Archive for diabulimia

My 10 minutes of fame…

{ 21/07/2009 @ 10:28 am } · { diabulimia, eating disorders }
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If you have 10 minutes to spare and want to listen to me talking about Diabulimia then go to BBC Radio Leeds Breakfast Show , I was absolutely petrified but as soon as I was on air I forgot that there was a mic infront of me and that people were listening as they’d got me talking about a subject I’m passionate about. I really enjoyed doing it but wished I could have spoken for longer! However as I was leaving I was asked if they can keep my details on file as they might ask me in again when they do a feature on eating disorders.

As I was travelling home I recieved a call from the radio station asking if it was ok to give my phone number to a media agency who had just contacted them asking for my details. I agreed to this and I’ve just come off the phone to them after giving them brief details of my experience, they are interested in running my sotry to send out to national magazines. How hilarious is that…I might be one of those people telling my tragic story in a trashy womens magazine *rolls eyes*. As much as I dislike those magazines it would be amazing to get my sotry in one as they reach such a wide audience that it’s bound to create some awareness of Diabulimia, and an added bonus is that they will pay me for exclusivity which would make a nice donation for Anorexia and Bulimia Care a UK based ED charity that provide sufferers and their families with valuable support as they battle their eating disorders.

I’ve also been contacted by the Diabetes UK rep who did the first media release to say that the Yorkshire Evening Post are interested in doing an article so she has passed my details on to them and I’m waiting for them to contact me.

Leaving Oxford Behind.

{ 20/07/2009 @ 8:16 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia, eating disorders }
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I’ve been neglecting my blog again; at the weekend several friends told me that I should blog more often. To be honest I hadn’t even realised that they were actually reading my blog! I don’t know why but it always takes me by surprise when people say they have read my blog or make a comment about something they could have only known about if they had read my blog. It really shouldn’t be surprising to me as one of the main points of writing a blog is so that other people can read it, and I usually post links to what I have written on facebook so it’s hardly surprising that some of my friends click the link and arrive here.

Anyway, I’ve had a lovely weekend, going to a wedding, stopping off at my parents house and seeing a close friend who I don’t see nearly enough now that we’ve both left uni. The wedding was lovely, the bride was beautiful and the rainy weather held off for most of the day. I had a fantastic day, seeing many friends that I hadn’t seen since Ben and I got married in Sept 2007. In between the wedding ceremony and the evening reception Ben and I wandered around Oxford. We went to G&D’s (a fantastic ice cream shop that opens till midnight) where I spent much time as a student, usually sipping a diet coke whilst my friends dug into heavenly looking tubs of delicious ice cream in a wide array of flavours. They would ask if I was going to have anything but I would always shake my head and mumble ‘I’m not hungry’. At that point I was at the height of my Diabulimia and rarely ate anything whilst my friends were around, instead preferring to wait until I was the privacy of my own room so  I could binge on hideous amounts of food before ‘performing’ my little ritual of bringing it all back up again. But on Saturday I walked into G&D’s, head held high and ordered a tub with not 1 but 3 scoops of that gorgeous ice cream. 1 scoop of Oxford Blue (blue berry), 1 scoop of Golden Secret (vanilla with crunchie bar) and 1 scoop of Super Chocolate. I enjoyed every bit of it (well not quite all, I’d had enough so gave the last bit to Ben), bolused accordingly and then continued with our wandering around Oxford.

Going back to Oxford is always a rather nostalgic experience for me and not always a completely positive one. It’s a place full of memories and not all of them are ones that I want to be reminded of. When I think of Oxford, as well as it being somewhere that I made great friends, did new things and got to know my lovely husband, it’s also a place where I descended further into self destruction, a place where I lived in constant fear of what I was going to do to myself next and the place where my eating disorder took on such force that I had to abandon my education and leave university. Oxford is also the place where I entered into treatment for the first time, it’s where I began to understand what was fuelling my self destruction and to recognise the effect that my declining health was having not only on myself but on the people I love and care about. Oxford is where I completely lost myself but then began to discover myself all over again. I feel torn when I revisit Oxford, part of me wishes I was still there but part of me is glad to have moved on. After being discharged from Cotswold House (eating disorder unit) I planned to stay in Oxford and find a job whilst I thought about returning to uni. But I quickly realised that staying in Oxford would have been disastrous for my recovery so I made the difficult decision to leave and move back home to live with my parents. I left grudgingly as I felt like Oxford was my home and I wanted to remain there but looking back at it now I know that moving home was the best thing for me as it gave me stability and routine that student life just couldn’t provide. As I drove into Oxford on Saturday I had a pang of regret and wondered what it would have been like if I had stayed. However I cannot dwell on the what ifs and maybes. I left Oxford, I didn’t quite manage to leave my mental health problems there but I’ve moved on and changed beyond all recognition, my life is completely different to the life I led just a few short years ago and I’m glad of it. I wouldn’t be where I am today, taking care of my diabetes, no longer being ruled by the eating disorder and working as a Mental Health Support Worker. I fought hard to overcome Diabulimia and leaving Oxford and all that I loved there behind was one of the things I had to do in order to give myself that chance of health and recovery.

Diabetic geekiness

{ 26/06/2009 @ 5:22 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia }
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Apologies to anyone who was waiting for photos and details of my new insulin pump yesterday…I searched for the camera for a long time to no avail. After looking in all kinds of random places Ben and I suspect that it may have been left at Owen and Natasha’s wedding in Edinburgh several weekends ago. Which is very sad as it was a particularly good camera. Anyway by the time I stopped hunting for the camera I was tired and mid hypo so had some lucozade and went to bed.

The new pump is great. The pump itself looks the same as the old one except that it is black so looks a lot smarter. It comes with a very swish blood tester/remote control which is the best diabetic gadget I have ever owned. Not only can I use it to test my bloodsugars and control my insulin pump but it has lots of extra features.

With it I can:

See pretty graphs, tables and pie charts of my blood sugar readings, insulin intake and carbohydrate intake. Including averages, daily trends and the percentages that I am hitting my targets.

Get bolus advice – this means that it automatically tells me how much insulin I should take depending on what my blood sugar is, how much carbohydrate I have eaten and how much insulin I already have in my system from previous boluses. In order to get it to do this I had to set it up with some numbers first. This includes my insulin sensitivity factor, my insulin:carb ratio and insulin duration. Now when I eat instead of doing complicated maths in my head all I need to do is calculate how much carbohydrate I’m having, enter it into the meter and the rest is worked out for me.

Set reminders of when to change my infusion set, reminders to test at specific times of day eg 2hrs after eating, reminders to recheck my bloodsugar an hour after giving myself a bolus to correct a high bloodsugar. If I really wanted to I could even set it to remind me of diabetes clinic apointments and lab test appointments!

It’s probably quite sad really that I get excited over technology designed to improve my diabetes control, but I don’t care if I sound ever so slightly geekish. I’m a diabetic geek and proud of it.

I mentioned the other day that I had been approached to do an interview about my experiences with Diabulimia. Well I did the interview over the phone and I’ve been sent the Press Release to check whether I agree with what has been written. I’ve checked it over and there are a few minor alterations that I would like to be made, but other than that I think it is a really good article. The plan now is for it to be sent to local and national media, including radio and TV and possibly to a national woman’s magazine. The article contains a short version of my story and the author is hoping that it will encourage journalists to contact her in order to obtain further interviews with me. Exciting stuff really! I sent a few photos of me, spent ages trawling through my photos to try and find some that I looked half decent in, especially if they are going to appear in national press! I guess now I have to wait and see whether anyone wants to publish the article that has been written. Maybe I’ll get a few moments of fame!

Diabulimia Awareness

{ 24/06/2009 @ 6:09 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia }
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I’m off to diabetes clinic again tomorrow, I’m being upgraded to the new Accu Chek insulin pump. I will be posting pictures and writing all about it when I get back from the hospital.

Today has been a fairly relaxed day off for me, I mowed the lawn and did a few things around the house but other than that I’ve been catching up with various emails and reading other peoples Diabetes related blogs. I’ve been contacted today by a media officer from Diabetes UK, she has seen my website and would like to interview me about my experience with Diabulimia. I’d been contemplating contact Diabetes UK for a while now to ask if they would do an article on Diabulimia but I hadn’t quite got round to it yet. I’m excited at the prospect of being interviewed and hopefully raising some more awareness about the realities and difficulties of Diabulimia. I was talking to Ben last week on our way back from Edinburgh about support for people with Diabulimia and how there is so much available to people with Diabetes and so much available to people with Eating Disorders but when you combine the two together you get a very complex problem for which there is very little support and advice available. That got me thinking…could I set up something? Perhaps initially an informal get together of people in recovery and people currently struggling. It would have to start out small as I don’t have the resources available for a large event but if I can get an initial group together we could then work together to set up a larger event with the aim of raising awareness, sharing information and providing some kind of support to those who currently have none. It’s just an idea at the moment but my brain is whirrling with the possibilities.

Erin the creator of the Diabulimia Awareness group on Facebook has got a new website online. It’s called Diabulimia Helpline and can be found here . There are more websites, online groups, blogs and references to Diabulimia appearing on the web all the time. I get an increasing number of emails each week from people currently suffering with Diabulimia. So many people are looking for help and support  but are not finding it from their diabetes team or their eating disorder team. Often these health care professionals are doing their best to help but it is very rare to come across an eating disorders specialist who also specialises in diabetes, and it is so important that the treatment offered is comprehensive and targeted towards overcoming the specific problems and complications of overcoming an eating disorder whilst regaining control over diabetes. One day I hope to be a health care professional with expertise in both these fields, I have a lot to do in order to be able to achieve that but in the meantime I can continue as I am supporting those people who email me, writing about my experiences and responding to the various students and journalists who contact me from time to time wanting to conduct interviews, in the hope that at least some of what I am doing contributes to helping others in their own struggle and recovery from Diabulimia

New website about Diabulimia

{ 12/06/2009 @ 6:48 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia, eating disorders }
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Through reading Lee Ann’s Blog I found about another new Diabulimia website/forum, Defeat Diabulimia .

A couple of years ago there were no such support sites online at all which is one of the reasons I set up my website as when seeking support online I found nothing and wanted to create a website so that other people looking for support had a resource avaiable.

Although I think it is vital for anyone who has Diabulimia to seek appropriate support from qualified  mental health professionals I also recognise the immense value of having online support from people living with the same condition especially a condition such as Diabulimia where there is unfortunately a severe lack of professionals who have a knowledge and understanding of the disorder. 

If you are in need of support and understanding check out the new forum and support the Defeat Diabulimia Team in getting their site up and running.

Diabulimia in TV programmes

{ 01/05/2009 @ 1:39 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia }
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Most of my blog today is cross posted from a post I made on Diabetes Daily in response to a thread someone else started.

On an ED forum that I’m a member of someone mentioned that there was an episode of ‘Waterloo Road’ that covered Diabulimia. I’ve never watched this programme before as I’m not really into that kind of programme but as it was touching on a subject close to my heart I thought I would watch it  out of curiosity.

I think it’s good that TV shows are recognising that Diabulimia is an ED and some of what they showed really struck a chord with me. BUT and it’s a big but…It really irritated me and made me cross the way that they covered it. They got some things right, eg the weight loss, blurred vision, agonising pains and difficulty breathing but other stuff they completely omitted like needing the toilet constantly, falling asleep all the time and drinking gallons. The way she collapsed and then got up immediately after having the insulin was so unrealistic it made me want to scream!

When I got to the point of collapse like that I injected as much insulin as my pen dials up to,  then slept for almost 24hrs hours before waking up, being violently sick, taking some more insulin and then sleeping for a couple more hours before I could get up again. I guess though that they can’t show all that in a TV show but they shouldn’t have showed her standing up immediately and apparently being fine whilst talking to her mum and head teacher…insulin isn’t a miracle speedy cure for DKA, even the fastest acting insulins take time to have effect.

The way the collapse was treated I didn’t think was too concerning. The teacher was about to give sugar but the nurse made her wait whilst she checked her blood sugar and pointed out that she needs sugar if she is low and insulin if she is high. I thought that aspect was quite good as usually people assume that if a diabetic collapses they need sugar, and obviously that would have made this situation a lot worse. If that aspect of it has provided some education to the general public then that’s a good thing. 

I know TV programmes, especially soaps can’t get everything correct and portrayed in a factual manner but it always frustrates me when it’s obvious that not a lot of research into the issue has been done. It’s really not that hard to find accurate information about what happens in DKA!

Anyway that’s me on and off my high horse for today!

Job satisfaction

{ 28/02/2009 @ 10:04 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia, eating disorders, work }
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I’m really enjoying my job, it’s great being on ‘the other side’ of mental healthcare, although slightly bizarre (sometimes in team meetings I find myself briefly thinking about when I was in treatment for my eating disorder…how my care team probably had similar meetings to discuss me and the other people in the unit). This is the reason I fought so hard, at times when I was unwell I was so close to giving in to the constant barrage of noise and voices in my head but I knew that I had to fight, that if I fought hard I could overcome it all and live a productive life. That when I was well I’d be in a position to use my experience for the benefit of other people. And now I’m doing that and it feels incredible!

I spent my day off yesterday being interviewed by a group of students who are at uni doing a media and film course. They first contacted at the end of last year as they are producing a documentary about Diabulimia. Initially the film is for a uni project but they hope that it may go further. It was exhausting being interviewed, talking about topics that have so many emotions behind them always is exhausting, but I loved every bit of it. Raising awareness of Diabulimia is high on my priority list and any oppertunity I get to talk about it is great. The team will be coming back in about 6 weeks (hopefully once Ben and I have moved into our new house) to do some more filming, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s odd as I have always been camera shy but whenever I am approached to be interviewed for anything to do with mental health I leap at the chance.

Diabetic dips and climbs…

{ 12/12/2008 @ 11:39 pm } · { diabetes, diabulimia, frustration }
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Most days being a diabetic really doesn’t bother me, but occassionally it drives me crazy, especially when despite my best effforts I have a day of really wacky blood sugar swings.

Today has been one of those days. My bloodsugar has ranged from 2.2 – 24..1mmol(39-443mg/dl).

I woke at 4.30am with my typical night time hypo symptoms (excessively warm, clammy and dots swimming before my eyes). I tested and was 7.2, I figured that maybe I had something on my fingers, it being night time I couldn’t be bothered to get up and wash my hands so drank a small amount of lucozade. That worked out as a good plan as when I got up at 7.30am I washed my hands and tested and was 3.8.

I always find it difficult to bolus correctly if my bloodsugar is on the low side before a meal. I usually end up over bolusing and going hypo within half an hour of eating. I had worrk this morning and was walking there so I played on the side of caution…too much caution I guess…a few hours later I was in range at 7.2 but by lunch time had risen to 10.7.

I ate my lunch and administered my insulin ( 1u correction + 6 units to cover the carbohydrates I had eaten) Two hours later I tested and was 7.8, a little higher than I like to see but not too bad considering it was post meal.

Well 45mins later my sugars had dropped to 2.8. I had my usual 15 grams of fast release carbs and 15 grams of more complex carbs. Expecting this to raise my bloodsugar I sat down to read for a while. 15 mins later feeling even more wobbly I tested again and was dismayed to see that it had fallen further to 2.2, so I took action this time with 10g fast acting carbs and 7g complex carbs. Twenty minutes later I still felt hypo so retested and was 3.1. On the rise but not enough, so I repeated with 10g fast acting carbs and 7g complex carbs. To my relief on testing half an hour later my bloodsugar had risen to 7.3. After all that I felt exhausted so slept for 20 mins. I usually come out of a hypo really quickly and just get on with my day. This one lasted about an hour before I could get my bloodsugar to rise, that kind of hypo really takes it out of me and I usally suffer a big rebound swing later on.

Half an hour on and I began to get a headache, it was almost time for dinner so I checked my levels again and was really disappointed to see that it had risen to 15.5. I took a correction dose of insulin (3u). I covered my dinner with 5u.

After dinner I went out with Ben and James (father in-law) to Cragg Vale Christmas Panto :o) However I began to feel increasingly lethargic, my headache by this point was pounding, my thirst increasing and by half time I was desperate to pee. I tested my bloodsugar yet again and was extremely frustrated to see that it was 24.1. I took 3u correction dose, went to the loo and got a drink of water. By the end of the panto my thirst was raging again but my bloodsugar had fallen a bit to 16.0.

Three hours after taking a correction dose I have just taken another 3u as my bloodsugar is 16.9. I hate taking correction doses so close to bed time as I tend to drop quite a bit overnight anyway, but equally I don’t want to spend all night was with a blood sugar level that high! Readings this high make me feel so unwell, it also makes me think back to when I was in the grips of Diabulimia and the insanity of it all. For so long my bloodsugars were even higher than that, I rarely tested at all and when I did if I got a reading on my meter that was below HI (33.3) I would deliberately  eat something sugary and omit insulin to make it rise even further. If I didn’t feel lethargic or desperately thirsty I would panic that my sugars weren’t high enough.  I’m so glad that now seeing a high reading on my number makes me take corrective action and my perception of what is high has changed so much. A couple of years ago anything under 20mmol wasn’t high. Now if my sugars rise above 7.9 I consider it too high for my liking, I aim to keep it between 4-7 as much as possible.

Anyway I am off to test again and hope that it has fallen some more before I go to bed. It’s frustrating not getting the numbers that I aim for and not knowing why. I haven’t done anything different today, I haven’t eaten any foods that I don’t usually eat etc. I guess I just have to think of it as one of those things that happens that is part of having diabetes. It is such a balancing act, trying to do manually what other people’s bodies do automatically. And as experienced as I am with my diabetes and as much care as I take there are always going to be things that throw me unexpectedly and things beyond explaination that do crazy things to my bloodsugar levels. I just have to hope that tomorrow will be a more stable day and that my efforts to maintain good control will pay off.

Ramblings

{ 16/11/2008 @ 9:37 pm } · { diabulimia, work }
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Yet again I have been neglectful of my blog. To be honest I had forgotten that I had started writing here until today when I came across another blog that had ‘wordpress’ in the address line.

I’m still looking for a job. I’ve been working temporarily at a local primary school as a support assistant for a child with learning difficulties. It’s a lovely little, the staff are really friendly and the kids are great, it keeps me occupied for 20hrs a week and brings in some money but I’m glad it’s only temporary. I love kids but hate working in a classroom. Ben says it’s because I’m such an introvert. Maybe it is, maybe it’s just because I don’t like the structure and the way I am confined to curriculem and targets when working with a child in a school. That’s one of the reasons I loved the Loddon School so much, everything was activity based, there were no classrooms, the children were taught through doing not through sitting them down at a desk. I guess I liked the excitement and the challenge of working with highly unpredictable young people who had a tendancy to be aggressive. I had to be constantly alert and attentive to the slightet of indicators such as a look in their eyes or a subtle change in body posture. The challenge of communicating with non verbal children also kept me on m toes and kept my mind constantly thinking of creative ways to get around the communication barrier. If I were to work with children with learning disibilities again it would have to be somewhere like the Loddon School or outside of a school setting.

What I really want to do is to work in the mental health care field but at the moment no one seems willing to give me a chance with that. I know that I have n actual experience of working in a mental health environment but I have personal experience of what it is like to live with a mental health condition, I have experience of caring for people, I’ve come alongside quite a few people as they battle with their own psychological issues.  

Ben and I have been talking and we have decided that I should do the training that I want to do to become a Counsellor. He is willing to give up his job and find something that pays better so that I can work part time and study part time. The course I need to initially runs over a year, once a week in the evening so in theory I could work full time as well, but it would be really useful if I could work pat time so that I can volunteer at a day centre or project alongside people who have the relevant mental health training. After that year I could then go on to do the 2yr professionally acredited course meaning that I could register as a trained counsellor.

I’ve been spending more and more time communicating online with young women/women who have Diabulimia. It’s so heartbreaking that so many people are struggling with it and not getting the support and help that they so desperately need. It’s making me even more determined to get the professional training I need so that I can approach ED clinics and Diabetes clinics as someone who has the professional qualifications and the personal life experience and therefore the understanding required to be able to help their Diabulimic patients.

My book is progressing very slowly, I just keep coming up against blocks as I don’t know exactly what direction I want it to take or what exactly I want to include in it. But I do know that I need to get the book written and go about getting it published. I have to do it so that people can read it and gain some insight into what it is really like to be Diabulimic, I need to get the book out there so that fellow Diabulimics can read it and realise that they are not alone and that there is hope for recovery.

Frustrated blogger

{ 25/09/2008 @ 2:38 pm } · { diabulimia, family, frustration, guinea pigs, work }
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I’m not to great at this whole blogging thing. Hmm…I find it interesting that the times I usually feel compelled to write are the times that I am in some kind of emotional turmoil. Whilst I was actively engaged in my eating disorder and self harm the words spilled out from me, covering page after page of crisp white paper…journals, poetry, short stories…there was an urgency in me that made me write. Everywhere I went my journal came with me along with my sketchbook and pencilcase equipped with all the pens, pencils and crayons I could ever want. It really frustrates me that I generally don’t write when everything is going smoothly.

Take today for instance. I’m writing because I am upset. I went for a job interview yesterday and I didn’t get the job. I feel useless and incompetent. It’s the second interview that I haven’t come away from with a job. I’m getting frustrated, I need a job so that Ben and I can rent a house and be independant again rather than residing with his parents. What if I continue failing at interview? I’m doing some supply work in the school that Catherine works in, but that’s not regular or permanant and anyway I would rather not be in a school…but beggars can’t be choosers.

*sigh*

On a postitive note things are progressing nicely with my website. I have had various people contacting me for support or to do interviews for them, and I have tons of ideas for my book. Not having a job means that I’m able to use the time that I would be working to plan and write instead, which is great as once I have a job I won’t have that time and freedom.

Anyway I had better go feed the guinea pigs…poor things…asked Ben to feed them earlier and he forgot.

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