Me and Weird Experiences with ADHD

I had to take off a week from ADHD meds. I was feeling a bit weird. I get like this when I have an infection and I thought I had something, but my blood test came normal. I did have slight cold but not bad enough for this kind of reaction. But it was an experience! I definitely noticed the difference. Doing normal stuff took so much more time than with meds. Preparing dinner was a nightmare! I would constantly forget things, go back and forth between kitchen, computer and forgetting the timer. Forgetting to put right things in right places at the right times. I don't think I used ANY seasoning on my food! I forgot half the ingredients in the store. Using lists never helped me since I kept forgetting to do the list, take the list with me or check it. The chaos in my life and head was a lot worse. I like a bit of chaos, but now with the meds I've grown used to less of it.

Another thing: I don't count any of my health issues as bad things or curses. I know many people feel even having one of these is horrible. Especially with ADHD. So many feel that it's a curse. I don't know if it's how I was raised or my own personality, but I don't think it as a bad thing, nor a good thing. It just is. It gives and takes like anything in life. Nothing is perfect but the attitude towards everything and anything is the thing that matters the most. There are days when I curse having diabetes or hypothyroidism or ADHD, but those are just bad days and they go away on their own. Then there will be a good days! I've had diabetes so long that I don't really actively think about it anymore. Most of the processes are automatic, like counting carbs and correcting for them, taking insulin, and staying consious on how I feel. I've had it so long I can recognise signs, ok now I*ve got high or low blood sugar. And I can have some fun with it. One of the funniest things for me is BS. It's short for blood sugar. I think getting diabetes at such young age really affected how I think about health malfunctions. My body hasn't worked like most people's since I was 8. So getting different diagnoses isn't too shocking for me. I get the initial shock yes, but after that it's just, ok I've got this, lets go back to normal life! I'm glad I'm like this. It makes my life so much easier! I do worry about some normal stuff, but I rarely get hang up on them. I refuse to let myself get that way. Life is very stressfull as it is, I don't need to create more stress. So much of that stress is created by the person. I can choose to let it go on, or think and worry about it. I'm not perfect in that aspect. There are certain things that I can't get over just like that, especially things that involve other people or waiting. I'm hopeless at waiting! And I always listen to people who have problems, but my patience runs out when they come to me about the same problem several times a week expecting me to fix it, when it's their thing. I'm their friend, I offer advice and any help I can give, but fixing big issues is their responsibility. Unfortunately there are people like this..

I got bit off track again! What attention problem?

On Being a Diabetic

Being a diabetic isn't always easy. There are so many things that affect the blood sugars and when the only source of insulin is external it's tricky. Things that make blood sugar crazy include weather, excercise, food, stress, and any combination of these. I started working as a cleaning lady and I was working on my feet 7 hours a day and in bad heatwave. Yeah, this is not the best combination. First week I had at least one hypo a day, that means hypoglycemic or low blood sugar. And several at home. It's not good. And it was only from the heat and work. If I had been working at winter, my blood sugars would have been more manageable but this way I had to lower my basal insulin 35% and I had to cut at least one unit from bolus insulin. Basal means long acting or with pump it means the basic dose you need to get all of the time. Bolus means a bonus insulin with pump or short acting with just injections, and that's a correction for food or high blood sugars. It's really tricky sometimes to try to predict what to take, because I need to know what's going to happen during the day. I take long acting insulin twice a day which makes it easier, since I need only to know what I will do today and I don't need to take into account for tomorrow as well, like I did with Lantus. I've got some spontanious streak from ADHD and sometimes I feel I need to do something because of the hyperactivity so the Levemir gives me better leeway with this. 
My work ended last Thursday and my blood sugars have been rising. I've been slowly increasing my basal insulin. Well I finally had some proper relaxation last night, good movie and laughing and since then I've had 5 hypos. My highs were from stress not from less excercise.. Sometimes, it's a guessing game with this condition. Some diabetics have problems loosing weight because we need to take so much extra meals because of hypos. Sometimes it's really hard to predict how much to lower basal insulin! We don't often have weight problems, or let me rephrase that: we have less weight problems than type 2 diabetics. Our condition isn't cured with low carb diet or the like. Our bodies don't make insulin at all! We'd die without any insulin!

But sometimes it is easy. Before the heatwave, every time I took my blood sugars, they were perfect! My hypothyroidism was, or is, under my control, not other way around and that helps with blood sugar control. I didn't have to worry about lows or highs. I didn't need to be religious about injections, I mean I didn't need to count the carbs with too much care. When my diabetes is balanced, it doesn't get off balance too easily. If I missed injection complitely I would be screwed for a while, but having a meal and counting the carbs slightly off wasn't big mistake. I could even eat a kiwi or similar, and not have any insulin and highest BS would get, was 12. For a short while, that's nothing dangerous. I'd just take unit or two more with next injection.

Bit pissed off about ignorance

I am on a rant today.. One of the main channels in Finland, for news and other tv-programs, had an article about how to avoid diabetes. Well I read it.. Drink lots of coffee. Yeah I'm sure that'll stop diabetes.. I'm sure I could have stopped mine!! Is it so hard to type in TYPE TWO DIABETES! There are so many types of diabetes. Type one: autoimmune disease. Usually happens with children although it's not resticted by age. Oldest woman to get it was 94. In it the own immune system kills off the cells making insulin. So someone with type one has to inject insulin or have a insulin pump. There is no miracle diet so you could not take insulin. There is no option to taking insulin. I've had to instances where I've been asked questions about this. First one was, how much weight have you lost. NO it's not a polite question. And the answer was none. Weight loss doesn't help! well in the sense that it helps with the amount of insulin you've gotta take and blood sugar levels but IT IS NOT A CURE!! other one was that the person did not believe I was on merely insulin. He seemed to think it's impossible. You have diabetes you have to have some form of pills for it. NO THERE ARE NO PILLS FOR TYPE ONE DIABETES!! That's for type 2. Type 2 is the one where you can diet to help your condition. There are pills to help the insulin resistance. You can have extra insulin BUT IN MOST CASES YOU BODY IS STILL ABLE TO PRODUCE INSULIN! Just for some reason it's not making enough, it's not using it right or something is interfering with these processes. And there is gestational diabetes as well but that one ends as soon as the baby is born. And men you don't need to worry about this.

but my message for today

TYPE ONE DIABETES IS REAL, WE NEED INSULIN FROM A OUTSIDE SOURCE TO SURVIVE!! IT'S AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE AND YOU LIVE WITH IT UNTILL YOU DIE! THERE ARE MORE THAN TYPE TWO DIABETES OUT THERE!!!!!!!