In early February 2020, I started to have diarrhea for no reason, 8 times a day.
After three or four days, my appetite suddenly increased, I really wanted to eat, and I especially liked to drink water , but my mouth was always bitter, so I poured a big can of Coke into my mouth. Then I went to the toilet frequently . I ran for half an hour during the day, and I went to the toilet every hour at night. Later, I simply put on adult diapers. I think it’s probably caused by drinking too much water.
There is also a very worrying fact: my weight has dropped from 105 pounds to 85 pounds within a month . Although I am a long-legged beauty who likes to be thin, I have lost 20 pounds of meat, and I am still a little unhappy. I took medicine, but I still have calf cramps and blurred vision. <br />The abnormality of eating, drinking, and laxing did not cause me to pay much attention to it. What really pushed me to the doctor was starting to take medicine every night in mid-February. Calf cramps in the middle of the night , that kind of heart-piercing, often make me sleepless until dawn.
I thought I was deficient in calcium, so I started taking calcium tablets and drinking milk every night before going to bed, but my calf cramps did not improve, and I still had unbearable pain every night. 
The calf cramps in the second half of the night often make me sleepless until dawn.丨Pixabay
I was in a small fourth-tier city and went to the best hospital in the area, and it turned out to be hyperthyroidism. The doctor prescribed medicine and told me that once the hyperthyroidism is cured, these symptoms, including leg cramps, will be cured, so there is no need to worry too much.
So I took the medicine on time according to the doctor’s instructions, but I found that my naked eye vision was 1.2, and my vision was a little blurry . Driving on the road, I can’t see the license plate number in front of me more and more. 
My blood sugar was so high that the instrument suddenly exploded. <br />I was still tortured by leg cramps and couldn’t sleep. In mid-April, I came to a large tertiary hospital in Guangzhou for a routine examination of hyperthyroidism. This time I hung up the expert number. The test results found that triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) were normal, only thyrotropin (TSH) was abnormal. This shows that my hyperthyroidism is gradually improving.
But I still feel thirsty, have a bitter taste in my mouth, go to the toilet frequently during the day and night, and still have severe cramps in my calves. After listening to my description, the doctor suspected that my symptoms were probably not caused by hyperthyroidism.
Soon, the doctor gave me a urine test and told me very seriously: “No matter how late, you must show me the report of the urine test.” 
Figure丨Figure Worm Creative
It was close to lunch time, and the seriousness of the doctor made me feel that the situation might not be very good. So I ran back to the doctor after taking the urine test. After he saw the “++” behind my urine sugar , he couldn’t help but say “Come with me”.
Get your finger blood drawn right away to check your blood sugar!
But for some reason, the machine started to make a mad noise like uncontrollable, and the nurse panicked. She said that if the blood sugar exceeded 33, the device would call the police: “Your blood sugar is estimated to be too high now, and this machine can’t measure it at all!”
Be hospitalized now! The doctor’s stern order does not allow any negotiation.
My heart started to get chaotic, and the work had not yet been arranged, so I put on a bargaining tone and begged the doctor if it could be delayed for a few days.
As a result, a critical illness notice was placed in front of me: if ketoacidosis, all consequences will be at your own risk. 
It turned out that at that time, my blood sugar was as high as 46!
After the emergency admission procedure was completed, I was immediately surrounded by 5 doctors and 3 nurses while lying in the hospital bed. Such a strong lineup made me, who was almost tied up, gradually became afraid. I only remembered that my left and right arms were spread out, and I started dripping on both sides, and my hands and feet were inserted into the needle tube at the same time to draw blood.
It was only after the fact that it was to accurately measure my blood sugar. Using a more advanced instrument to measure, it turned out that at that time, my blood sugar was as high as 46 ! 
It turned out that my blood sugar was as high as 46mmol/L at that time, while the fasting blood sugar of healthy people should be 3.9~6.1mmol/L.丨Photo courtesy of the author
Immediately afterwards, the leg cramps lasted for 6 hours with 10 times the pain . For the first time, I experienced the feeling of “life is better than death”, and I almost wanted to give up the treatment. That day, I cried uncontrollably in front of a group of strangers, wailing through the floor.
It turned out that in the critical situation of hyperglycemia, the doctor needs to determine whether I have ketoacidosis as soon as possible and give me rapid hypoglycemia . The severe pain in the legs is a must in the process of lowering blood sugar.
Seeing that I was in a bad mood, the doctor reassured me later that although my blood sugar was as high as 46 at the time, there was no terrible ketoacidosis, just a ketoacid complication. 
My diabetes is an untamable beast <br /> Over the next few days, my blood sugar steadily dropped to 32, then 28, then 20. But I became the hungriest patient on the entire floor.
I often stare at my blood sugar readings and ask the nurse hungry, “Can I eat?”
“No!” is the answer most of the time.
I felt like a beggar who didn’t even have the right to eat enough, and it wasn’t people who decided whether I could eat well or not, it was the damn reading on the blood glucose meter. Every meal must be strictly controlled. Who can experience that crazy but insatiable hunger?
When the blood sugar drops to 15, compared to normal people, this is still an extremely dangerous high blood sugar point, but it becomes a source of happiness for me, and I am one step closer to eating enough.
One night I couldn’t stand it anymore. After drinking a sip of milk, my blood sugar jumped from 4.5 to 9.5 in an instant . 
Glutamate decarboxylase antibody (GAD) is greater than 2000, and the reference value is only 0~5.丨Photo courtesy of the author
Taking the medical examination sheet, the glutamate decarboxylase antibody (GAD) is greater than 2000 (the reference value is only 0~5), which has been judged without any doubt that I am suffering from type 1 diabetes , which is caused by insufficient pancreatic β-cells leading to insulin lack. The onset of type 1 diabetes is very rapid, and the patient’s blood sugar fluctuates very greatly in an instant. When it is high, it will be very high, and when it is low, it will also be very low. And the more terrifying news is that for me, hypoglycemia is a greater risk of death.
So when I think about it, what really scared me was the night when my blood sugar suddenly dropped to 2.7. Fortunately, the nurse came over in time and gave me sugar water quickly. Her hands kept shaking, such an experienced nurse, she couldn’t hide it. The panic made me understand in seconds that I was so close to the god of death .
I finally figured out the nature of my blood sugar. It is like a ferocious and brutal beast. It only takes half a night to fall from the high point to the lowest point; and from the lowest point to the terrible high point, it may only take a mouthful of milk or half a biscuits. It can manicly drag my body to the edge of the cliff and make death so close at hand, so every night for the rest of my life, I may have to force myself to wake up at 3 am to check my blood sugar – to prevent hypoglycemia from making myself coma not awake.
After that terrifying night, I even started to make a will. The first rule was that if I fell into a coma because of low blood sugar, please don’t do any rescue. 
I need to wear a pump for life <br />Eating less and more meals, healthy eating, accurate calculation, will become the norm for every meal every day in the second half of my life. And the doctor instructed not to be too tired, not to run around too much. As a salesperson all the year round, I will bring an insulated lunch box to eat with customers. For the sake of my health, I will also reduce my business volume. The company my friend and I partnered up was also just getting started and the business was just on track, but I had to quit.
This disease has brought me a progressive blow, layer by layer. After finally passing a level, it hits hard again. What broke my mood again was that I had to accept a huge change – carrying an “insulin pump” for life .
The insulin pump is equivalent to a pancreas, which can mimic the insulin secretion of the human body. For a type 1 patient with extremely unstable blood sugar like me, it can control my blood sugar very timely and accurately . 
An insulin pump acts as a pancreas and mimics the body’s insulin secretion.丨Photo courtesy of the author
But a pinhole is pierced into the subcutaneous tissue of the stomach and connected to a device the size of a cigarette case. Except for bathing, it must accompany my body at other times, including sports and love.
I have enough worries about diet, but I have to carry such an inconvenient device for life, which greatly affects my quality of life, not to mention the consumables and needles that cost nearly 3,000 yuan per month. Pain, my heart is bleeding.
I understand that emotions are especially important for blood sugar control, but in the month since I was hospitalized and discharged, I cried many times. This disease has brought me chronic torment. 
This disease has brought me chronic torment.丨Pixabay
Up to now, I still can’t learn about the disease on the Internet like patients with other diseases, because my vision has always been blurred, and the doctor said that it will take two or three months to recover . To answer urgent questions at work, I get myself a magnifying glass. Like an old man, I max out my phone font, hold a magnifying glass, and type on the screen.
Two days before I was discharged from the hospital, the attending doctor came to tell me that they were conducting a research on stem cell intervention for diabetic patients, and asked me if I would like to be a free subject in the future, and I readily agreed. I also jokingly told the doctors that I could donate my body for follow-up diabetes research if it would help them.
After the painful struggle, my heart calmed down a little. Although I still cry occasionally, and I can’t control myself, I still take care of my body as much as possible. I want to live with this beast for the rest of my life. Only a little bit of acceptance may be the better way out. Bar.
Doctor Comments Zhang Zheng | Director of Endocrinology Department, Renhe Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University, Deputy Chief Physician
Type 1 diabetes refers to diabetes with a tendency to ketosis due to absolute deficiency of insulin due to the destruction of pancreatic beta cells. The incidence of the disease is relatively low, but due to the huge population base in my country, the absolute number of patients is still huge. Similar to many diseases, the exact pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes is still unclear . Genetics, viral infections, diet and even environmental factors are believed to be more or less related to type 1 diabetes.
Eating too much, drinking too much and urinating too much, weight loss, pain and convulsions , these are just symptoms of type 1 diabetes. If there is no timely diagnosis and effective treatment, it may cause severe acute complications such as ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar coma , and even life-threatening when it rampages and kills.
In addition, the blood sugar level of patients with type 1 diabetes is greatly affected by external factors . A little too much diet or high exercise intensity may cause large fluctuations in blood sugar. Therefore, the risk of hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 diabetes is much higher than that of type 2 diabetes, and they are also more prone to various acute and chronic complications.
Historically, type 1 diabetes was truly an incurable disease. But since insulin was discovered and applied to the clinic in 1921, the beast of type 1 diabetes was finally tamed by humans and became a chronic disease similar to hypertension and hyperlipidemia . Due to the absolute lack of insulin, patients with type 1 diabetes need to rely on insulin for life to control blood sugar and maintain life.
From the patient’s point of view, type 1 diabetes has brought too much doubt and pain to the author, and the “a little calm” at the end of the article can’t hide his inner pessimism and disappointment. However, in the opinion of doctors, type 1 diabetes is currently diagnosed and not difficult to treat. Through reasonable diet management, regular work and rest habits, and scientific treatment plans , personal health and quality of life can be fully guaranteed.
In particular , the popularization and application of insulin pump technology in the past three decades has greatly improved the efficiency and convenience of insulin injection, which enables type 1 diabetic patients to have a wonderful life that is not inferior to that of ordinary healthy people.
If the author had this information, she might feel differently about type 1 diabetes and about insulin pumps. So medicine is like Rashomon. For the same disease, doctors and patients will feel two completely different “facts”.
It is necessary to say a few more words about stem cell therapy. At present, stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes is still in the research and exploratory stage , and its mechanism of action and clinical effect are unclear.
Some formal medical institutions are carrying out experiments in this area, and the dawn is beginning to look forward to the future. But now there are also many commercial organizations, under the guise of “stem cells cure diabetes”, in the name of treatment, to make money. It is not difficult to distinguish between the two: the former is free, and as brave subjects, patients will also receive certain material compensation; while the latter is paid, and the efficacy is uncertain and safety is worrying. Be careful before choosing.
In short, in the face of type 1 diabetes, patients will experience a process from denial to acceptance, from facing pressure and difficulties to gradual adaptation. Of course, type 1 diabetes will bring a lot of inconvenience to the patient’s diet, work and rest, which requires the patient to sum up experience and explore the law, not only to put a shackle on the disease, but also to accept the reality of long-term coexistence of the disease . The old lifestyle and eating habits need to be completely changed. The fear, low self-esteem, and interpersonal sensitivity brought about by the disease may reshape the patient’s personality, but the disease is still controllable .
Personal experience sharing does not constitute diagnosis and treatment advice, and cannot replace a doctor’s individual judgment on a specific patient. If you need to seek medical treatment, please go to a regular hospital.
Author: Yang Bing Editor: Li Xiaoqiu 
Here is the Nutshell patient, focused on telling health stories.
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