Diagnosed with Insulin dependent Diabetes at 35

[MrsKitty]

Diagnosed with Diabetes a few weeks ago- got to wait another few weeks for blood test results to tell me if I'm Type 1 or Type 2, although the nurse I saw on day 1 was fairly confident it would come back as T1. I'm on 4 shots of insulin a day, and testing blood sugars regularly- they are still all over the place though.

Haven't been back to the hospital since diagnosis, still waiting for appointments with the consultant and the dietician, and have just been told to call the nurses once a week with my readings so they can adjust my dosages if needed. Is this normal? I feel completely lost to be honest. The only advice I've been given about food is to eat a 'balanced, healthy diet' and 'eat carbs with every meal, but not too many, and not too few'. I feel scared of food and how every meal will affect me because I don't feel like I have any control or understanding of what I'm supposed to be doing!

I'm so pissed off that this has happened to me, and feel quite depressed about the feeling that my life has been taken out of my control .

Not really sure what the point of my post is-just to have a whinge really, I suppose .

Yes, went back to work this week - been there all weekend too . Off on holiday next week though , and will be using my new-found carb counting to sample a lovely Devon scone (thank you, lovely dietician, for advising me on the carb count on that one!)

It's so different now to when i was diagnosed in the 1980s...back then i was told i could never eat sweets ever again....then after a while i was allowed to have one day a year eg Christmas when they were ok...how times change!!!

Another one here diagnosed with type 1 at 33yo, was pregnant at the time too so that was fun!

I found it really helpful to learn as much as I could to start with - that made it all less scary. One site I found helpful is www.realitycheck.org.au it's an Australian site aimed at young adults - yes, you do count! I especially liked the black humour bits, but also seeing what other people managed to do with Type1 reassured me that it need not be the end of life as I knew it!

I was lucky enough to bag a pump during my second pregnancy, which I didn't give back....I highly recommend them for the flexibility they give - it's something you might want to consider in the future, especially with shift work, although funding isn't always easy to get.

One other site I found helpful for queries was www.diabetes123.com

Good luck, hard as it is now to believe - you will get used to it. I can now look at it and think, "well at least I didn't get it when I was younger", "A least I've got it at a time when decent monitoring equipment and insulins are available" and "At least I didn't get anything worse..." It may take a while to get to that point though....!