I have COMPLETELY fallen off the wagon :|

Dobson · #1 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 12:36 PM

I have no idea why or how this has happened, but since I've started college, I have went up 15-20 days without checking my BGL at all. I went from 9/3 to 9/15 without checking it, and then I went from 9/15 to 9/27 without checking it. I just checked it again for the first time since 9/28. I've had a <7 A1C for the past two years, and I got a pump in August. I love the pump. I was always someone who checked his/her BGL three times per day at the very least. Now, I don't even feel weird about not checking it period. It's not that I'm embarrassed or anything, because everyone sees me giving boluses and what not with my pump, and they usually have questions. Has this happened to anyone else? How did you get back in the habit of testing regularly?

duck · #2 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dobson

I have no idea why or how this has happened, but since I've started college, I have went up 15-20 days without checking my BGL at all. I went from 9/3 to 9/15 without checking it, and then I went from 9/15 to 9/27 without checking it. I just checked it again for the first time since 9/28. I've had a <7 A1C for the past two years, and I got a pump in August. I love the pump. I was always someone who checked his/her BGL three times per day at the very least. Now, I don't even feel weird about not checking it period. It's not that I'm embarrassed or anything, because everyone sees me giving boluses and what not with my pump, and they usually have questions. Has this happened to anyone else? How did you get back in the habit of testing regularly?

I checked my sugars once my first semester Freshman year. Maybe twice. I don't think I checked my sugars 50 times in all of college.

What changed? I dunno, fear of losing a kidney, an eyeball, sexual function...No, it was definitely sexual function.

spike · #3 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 03:21 PM

I've never gone more than 8 hours before checking my bg's--during the last 20 or so years.

and that's only if I were to sleep all nite.

karen · #4 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 03:32 PM

Having diabetes 40 years and living through not even having an option to test or not, I guess it is feasible to survive, but......

I have been pumping for 3.5 years and I have panic attacks if I don't have my meter and I am not able to test every 2-3 hours. Part of my issue is that I have hypoglycemic unawareness, hence the panic attacks.

Pumping has really changed my life as well, but if you don't test what is the sense of having a pump?

A pump is so that you can make corrections at anytime to high bgs, soooo why are you not testing two hours after you eat so that you can correct a high??

Take care of yourself.

Karen

2high · #5 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 03:44 PM

Hello,
It has only been since finding DF that I have got back ON the wagon, after years of testing occassionally. As in, wow I;m really ill, maybe I better test. And every time I did that, I needed a new glucometer... I would have lost the otherone in a box somewhere because I never used it. The way I got back into testing regularly was to set alarms on my phone or watch, at 7am, 12.30 and 6.30pm, and eventually I got back in the habit. Now, I wake up, and the first thing I do is test. And my control is a heck of a lot better for it.

Hope that helps.

Katie

Dewey · #6 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 03:53 PM

With me, I didn't have the ability to test via a meter for the first two years after diagnosis (only had keto-diastix), so when I got the meter, I started testing & never really looked back. Am I perfect & do I test every minute? No, and when I was younger, I tested about 6 times a day at the most (sometimes less). It was only when I was trying to get on the pump that I got in gear & started testing 10 times+ a day. Since then, I've been checking non-stop, and as someone else mentioned, feel naked without my meter.

Dobson, it may be a phase, but since you are aware of it, try to do what you can to get back on track. We love & worry about our family members here, so please don't take this as preaching....we just want to help one another, especially in "down" times.

Cyborg · #7 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 06:45 PM

Wow... Scarey! Are you actually bolusing without testing?

lgvincent · #8 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 07:11 PM

When I was in college, we were still checking urine sugar but I have log books that lasted eight months that would go weeks at a time without doing that. I don't know why I did it but it happened.

spring · #9 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 07:19 PM

I think a lot of people go through phases like th at.

I'm in my third year of university, and while I never stopped testing, I wouldn't really do anything about the number I saw. I was testing maybe eight times a day, and if it was high, I might have a few units or I might put it off until I was really high. I never skipped shots but I certainly delayed them for a few hours. Rather than stop testing, what I did neglect were a1cs. I went a year and a half without having one done, and when I did it was 8.8. That was enough to get me to start busting my *** on trying to lower it. (Last check it was 7.9. Still not a **** of a lot better but improved nonetheless. I'm afraid it might be higher again :s)

What I find helps me is to think of myself as a personal science experiment... I'm a naturally curious person and so I want to see what type of food or exercise or what have you results in what kind of blood sugar (sometimes to the point of being a bit obsessive..heh ). I also treat it as a bit of a competition to see if I can't get a good hba1c. Every number above ten gets some kind of correction.

am1977 · #10 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 07:52 PM

Yup, I'm sure this happens to a lot of people (though not me- YET

)... but, anyway, I think having a disease that requires so much discipline and self-management, it's easy to want to ignore (maybe that's not the right word) it at times.... You aren't just a diabetic, you are a person who has a life and Diabetes shouldn't be what your life is built around.

I'm glad that you recognize this issue yourself... And, for your health's sake, I would hope that you plan to be a little conscientious about testing and taking care of yourself. If it's a struggle to regain control, make small goals and take small steps

- you'll get there

.

Good luck.

Tsukia · #11 (**permalink**) 10-18-2006, 08:49 PM

I am actually just starting to climb back on the wagon and am finding that this forum is very useful. our reasons may very but i do believe that most diabetics go through a faze when they don't want to or for some reason think that they don't need to or are conviced they don't need to or in some cases just forget.

I went over a year without testing (I won't go into why) and am lucky that an infected finger and yeast infections are the worst that came of it. Now with the help of my husband, doctor, and dietician I am slowly getting back to basics and starting over. That includeds a change in diagnosis for me as well. Instead of being type 1 my doctor says I am type 1A aka 1.5.

But the main thing is that you do get back on track before you do any perminent damage to yourself.

Twister212 · #12 (**permalink**) 10-20-2006, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dobson

I have no idea why or how this has happened, but since I've started college, I have went up 15-20 days without checking my BGL at all. I went from 9/3 to 9/15 without checking it, and then I went from 9/15 to 9/27 without checking it. I just checked it again for the first time since 9/28. I've had a <7 A1C for the past two years, and I got a pump in August. I love the pump. I was always someone who checked his/her BGL three times per day at the very least. Now, I don't even feel weird about not checking it period. It's not that I'm embarrassed or anything, because everyone sees me giving boluses and what not with my pump, and they usually have questions. Has this happened to anyone else? How did you get back in the habit of testing regularly?

Get a dexcom continuous glucose monitor (or wait for the Abbott Navigator, which is supposed to be out by year end). You just wear it like a pump and it tells you whats going on. I have had mine for a bit over a month, and it is awesome. Good luck. You will seriously regret ignoring your bgs if you do it for long!

Cyborg · #13 (**permalink**) 10-20-2006, 07:31 PM

You've gotta stop pushing the Dexcom so hard. I and others have bad experiences with it and IMO, it's a premature device...

smaj611 · #14 (**permalink**) 11-02-2006, 08:23 PM

i am very relieved to hear that someone is having the same issues i am. i am going to try to make a competition with all the diabetics at my school. maybe pool some money and average up the blood sugars. have you thought of diabetes camp or counseling.

CycloneKitty · #15 (**permalink**) 11-02-2006, 09:43 PM

When i was in my teens - i tested very rarely. I had trouble with control and I just knew that it would be high anyway - so i didnt bother testing. Besides - my endo would crack it with me if there were tooo many highs in my record book. So i just tested when i was normal or felt normal. I think there may have been under-lying issues also - such as non-acceptance, and rebellion. What do u expect from a teen??