Diabetes: Drinking and Depression
Drinking, yes you can drink with diabetes. Do I drink a lot? No not at all but have I made stupid and dangerous mistakes that I regret now? Hell yes. Alcohol can have a strange effect on blood sugars so the stand calculation of carbohydrates is difficult. Alcohol in general has the ability to lower blood sugar levels and no that isn't a good reason to become a alcoholic. For me, and everyone may be different but this is the effects of the different types of alcohol -
Wine - red wine due to the tannins and skin composition effect my BSL greatly. It will shoot me up so the amount of insulin increasers where as white wine is a lot more subtle and I need to be careful with the alcohol lowering my BSL and the insulin I give.
Beer - I am not a real big beer drinker as I just don't like it however the introduction of low carb beer has helped a lot for the insulin intake. Beer you need the insulin.
Spirits - these have the biggest effect on lowering my BSL. Yes I have had straight spirits and that was not pretty however I was told very early on that to try and combat the drop have the spirit with a sugar mixer. For example a vodka and OJ. The OJ would counteract the vodka and hopefully level things off.
One of the most difficult things is though is trying to manage things while intoxicated. To remember to test, to remember the carb counting and to even remember insulin can become difficult. This then becomes a very dangerous situation. In my earlier years and just after I became legal to drink I was living with my older brother who decided to have a house warming party. My older brother is 6 years older so you can imagine the party. One of the other housemates that I had become friends with introduced me to the world of tequila shots..... One after the other they went down and slowly I even forgot that I had T1 eventually I must have had enough as my brother said he took me down to my room and put me onto my bed. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my brothers never really needed to know much about my diabetes as I was the only living family with it and their lives were their own. However he must have felt something as he came and checked on me and freaked out to see that I was convulsing in my bed. He did the only thing he knew how to he called the ambulance and sent me off to hospital. I later found out that the party continued and luckily for me the problem I had was alcohol poisoning and my diabetes didn't take to much of a battering however I look back and think what if it did? What if I went hypo or DKA? The result of the evening could have been very different.
Now to the second D - depression. I am not a doctor so I use the term depression from people I have spoken to or documents I have read. I believe that all the processes and dudilagence that it takes to manage a life with T1 has an effect on all of us. Some call it diabetic burn out but I believe that it a form or the beginning of depression. There are days that I am tired, tired of the calculating, tired of the monitoring and tired of the life that is with T1. I push through however it would be much easier to just not. It would be easier to forget to watch what carbohydrates that go into my body, it would be easier to not test. Especially after a high BSL or a hypo the mind is effected to the point of sadness and distress. The mind becomes cloudy and it would be easy to just stop however the strength that we have to manage this disease is the strength that we draw upon to make sure we don't give up even for a second.
Some days I find it hard to give a dam about T1 and sometimes I find it hard to find the good side of life however the responsible side of me allows me to forget for hours and then pick things up again. There are times especially when on the roller coaster that it is hard to smile.
I sometimes day dream about allowing someone else to take the management away for just 1 day. I suppose it is a fantasy to live one day without any effect on my mind, body or soul. About 2 seconds after imagining these fantasies I pull my self back to reality and begin the process again. Some of us unfortunately the depression hits harder but we all have the strength to ensure success.
No matter what the critical disease is or even if it is mental illness we all must make it an acceptable conversation in our society because at the minute they advertise but the stigma attached to it is too much for a lot of people to even consider having that discussion.
Depression and T1D does mix but we have to be vigilant and talk. We have a a lot of challenges and this one should not be done alone.
Anything is possible but responsible actions are always needed to ensure we stay strong and healthy.
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