Weight Loss Fad (continued)

I was diagnosed October of 2000. I was 16 years old and at that time had lost a lot of weight due to high blood sugars. I was in my junior year of high school. I had some problems when I was first diagnosed including hospitalization in CCU due to lack of blood sugar control which caused a lot of weight loss in June 2001. At that time I never thought it was a problem. I sometimes would skip my insulin at meals so whatever I would eat would get burned off. During the CCU stay I was in a coma most of the time. My mom said that she watched my blood pressure drop to the point I should have been dead. I was there for twenty-four hours and had to be placed on a Bi-carbonate treatment. Usually they can treat it with an insulin drip and IV fluids but when you go into a coma the Bi-carbonate treatment was the best route.

After I was out of CCU I meet with a diabetic educator to discuss precautions to prevent future episodes. That when I learned that this was something common that happened to females with Type 1 diabetes. I was told that they skip insulin shots to lose weight. Though I was also told then that I was in because I also had the intestinal flu which also caused high blood sugars so beginning only 17 then I thought that if I only did it every so often it would hurt me and I could still keep off the weight.

I went for a few years doing this and it wasnt until recently I started noticing side effects. I am now 23 years old and have the starting of diabetic neuropathy in my left foot and leg. This is causing a lot of problems with standing or walking for long lengths of time. I'm very sensitive to a lot of food and have to be very careful when I eat. Late April 2007-early May 2007 I was back in the hospital after my fiancee had to take me to the emergency room because I was very sick. I had to be sent to ICU for a 12 hour period to watch me because there are times that when the diabetes goes out of control it will cause other problems like how much oxygen you are getting your blood stream and you blood pressure will drop like what happened in CCU the first time I had this problem. I had been skipping my fast acting insulin shot more and only taking my long acting to lose weight again. It scared him a lot to see me so very sick and he wasnt sure what exactly was causing it. I know that what was causing it was because some of my choices I had made with my diabetes care, being not taking my fast-acting insulin when I was supposed to be. I talked to the doctor about this and they said that this is a common thing that happens with females especially with the way that today's society is with the appearance of females.

Both times were diabetic ketoacidosis episodes caused by a combination of things, but everytime me not taking my insulin to lose weight was a large contributing factor. I am now taking my insulin like I am supposed to be taking it. I am in the care of both a primary doctor and an endocrinologist through the diabetes center here in Utah. I still have the neuropathy in my left leg and foot and this will never go away. I can stop it from getting worse by taking care of myself. I can also prevent other further complications including eye sight loss and kidney function problems. There might be the possibility of neuropathy medications and medications for preventing kidney problems but that is it. Anymore now my typical day includes testing my blood sugar 4 times a day, shots 5 times per day (4 fast acting and 1 long acting). I work from 3pm to 11:30pm training to become a technical support agent for Dell computers. I take my fiancee to work at noon so I'm usually up at 10am. My eating habits are a little off because of the strange schedule that I have but I make sure that I take my insulin when I eat and test my blood glucose when I'm supposed to plus extra times during sickness. I have to make sure that the job that I have is a sit down job where I dont have to stand or walk for any length of time.