What would you do if you had an incurable autoimmune chronic condition?

Yep ! Big question, I know. This is a long post but pleeeeease read it to the end it could save someone you know or even yourself.

Last year I got diagnose with Type 1 diabetes. In my thirties!

Fist of all, I won’t stop saying it but listen to your body!

It all started in September 2019 when all of a sudden I got vertigo at work. Not a bit of dizziness but actual vertigo, the one that makes you fall because the whole room is spinning. Luckily I was seated at work but I was wondering what was happening… The hypochondriac in me went straight to my friend Google and I started typing all the symptoms. As it went away I just dismissed it but found myself struggling during a dance class few weeks after and it was quite scary to be honest. I then had a GP appointment and found out about BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo). It is caused by a disturbance due to misplacement of crystals inside your inner ear. I noticed I was getting the vertigo every time I was lying or moving too fast. Some positional exercises were given to me but at the end I had to take some medication as it was not going away.

However, I was wondering what caused it, what was it a symptoms of ? I don’t remember how but I found out that diabetes can be a reason for someone to have BBPV. So I decided to do a diet to lose some weight… and few months after I decided to do a blood test. It came back a little above the average but nothing alarming, so i decided to cut sugar and do another diet… I was supposed to do another blood test three months after but I didn’t do it. Probably because I was scared to be diagnose with type 2 diabetes. Now, for me it would be type 2 because of my age. I remember vaguely my biology classes from when i was younger and remember type 1 is genetics and when your a kid and type 2 is due to your lifestyle (diet and sport) and happened usually around your 40s. So I was thinking maybe it’s coming earlier because of my diet. I was always a sporty person hence the reason I did all these diets…. ( will talk about this later). Also, no one in my direct family has diabetes.

Then COVID happened so I couldn’t get any appointments and also I was a bit scared to face the inevitable so I just decided to have a healthy-ish diet and workout and run more. By June, I noticed my periods had few irregularities but of course I was thinking this is because of COVID, my body is stress etc… which actually also happened for a lot of women. Such an event like the COVID can definitely have a big impact on our bodies.

By July I got one episode of thrush and I started being really thirsty. I went to Paris for 5 days and when I came back I had lost 4 kg. I was a bit surprise it’s just impossible to loose weight when you have an African family living in France… but I was secretly happy.

By August, I had a friend’s wedding in South of France and I remember how I was really really REALLY thirsty and I though it was because of the heat wave so I was just trying to drink water (of course) all the time. When I came back, I was so tired, I couldn’t workout and was thinking that I would just take a break, it’s summer let’s enjoy it. I had lost another 4 kg and I started to find that suspicious (again I was also secretly happy). Although I was hoping it was due to all the efforts I did the past few months but it was too good to be true. I then had two other episode of thrush… oh god that was horrible, if you ever had one you know what I’m talking about. Also, because I was drinking a lot of water, I was peeing all the time, like quite a lot and up to 5 times during the night. It was honestly exhausting….

By September, I was physically tired of all of these symptoms but didn’t really realised what I had. I remember going to a friend’s place and walking there I was so out of breath and thirsty, it was not normal. The day after, I felt really hangover despite the fact that we didn’t actually drink that much. The day after, I tried to do a workout and I think I managed to do 20 mins out of 30 mins because I felt hangover again and was so tired I actually went back to sleep (I usually workout in the morning before work). After that I called the GP to do a follow up on my almost one year blood test. She asked me to describe my symptoms and told me I would get an appointment. Five minutes later she called me back and asked me to come to the practice. I remember telling my boyfriend I didn’t want to go, maybe because I knew something would happened.

I went there, it was a nice Friday and I couldn’t wait for the weekend and I was in a good mood. The GP did some checks and she confirmed I had diabetes so I wasn’t surprised because I was looking for the symptoms of type 2 diabetes and I had all of them, so I was kind of waiting for her to tell me what diet should I do…

Now, I will try to describe what happened next because it was almost like I was watching a movie. She told me my fasting blood sugar level was 24… ok, she also tested my urine to check the hydration and my ketone level was 4+…ok, she then check my heart rate which was 120, ok… She then told me I have type 1 diabetes, which is a lifetime chronic autoimmune disease and I need to go to the E&A right now… why? I was severely dehydrated because normally you ketone level is below 1, my glucose (blood sugar) is too high as it’s supposed to be between 4 and 7 before meal and my heart rate is supposed to be around 70… So when she told me I had to go to the hospital, everything faded away and I think I was just nodding… I remember her telling me she knows I feel and look good (thanks 🙂 ) but if I don’t go to the hospital right now it’s gonna get worst. She had to tell me don’t go back to your place, just go straight to the hospital, just call an Uber (hum are you paying?). At that time I didn’t realised how urgent it was and that she meant that I could go into a coma or … die. I was shocked and started thinking about irrelevant things, like I need a book to read, I don’t have my charger, I need a bigger scarf because I’m gonna be cold… and it was the first time I was going to the E&A and in the UK so I was just lost.

I then called my boyfriend, my parents and my boss and went to the hospital where I stayed two days and three nights… I can’t thank my GP enough for saving my life and the NHS for taking care of me.

This post was way longer than expected phew… so I will stop here but please please please listen to your body, it’s sending signs that you should not ignore. If you see anything different than usual for you or if one of your friend is complaining about something different pay attention.

Merci if you made it to the end

Bisous

Nelly