Introductions

Hi
I'm Sue, Diagnosed with Type 1 in April 1979. So have had diabetes for over 30 years with control problems.
Graduated DAFNE course at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in October 2008.
Bi is Lantus - 30 units at 11pm
QA is NovoRapid - on a 2:1 ratio at mealtimes with correction for dawn phenomenon at breakfast.
Last HbA1c was 8.2, down from 9.8 before course (and striving for better!!).
Much happier in myself nowadays because DAFNE highlighted some issues (dawn phenomenon), but now i understand them i can deal with them better.
Looking forward to sharing experiences.
Cheers
Sue

Hi all

I am Adrian, diagnosed Sept 2004, graduated North Tyne Hostipal DAFNE course June 2006. DAFNE changed my life beyond all recognition. I was really struggling with the whole pre daphne diabetes regime. Suffered from depression and all of crap. Anyways DAFNE revitalised my life.

I changed jobs - was an area sales manager for Cadbury Trebor Basset pre DAFNE, flooding the north east with as much chocolate and sugar confectionery as possible had somehow lost its appeal!. I now work as a public health nutrition researcher at Newcastle University developing portion size assessment tools and computer systems for dietary assessment in the public health arena at national surveilence and local intervention levels.

I have had good months and bad months with diabetes. HbA1c is always around 8.2 to 8.7 but never broken the less than 8 barrier. Seem to have intermitent dawn phnomeon vistis every wee while. Would dearly love to get further understanding of fitness and physical activty.

I have just found this site in the last couple of weeks, I dont think it existed when I graduated. It is excellent. Big thanks for all the good work Simon and Marke appear to have done ( especially the iphone app ) that I think is amazing.

All the best

Ad

Just realised from Addie's post that I should have introduced myself before.

I'm Caroline, diagnosed T1 in December 2003. I did the Dafne course in July 2010. It was great to meet other people with Type 1 who had been diagnosed for a long time (some over 30 years) and see that they had no complications. I don't work as I also have multiple sclerosis which causes great fatigue.

Before dafne my hba1c was 8.7 , and I am hoping that this will improve. I have dawn phenomenon which I think has been helped recently by having alcohol before bed!

My daughter was also diagnosed T1 (no other diabetes in my family history) in October 2007 when she was 11, her last hba1c was 10.4. She was 14 this month and has never really accepted her diabetes, I am hoping that with maturity will come acceptance.

Oh, and I recently bought an Ipod Touch with my birthday money so I could download the dafne online app which I think is great!!

Best wishes.

Caroline

Welcome caroline.............

I hope your daughter may get the chance to go on a course..............

My worst time with diabetes was between the ages of 15-21............everyone is different though......

Thanks for the welcome novo.

I asked if she could come on my dafne course with me as it was on in the first week of the summer holidays but apparently you have to be at least 18. She would have hated it anyway but that's her age, she wants to be with her friends not fellow diabetics. I personally loved it!

The good thing is that you now have the tools and knowledge to help her as much as she lets you...........

She wont hear it from anyone else so she is quite lucky infact.......

Does she test alot? and I assume she is on Multiple Daily Injections?

Hi, didn't realise there was an introduction post on here, what a good idea.

My name is Laura, I am 22. I was diagnosed when I was 20. I was getting very poorly in the lead up to my wedding in 2008 and of course we all just put it down to wedding stress. But 6 weeks after the wedding came the diagnosis...huge shock. I was very lucky to be put on a Dafne course in January 2010, so I really only went 18 months without it. It was such a relief feeling everything fall into place, and my HbA1c dropped right down to 8.2 which I was so pleased about, although still working on. Plus I really loved meeting everyone else on the course, and having the chance to talk to them about day to day things. Probably why I like this forum so much, it's like being back in our Dafne classes, just with a lot more people!

Hi everyone - just graduated yesterday (27 Aug) from DAFNE at Monklands Hospital - I wish I had been given the opportunity to do this many years ago. I was diagnosed in early 1986, aged 17, early years I didnt look after myself as closely as I should have, but my good lady wife (who I married 16 years ago) has made sure that this has changed for good! Prior to DAFNE was using far too much Insulin (to ensure my BG's didn't run too high). Despite good HBA1c results, have had too many hypos and as a result of the high Insulin doses have been eating too much (at the expense of my waistline!. Currently on Levemir (now split!) and Actrapid. Following DAFNE I am using around 15-20 less units of Insulin per day!!!!. Hopefully I can maintain this in teh long run. I'd also like to thank the DAFNE educators at Monklands, Pat and Lynn, who were absolutely brilliant last week. Hope to visit this site every day and maybe speak to some of you soon

Alan

Welcome Alan from a fellow monklands graduate, the team there are brilliant................................

See u around........................

Greetings everyone, I'm Jack and I've just last week completed the DAFNE course - which I thought was excellent and extremely insightful. I was lucky to find myself in a very good group, filled with different levels of experience and histories, which helped a lot.

I've been diagnosed for two years - pretty much to the day. I had started noticing I was drinking much more and generally feeling fatigued a lot (I was writing a dissertation at the time, and finding days when I wasn't visiting the gym really hard going and unproductive - I even joked to my supervisor that the dissertation was killing me). I suspected diabetes because of my cat, who when he was 17 had started drinking a lot of water (including puddles), so I took him to the vet who found he had developed diabetes. He lasted a further year, but three years later I saw the same happening to me. I had to wait a few weeks for a blood test since it was summer and my GP's staff were mostly away or working through a backlog from having been away. By the time the test came I thought I was feeling much better, and considered cancelling the test, but decided to proceed and rule out silly things like diabetes. I even said to my GP I only took the test to rule out diabetes while he told me I had diabetes...

Luckily my health is holding up fine, with good glucose readings - to the point that I repeatedly get told I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I hope reading this forum will extend that good control and build on the DAFNE course for the future.