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
********
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.