00:19 My name is Cas and I’m a type 1 diabetic

00:23 25 years old right living in the Netherlands

00:30 I’m a software engineer by profession

01:19 I was 14 at the time maybe 13

01:24 It was around Christmas

01:36 On Christmas day I drank like 12 liters (over 3 gallons) of tea with sugar which didn’t help with the diabetes

01:44 I was also drinking at night and having to get up three four times a night to to use the bathroom so after Christmas we went to the doctor

01:57 He tested my blood sugar and it was at 12 millimoles per liter which is like 200 milligrams per deciliter which is high

02:34 I went back to the doctor a bit later and apparently my blood glucose level was too high to measure so I was sent straight to the hospital where I spend the next few days

04:13 All things considered I had a pretty okay time in the hospital. I had my laptop there I could just talk to friends on MSN messenger

04:20 Back then I had my own little blog where i posted pictures of all the supplies I needed

04:55 Getting used to having to inject yourself with insulin all the time was the reason I had to stay that long in the hospital

05:00 Because they wouldn’t let me leave before I could do inject myself

05:24 The biggest change was having to count everything I ate having to count carbohydrates and figuring out how much insulin you need

08:00 It’s very annoying when you forget about it and then have to deal with the consequences

08:04 Could you describe for folks what it feels like when your sugar isn’t high enough?

08:19 All of a sudden it is like you’re very hungry like you hadn’t eaten in a few days but also you’re very weak and it’s difficult to focus and I get sweaty and I’m incoherent when I talk

09:36 Especially the first few weeks it was daily because the insulin dose you need is different for everyone and it changes over time and for me we hadn’t dialed it in perfectly yet

12:21 So you’ve made these adaptations, you’ve made your appointments and you now have the pump

12:26 Describe your experience with the pump

12:31 Definitely – one of the big upsides is that it has a much more fine-tuned basal setting. Basal is just how much insulin you need when you’re not eating and when you’re injecting you take one dose daily or maybe two and that lasts you the entire day but that’s also very imprecise because usually your your insulin needs aren’t the same throughout the day and on a pump you can change it every half hour so it allows you to have a very fine-tuned basal profile and it also helps that I don’t have to stab myself every time I eat is very useful

13:29 So how would you say your life is today living with diabetes? Would you say you’re able to now live relatively normally despite the pump?

13:41 I’m in a fortunate position where I get everything covered by insurance so I’ve got a sensor which alerts me when my blood sugar isn’t working correctly. I’ve got a pump. I’ve got an app on my phone that links the two together so I think I can lead a pretty normal life or as normal as you can with diabetes of course. I still gotta count my carbs and and bring snacks with me but overall I think it’s as normal a life as I can have

16:50 Now there isn’t a gym nearby and now my insulin profile is tuned in to me not working out so when I do workout I need to take extra care because my my insulin my blood sugar drops quite rapidly from it especially with this working from home thing for COVID I’m trying to be more active again and and I’ve got some free weights and some other workout stuff to try and become more healthy again

18:22 Take care of yourself when you need to take care of yourself and don’t don’t try to be ashamed of it

18:34 For them for counting carbs I think the biggest hurdle is getting used to it because that’s what my doctor told me when I got diagnosed and I can see it in some people now is if you don’t make a habit out of it it will always stay something that you have to be conscious about. Well I try to turn it into a habit and then it becomes second nature so you get used to it and of course there’s always meals where you have no idea how many carbs are in there. I usually then just kind of underestimate it and deal with the high blood sugar afterwards