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DiabetesPowerShow.com

Jan 24, 2010

Richard Wilson

***A Letter from Scotland***

Hi guys,

First of all, I want to say how much I love the show. It's great that you are taking the time to try and educate and inspire the diabetic community. Keep up the good work.

My name is Richard. I'm 30, from Scotland & I've been type 1 for about 15 years. I'm currently on Lantus Long acting insulin and Novarapid short acting insulin.

Over the years, I've kept my diabetes in pretty good check, having an average hb1c of around 6 or 7 most times, & have always felt pretty confident in managing my diabetes.

Then in March this year, things went a bit wrong. After getting a really big scare with having a pretty bad hypo, the worst I've ever had, I began to suffer from panic attacks. I was really scared, as I kept thinking that I would hypo that bad again. I began checking my blood sugar a lot more, up to 20-30 times a day, maybe more. Then I lost all of my hypo warning signs, which made my mental state even worse, as how would I know when my sugars were becoming low? So in response to this, I began running my sugars high just to be safe. Bad idea! I had a terrible few months, panicking constantly, thinking of nothing else but my sugar levels, 24/7.

I don't know if panic attacks or fear of hypos is a big issue with diabetics, but it ruined my life for about 3-4 months. I found it weird that for years, I was a great diabetic, had no worries, and had hypos that didn't bother me. Then I had a big one and 'boom', it messed me up pretty bad for a while.

I'm fine now, and my signs have came back & my bloods are back on track and I'm testing a lot less.

I think that if this affected me, it may have affected others, and may be a good topic to cover.

If you decide to cover this topic and would like any more information from my experience, I'd be happy to help.

Thank you.

Richard

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Richard Wilson has been a Type 1 Diabetic for 15 years and is on the Basal Bolus regime (Lantus Solostar and NovaRapid Insulin).

Richard is 30 years old, and lives in Ayrshire, Scotland. He shares his life with a very special Type 3, Leigh, his long term girlfriend of 10 years.

Richard works for the Local Health Board in a clerical capacity, and has done so for the last 10 years. He was diagnosed Type 1 at about age 15.

Richard is a guitar tutor in his spare time.
He enjoys being active. He does a lot of walking and cycling, and fancies himself a bit of an amateur photographer for fun.