The Critical Importance of Recognizing Diabetic Ketoacidosis Symptoms #27

Deborah  00:01:55

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to DiabeticReal, the podcast about basically finding balance in life. Yes, it is about diabetes and it is, well, quite a few stories about my life. Deborah, your host. But I'd also like to think that it's more than that.And regardless of whether or not you have diabetes, in fact, I hope it reaches beyond that because I believe that we all have challenges in life and it's about finding that balance and finding how we can deal with those challenges. But you know that, right? You know my regular listeners, my regular subscribers, and you already know that. So let's get down to business.The last couple weeks, I've been talking about Diabetic Ketoacidosis.And one of the articles that I came across during the research for those episodes was an article, and I'll link it in the show notes, and the title was My Brother Died from dka. Now, it's not necessarily that surprising. It does happen. People do die from dka. But of course, it got my attention. I wanted to read it.I wanted to read about somebody else who had experienced dka. I don't mean. Okay, that sounds morbid. I didn't mean it that way. I'm not. It's obviously a sad story, and it was a very sad story.It did bring tears to my eyes.But so many times I talk to people and they don't know what DKA is, or they think, okay, high blood sugar, no big deal, it doesn't really kill people. It's not that big. So, you know, my thought was, finally somebody does realize the seriousness of dka.So this is somebody who understands where I am coming from and sadly has lost a loved one. So I want to see what this author has to say. I read the article, and the author is also a type 1 diabetic in addition to her brother who died.And I don't want to ruin it for you. You could go read the article. But the thing that struck me was how preventable it was.And I'm not saying that in a matter of guilt or shame, the subject of DKA needs to be taken seriously.And when I was reading that, it was sad to think that this poor gentleman, as well as his family, this poor gentleman thought that he had a stomach flu or another form of flu. So he didn't take it as seriously. And this is a type 1 diabetic.And I understand that because I've been there, done that, and that is a risk that Type one diabetics run into. As far as not taking the symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis seriously enough to do something about it.You have a small window where you can get help and need to get help, whether that's for yourself as a type 1 diabetic or for somebody else that you come across who is a type 1 diabetic who is suffering from Diabetic Ketoacidosis. It's a very small window, but that window does exist.And you can get help, whether that's for yourself or someone else, but it needs to be acted on immediately. You can't just say, oh, I'll dress it next week, because next week you will be dead.If you're that type 1 diabetic, I guarantee you can't survive in Diabetic Ketoacidosis for an extended period of time. How do I know that? Because I have been there, I have done that and I survived.Again, thinking about that story, I recall actually not too long ago, probably only five, eight years ago. I don't remember the exact year, but it wasn't too long ago when I went to er and my husband and I have this policy.It's something that we implemented later on, but it's like this plan of action. If I'm low blood sugar too many days in a row, and the number that we use is three, if I'm low blood sugar three days in a row, I go to ER.If I'm high blood sugar three days in a row,. I go to ER. Now, I don't mean, you know, if I'm sitting there eating jelly donuts and then I'm high blood sugar, there's an explanation for that.I mean, if I am doing everything I'm supposed to. So in other words, I'm an insulin pump wearer. As a type 1 diabetic, I have changed the site, maybe even changed the site twice.I have done everything I am supposed to do according to pump therapy. I have not eaten more than I'm supposed to.I have followed everything to a T, and my blood sugar is still twice as much as it's supposed to, or it's going way beyond what it is supposed to and I'm spilling ketones. If it's three days, I need to be in the hospital. If it's even actually, if it's even more than that, I've hit dka, I need to be in the hospital.That is the answer. As far as Diabetic Ketoacidosis.Now, the low blood sugar one is I used to have what's called, and I think I've shared this with you before, what I called 17 days. There were times where I would eat everything under the sun and I would still, I would stop the insulin flow and my blood sugar still drop.It almost act like all of a sudden my pancreas started working. That's a topic for another time. That is not Diabetic Ketoacidosis. That is completely something different.But we had the same rule that if I kept dropping, mostly the concern was because my husband would be gone on the road driving and if I was home alone and my blood sugar kept dropping. And at the time we did not know that I was epileptic. So we thought I was going into seizures from the low blood sugar.And as we found out from the doctor, after going into seizures, you just simply go dead, you know, from low blood sugar. So since then on the insulin pump, I also have a sensor so it senses the low blood sugar, it automatically stops the pump.So I don't have these like three days of constant low blood sugars that I just simply don't have that problem anymore because pump therapy. Thank you, Medtronic for MiniMed technology. We're doing really well. Again, that is actually a different discussion.So we're talking about Diabetic Ketoacidosis here. Anyway, so I was saying about five to eight years ago, we went to the hospital according to our policy.I had passed the three day mark, I had done everything that I was supposed to do and I was still running high blood sugars and spilling ketones. The doctor yelled at me. He said, why are you taking our time coming here for high blood sugar? It's probably nothing. I'm a people pleaser.I don't like it when people yell at me. I, you know, I start to cry. I gotta say, I start to cry. And I thought, oh no, I'm taking up their time, I'm spending their money, what am I doing?And there was a nurse there and he came to me, said, he whispered, he said, don't listen to the doctor. He said, he's a jerk. I was like, well, whatever I'm thinking, that's the nurse that's saying that. He said, do not listen to that doctor.He said, my sister had type 1 diabetes. She had the same problem three days she died because she didn't go to the hospital.He said, your policy of going to the hospital of 3 days Diabetic ketoacidosis is right on target. You need to do that. Don't listen to the doctor. Well, sadly I have not been back to the hospital according to my policy.Technically, I still have that policy, but, you know, it's that subconscious thing. You don't want to go to the doctor and be all that. So, yes, I'm sharing that story with you and that wasn't the intended story.I haven't even gotten to the main story of the podcast.But I am sharing that with you because if you're a type 1 diabetic out there, do not let a jerky doctor like that tell you you should not go to the hospital.If you don't go to the hospital when you're in Diabetic Ketoacidosis, you're going to end up unfortunately, like the nurse's sister and dead or like the unfortunate brother in the story about my brother died from dka. So there's always going to be jerks out there.There's always going to be some medical professionals that are ignorant and I'm going to say lazy and just don't want to deal with somebody who needs help and tell you that, sorry, you're too much bother, and they could actually be sued for, in my opinion. But I'm not an attorney, so, you know, check that out for yourself.But medical malpractice, as far as telling you to go home if you're in DKA and you go home and die, hey, check that one out with an attorney. But no, no, no, don't try that out. I don't want you dead. So I'm just, you know, I'm just throwing words out there.But anyway, let me go back to my experience with dka. Why I know this is serious.Actually, better yet, I'm going to let you percolate on that one because I want you to realize the seriousness of Diabetic Ketoacidosis and that we cannot go around listening to people say it's not serious because you will end up like that person in the story. So take some time.If diabetics are in your Life, if type 1 diabetics are in your life, or if you yourself are a type 1 diabetic, think about that one. And I will see you back here in another episode of DiabeticReal.And I will share my story with you about Diabetic Ketoacidosis and my brush with death. Thanks. All this is Deborah signing off in DiabeticReal.