benefit from looking into the years ahead.

Depression, Diabetes Distress, For Diabetics, For Family & Friends, For Medical Professionals, Type 1 Diabetes, Uncategorized

So why are we here?

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Let’s be real for a minute.  There are a LOT of online forums, resources, groups, events, and hashtags associated with Type 1 Diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association shares that 30.3 million people in the United States have diabetes, with 1.25 million people living with Type 1 Diabetes right now.  That’s a lot of individuals with a lot of online activity! (For more on that, click here.)

Diabetes can get lonely.

Tonight on our way home from dinner and shopping, I was explaining that diabetics have higher percentage chances of experiencing depression and anxiety.  Justin wondered aloud why that is, which got us on the topic of “fault”.  Diabetes is a unique disease because there’s so much criticism and judgement involved.

Sometimes with chronic illnesses people express pity and concern.  With diabetes, they do that -and sometimes (far more often than is appropriate or necessary- they say things like “If you just took better care of yourself!” or “I don’t know why you can’t just eat better,” or my personal favorite when something bad happens, “Why didn’t you do X, Y, Z!”

All too often, these folks are doing EXACTLY THE THINGS THEY TELL YOU NOT TO. It’s next level infuriating.

These folks are trying to be helpful, but they isolate us.  They intentionally or unintentionally guilt us into feeling like our diabetes and complications and lows and highs are our fault.  They are not.  These people are wrong, and I do not care who they are.  Sometimes even people we care about and trust are wrong.  This is your PSA for today.

Type 1 Diabetics are just people. We are not God. We are not all powerful.  Most of us are just every day people without medical degrees who are just trying to survive and live our best lives.  We do complicated mathematics calculations, utilize thousands of dollars of medical equipment, act as our own EMTs, trainers, and advocates, we take on insurance companies, etc. and we are just people.  That’s it.

We can do a lot to make our own lives better. Everyone wants to make their own life better, and if you have a chronic illness, diabetes or otherwise, it probably crosses your mind at least once a day that life could be better.

So let’s do some things to make our lives better for us.  Not for the people who guilt or demand or blame,  or even the people who love and support and care, but for us.

One of those things we can do is reach out to other people and get support and advice.  We can vent and feel understood.  We can be validated and feel motivated.  We can troubleshoot.  We can be together.

We don’t have to be alone, and more importantly, we don’t have to be lonely.

That’s why we’re here.  That’s what this site is for, at its most basic core.  We are here to be here for ourselves.  We are here to share this space and our stories with each other.

We are here to make lives better.

As you peruse this site, keep in mind that we (Justin, the other collaborators, and myself) are just people.  We’re people who want our lives to be better, and we’re people who want you to feel better too.

Disclaimer-most of us are NOT medical professionals. We’re just here, telling our stories and wanting to hear yours.

Type 1 Diabetes sucks, but you are not alone, and you don’t have to be lonely.

Sending you love and light,

Megan

Depression, Diabetes Distress, For Diabetics, For Family & Friends, For Medical Professionals, Type 1 Diabetes, Uncategorized

These high blood sugars are the WORST…

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I have the tech (a CGM) that would prevent me from being caught off guard by these things. I’ll be honest, I don’t always wear it as consistently as I probably should. There are a lot of reasons for this, including a consistent, deep desire and need for sleep.

My CGM system wakes me up FREQUENTLY, so I’m always a little more hesitant to wear it when I’m already struggling with sleeping – which I am right now.

Despite that, today I took myself out for a lovely Sunday. I went to the pet store (my cat needed a feeder toy), the pharmacy (yay for out of pocket med costs!), and went on a nice stroll through Target (the candle section right now is DOPE).

During all of this, I got progressively more lethargic and seriously thirsty, so I grabbed an iced coffee (we live in a Starbucks void so Target Starbucks is all I’ve got) and headed home.

Y’all, I almost stopped for a bottle of water. To go with my iced coffee (with Splenda, and I bolused for the cream). On my 15 minute ride back to my house. I was panting.

I got home safe and sound but after getting here and being here a bit I still wasn’t feeling better. And so I checked. And it was 566.

THE WORST.

I have not had a high like this in a long time. I sat on the floor and drank water and took insulin and waited.

90 minutes and three (Yes three!!!!) correction boluses later, I was under 500. Barely, but under 500.

We went and paid the rent and found dinner (including multiple glasses of water and a giant diet soda that tasted like heaven).

Finally, now, three hours later I’m back in normal range, with a full stomach and no headache.

I chronicle this experience for the sole reason of pointing out that in the next two days I’ll be having a diabetes anniversary of 28 years, and I STILL have days like this.

That’s because sometimes T1D is a lawless $#@*! It doesn’t follow the rules. It doesn’t care about your self care like it’s supposed too.

I’m playing on expert mode, and I still have these moments.

And if you are a diabetic, or know a diabetic, I know you have these moments too.

It is okay. We are not failing. We are living with diabetes.

For All of Us Having One of These Days, Sending Lots of Love and Light,

Megan