Tag: scary

A Source of Toe-tal Stress

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I don’t like horror stories.

I’m not big on scary things, in general (besides Halloween…I love dressing up)…but horror stories, in the form of tales told ’round the campfire or in media such as television or film, have never been my cup of tea. Probably because I’m a giant scaredy-cat, but I digress.

My disdain for horror doesn’t mean I’ve been able to successfully avoid it over the years. I’ve traipsed through my share of haunted houses, watched countless scary movies (with my hands over my eyes for a good portion of all films), and listened to spooky ghost stories.

The scariest story of all that I’ve heard over and over again has to do with…

Diabetes. And feet. Without going into more detail – because I’m shuddering at the mere thought – diabetes complications could lead to, um, amputations.

I’m not trying to make light of a very serious subject here: Let me be crystal clear when I say that diabetes complications are real and terrible, I wouldn’t wish them on anyone. They also frighten me so much that I tend to avoid blogging or even talking about them altogether. The slightest blur in my vision or tingling in my toes can send waves of panic through my brain that are so intense that I convince myself that I’m experiencing my first diabetes complications.

So when I discovered a cut on my toe several weeks ago, I couldn’t help but totally freak out, especially when I noticed blood around the site.

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As a person with diabetes, you’d never catch me barefoot and surrounded by all those rocks. OUCH.

For most people, a cut on the toe sounds like no big deal – you just put some antibiotic cream on it, wrap a Band-Aid around it, and let it heal. But for someone like me who has diabetes, a little cut triggers fears of serious issues like cellulitis or other infections that could lead to major problems.

It might sound ridiculous, but in the first couple days after I noticed my cut (it was a bit like a split in my skin), I had horrifying visions of my toe turning black and falling off. I became hyper-aware of every sensation I could and couldn’t feel in that area, and when I felt a slight stinging around the area a few times, I imagined that it meant that my days with all of my toes were numbered.

Was it silly for me to jump to such dramatic conclusions? Probably. Was I being paranoid? Definitely. But my overactive imagination was enough to convince me to at least consult my primary care physician about the matter.

I’m glad that I did. Over a two-week span, I had two virtual appointments with my doctor who took my concerns seriously. I described the issues and he gave me advice as to how to treat the cut (stop putting Neosporin and a Band-Aid around it each day, let it breathe, use a nail file to very gently proximate the wound, make sure I wear socks and shoes for all forms of exercise to better protect my feet). He agreed with my overarching concern: to heal it in order to prevent it from getting worse.

My toe is doing much better now, and after all that, I feel a bit (okay, a lot) sheepish that I made such a big deal about it in my head when I initially spotted the split in my skin. But in life with diabetes, everything related to my health has to be taken seriously, even if it means dealing with an added source of toe-tal stress.

 

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A Tough Topic: Diabetes Complications

mollyt1d2 Comments

I’m broaching a subject I’ve never openly discussed in an online forum in today’s blog post…and that is diabetes complications.

The reason why I’ve never talked about complications is straightforward: They absolutely terrify me.

It’s a topic that’s so foreign and frightening to me that I don’t even know the full extent of diabetes complications. You can Google them, for sure, and discover a long list of scary conditions involving the heart, eyes, extremities, and other internal organs. But I’d rather not do that to myself, let alone the audience of this blog.

I don’t want you to think that I’m naive, though…I know that not talking about something doesn’t mean that it’ll just go away or never happen.

Recently, I became glaringly aware of this fact through the form of (what I presume to be) my own diabetes complication: tendonitis in my left hand.

In the last year or two, I’ve felt sporadic sensitivity in my left hand when I fully extend my wrist, bear any weight on it, or even when I do simple wrist rotations. I never really knew when to expect the pain, but it happened every few months and lasted about a week each time. So when I felt it again around the time I was due for my annual physical with my PCP, I decided to ask him about it.

He explained to me that, based on the type of pain and its duration, it wasn’t carpal tunnel (numbness and tingling are symptoms of that, not pain) like I thought it might be. It also wasn’t arthritis (I didn’t have swelling or reduced range of motion) or neuropathy (I wasn’t experiencing pins and needles), but he did say that those aren’t uncommon in people with diabetes. That’s when he located the exact inflamed tendon – the thick, fibrous cord that attaches muscle to bone – in my left hand/wrist that was giving me trouble.

A Tough Topic_ Diabetes Complications
Me with my new (but occasional) accessory.

Just like all the aforementioned conditions, my tendonitis is probably due to my diabetes. Although my PCP didn’t explicitly state that I definitely have it because I’ve had diabetes for 22 years, he did identify a cause-and-effect relationship between the two. But, fortunately, he also reassured me that my occasional flares of tendonitis are nothing to worry about. As long as I continue to do what I’m doing (which is supporting my hand and wrist with a brace when I experience bouts of pain, as well as rest the area as much as possible during those times), then I’ll be totally fine.

While I’m not exactly thrilled to have to deal with tendonitis, I am very relieved that I know there’s an explanation to help make sense of it all, and that I’ve been doing the right things to handle it. So even though I won’t be going out of my way to research any other diabetes complications any time soon (why on earth would I want to stress myself out unnecessarily), I have come to terms with my tendonitis as a possible complication for me. And rather than seeing it as a completely negative thing, I’ve decided to just keep doing what I’m doing, and continue to take the best possible care I can of myself and my diabetes.

They say prevention is the best medicine for a reason, right?

 

 

Should I Have Called 911?

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Unintentionally, I set a personal record the other day. I experienced my lowest low blood sugar – 34 mg/dL. I was alone. And it was terrifying.

Around 1 A.M., I woke up to my CGM buzzing and alerting me to what I presumed was a mild low blood sugar. I definitely felt like I was low, so I quickly ate three glucose tablets without checking and confirming my low on my blood glucose meter. And soon after that, things got really weird.

I tossed and turned for 15 minutes as I tried to fall back asleep. But I just couldn’t get comfortable. To make matters worse, a bizarre, numb sensation invaded my left arm. As I became more and more aware of it, my breathing started to run a bit ragged – almost like I was having a panic attack. Between the breathing and the numbness, I knew something was very wrong.

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What would you have done in this situation?

So I bolted upright in bed and grabbed my meter and kit to do a blood sugar check. And that’s when the number 34 popped up on the screen. I swore out loud, and almost immediately began sweating profusely. As beads formed around my hairline and streams trickled down my back, I reached for my bottle of glucose tablets as well as my phone. I ate three more tablets – wondering why the three I’d eaten 15 or so minutes ago seemed to have no affect – and contemplated dialing 911. After all, I was completely alone and there was no telling whether I’d pass out or need assistance from someone. In that moment in time, I craved talking to someone, anyone, who might be able to stay on the phone with me while I waited for my blood sugar to come back up.

Like a complete idiot, though, I decided not to call 911 and instead took to Twitter…*insert face palm here*. I know what you’re thinking, why the eff did I do that? Two reasons: 1) I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly and 2) I knew that someone, somewhere, within my diabetes online community would be awake and possibly willing to talk to me.

Thank goodness my intuition was right…my sweet friend, Heather, who I had the pleasure of meeting IRL five years ago, responded to my tweet a few minutes after I posted it. She offered to call, but by this point in time, I had made it downstairs and into the kitchen just fine and was helping myself to a cupcake I’d baked earlier in the day (oh, how convenient my passion for baking can be…sometimes). I exchanged a few tweets with her back and forth, and before I knew it, 45 minutes passed from the onset of my scary low blood sugar symptoms. I ambled back upstairs to my bed and checked my blood sugar before getting settled back into it. I was surprised to see I was only 72; after all, I’d consumed about 50 grams of carbohydrates in the last hour, and for me, that’s a lot! Most of my meals don’t even contain that many carbs!

Bemused and exhausted, I slumped against my bed frame and distracted myself by scrolling aimlessly through social media channels. My body and my mind craved rest. Much to the relief of both, I was able to get it before long, once I got confirmation from my CGM and my meter that I was finally above the 100 mark. I knew that I’d likely go up much higher (and I certainly did, waking up at 289 the next morning), but at the time, I just didn’t care. All that mattered was that I was going to be okay.

I’ve been reflecting on the incident on and off the last few days. I’m trying to process what happened and how it happened – was it my new Metformin that triggered it? Was it stress that I had experienced earlier in the day manifesting itself? I drank one beer before I went to bed, could that have done it? Did I take too much insulin before bed, even though I was certain I hadn’t? Lord knows that it could’ve been any combination of those factors, or none of them…but I can tell you this: I haven’t taken Metformin since it happened out of fear. I’ll talk to my endocrinologist soon and revisit my dosing plan with her. I can also tell you that, even as I continue to process the entire ordeal, I’m feeling so lucky that I was lucid enough to take proper care of myself. I know there are many other T1Ds who can’t say the same and have experienced much more awful low blood sugar incidents, so I’m simply counting my blessings right now.

What would you have done, had you been in my shoes? Would you have called 911, a family member, a friend? Would you have waited it out?

Memory Monday: My Lowest Low Blood Sugar

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One Monday per month, I’ll take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how much my diabetes thoughts, feelings, and experiences have unfolded over the years. Today, I remember…

…the lowest low blood sugar that I ever experienced. So low, in fact, that I never actually found out how low it reached. Scary stuff.

lost in stockholm

Admittedly, my memory’s a little fuzzy when it comes to recollecting what exactly happened, but here’s what I remember: It was my sophomore or junior year of high school. I woke up in the morning and checked my blood sugar – or so I thought. In reality, I think I imagined checking my blood sugar, or perhaps I went through the motions of doing it without actually getting a reading.

Regardless, I made my way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I encountered my mother. I told her that I wanted “special cake”.

I remember her looking at me with worried eyes and asking me what I was saying. All I can recall is that I asked for special cake two or three more times before getting totally frustrated with her. How could she not understand my request for Special K cereal?

That’s right, in my stupor, I thought I was saying that I wanted Special K cereal for breakfast. But I didn’t realize that my low blood sugar was causing me to slur so badly that my words weren’t coming out clearly.

I vaguely remember my mom’s panicked reaction as she figured out that I must be experiencing a low. I think she asked me what my blood sugar was, and when I couldn’t tell her because I didn’t remember, she knew it was time to force some orange juice down my throat. I was conscious for that, but it’s like it was erased from my memory – I have no recollection of drinking the juice or what the moments after that were like.

I wound up going to school late that morning, only to have to go home less than halfway through the day. My low “hangover” was so bad that I felt nauseous in my classes and couldn’t concentrate on the lessons.

Obviously, I fully recovered from the incident. Even though my memory is shoddy at best when it comes to remembering the whole experience, the mere fragments that I can recall are enough to make me scared to ever go through something like that again. It’s a reminder that diabetes can be terrifying, but living with it is a reality that I have no choice but to accept – fears and all.

A Diagnosis of LDM

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What is LDM? According to my mother, it stands for Lovely Diabetes Mystery. The “lovely”, of course, is sarcastic, whereas the “diabetes” and “mystery” relate to a random, unforeseen diabetes medical incident – which occurred to me on Sunday, October 7th.

I woke up that morning with some abdominal pain. I rolled over soon after waking to check my CGM, and was startled to see that I’d be in the 300s for most of the night as I was sleeping. I quickly bolused for it using my PDM, and shut my eyes, hoping to get some more rest and to wake up again without stomach discomfort.

No such luck. About an hour later, I opened my eyes and looked at my PDM again, and I had barely come down. I tested to confirm, and sure enough, I’d only gone down a few points. I was worried, which was exacerbated by the weird nausea I was having. Could this be a sign of something more serious?

My mother convinced me to do a manual injection with a syringe. We both figured that that would help bring my numbers down faster, and that if I started coming down quickly, then it could mean that the pod I had just applied the day before was not working properly. We agreed that I should probably change it, to err on the side of caution.

However, I didn’t get to change my pod until much later in the day. That’s because of what happened soon after I took my manual injection.

I went to use the bathroom, certain that the churning of my stomach meant that I was about to be sick. I was standing in front of the toilet when I started sweating – profusely. On top of that, my vision went all fuzzy, and I felt totally disoriented. I knew something was wrong, so I called out for help.

My mom raced into the bathroom to find me seated on the floor, dripping in sweat. I placed myself on the floor deliberately because I was worried I might pass out and injure myself. She started cooling me down with a wet facecloth, and searched through the drawers to find a thermometer to check my temperature. She also grabbed her test kit and my lancing device, because naturally, we both assumed that perhaps my blood sugar was dropping rapidly from the insulin injection, and it might be a hypoglycemic event.

But when we checked my blood sugar, I was still in the high 200s. I was pretty scared at this point and just wanted the sweating to stop and for my vision to clear. That’s when my dad came in and made the executive decision to call an ambulance for me.

A police officer, three firefighters, and two EMTs showed up my house. I answered questions in my confused state. My vision restored and the sweating stopped, but I still felt weak and woozy. They put me into the ambulance. I was given an IV bag and medication for the nausea. It was my first time in an ambulance and it was not exciting, just weird. I didn’t like riding backwards or experiencing the twists and turns along the way.

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I was bored in the hospital; so naturally, I created this boomerang of my IV drip.

We arrive to the hospital. I’m whisked away into the ER. I answer a series of questions from various medical students and nurses and doctors. They draw blood for tests. I give them a urine sample for more testing. I keep on explaining the concept of my OmniPod to each one of them. No one seems to have seen it before, besides one med student who has a sister who works for Insulet. Small world!

We monitor my blood sugar closely. My tests come back normal. I eat my first foods for the day around 2 P.M.: sugar-free jello and two hard-boiled eggs. Yum…

I get an injection of insulin at the hospital. We don’t have a vial of Humalog with us – it was the one thing we forgot to grab from the house. But my dad drives home to retrieve it so I can change my pod at the hospital. My mom does it for me. I feel helpless.

The old pod comes off and we notice a definite bend in the cannula. Okay. One thing explained. I wasn’t receiving my full insulin dosages due to the bend, and unfortunately, I have no way of knowing how much insulin I was truly receiving. All I know is that it wasn’t enough, and that’s why I was running high.

I receive a diagnosis: vasovagal syncope, or pre-syncope. It’s explained to me, but I still don’t really get it. So I text my best friend, who is also a nurse. She tells me that it’s very common and can be triggered by a variety of things. The pre-syncope aspect makes more sense to me, seeing as I never truly passed out.

I’m discharged and feel so very tired. It was a long day. The following days are filled with follow-ups and message exchanges between myself, my endocrinologist, and my primary care physician. My healthcare team and I think that we come up with a plausible explanation for the hullabaloo: My body knew something was wrong. It knew that my blood sugar was abnormally high, and it knew to send signals to me that I needed to take care of it. Hence, the abdominal pain. My dehydrated state exacerbated things, and when I started sweating and lost more fluids, it was a lot for my body to experience.

Sheesh. What an ordeal. Like any diabetes-related experience, it taught me a lot, but I certainly don’t want anything like that to happen again. Shout-out to the healthcare professionals, but especially my parents, for taking damn good care of me throughout the whole episode. You’re the bomb diggity.