Next year I’ll have been diabetic for as long as I wasn’t diabetic. I remember when I was diagnosed looking forward to that point - I’d be used to it by then, it would feel normal, and I would be able to stop looking back to a time before it was a problem.
What I hadn’t accounted for at 17 was quite how fed up of being diabetic I’d be all that time later. This is a story about diabetic fatigue, how it can affect you, and what you can do to get your mojo back.
How to spot the signs of diabetic fatigue
Just like diabetes itself, fatigue can creep up on you without any obvious immediate symptoms. But then BAM, out of nowhere you’re contemplating not having insulin and seeing what happens. Fatigue can be serious. For me, it felt like boredom. I just couldn’t be arsed with diabetes anymore, I wanted to live a life without it, and the thought that my life would always be like this was playing heavily on my mind.
Which felt daft, really. Nothing had changed. I look after my condition pretty freaking well, I’m in a good place in my life, I’m generally happy, so why was I feeling so blue about this?
The signs of diabetic fatigue I noticed were as follows:
Being tempted to skip insulin
Checking my blood sugar less frequently
Finding the results of my checks frustrating
Getting annoyed when people spoke about it
An overall feeling of meh.
These symptoms will be different for different people, but as you can see they can be quite concerning. Skipping insulin isn’t really a viable choice for me, so my stupid head was obviously playing a prank.
Why does diabetic fatigue happen?
Fatigue can come about with anything if you do it often enough. Like sometimes you just can’t be arsed to get dressed in the morning, sometimes you get sick of work, sometimes all you want to do is lay down and weep. Anyone? Just me?
Diabetes is something you can’t ignore if you have it. It goes with you everywhere, playing a part in almost every aspect of your daily life and never really letting you ignore it for too long. It’s like a shadow, only one that will occasionally step in and trip you up.
For the most part, that shadow is easy enough to live with. I’ve had it for 16 years now, and 99% of the time I just accept it. But try doing the same thing every day for any amount of time and you’ll find it gets boring. Just ask my wife. EY OH.
What can you do to make the boohoos go bye bye?
I looked this up when I first started feeling blue, and the NHS gave a very NHS-ey answer about making sure you attend you regular appointments and looking after your glucose levels. WELL OBVIOUSLY, NHS. I was already doing all of that, so I needed a different solution. Here’s what I found helped:
Step 1. I cared a little bit less.
Part of what was causing me to feel fatigue was my quest for perfection. The arrival of constant glucose monitors has given us instant access to blood glucose levels, and with that comes the temptation to constantly check. For me, that meant correcting too often. I was treating lows that weren’t that low and fixing highs that would have sorted themselves. That was exhausting. It caused some genuine lows and some genuine highs, which then made me feel like I was going insane.
I reset my levels for what I classed as a low and a high, and vowed to myself not to correct until my little app told me I had to.
Step 2. I told people about it.
Diabetes can feel lonely. It’s a hobby only you can take part in, and sometimes other people trying to help just makes you want to push them away. But that only makes you feel worse. I talked to my wife and joked with my friends about it, and that made it all seem a lot smaller. This big thing that had been consuming me became a bit of a laugh, and when you laugh about serious stuff, it feels a lot less scary.
Step 3. I wrote it down.
Doing this right now is quite therapeutic. If a problem only lives in your head, it can consume all your thoughts. If you put it down on paper you can dissect it and find solutions. You can also delete it if it ends up being wank.
Step 4. I accepted it wasn’t only me that felt like this.
Turns out, every diabetic ever has felt bored of diabetes at some point in their lives. I spoke to a couple of them and realised I wasn’t going mad.
Is my diabetic fatigue fixed?
In a way, sort of. I don’t think about it as much now, and the whole ‘caring less’ thing is definitely helping. I guess it always lingers at the back of my mind, and maybe it always will - if you’re ever happy about being diabetic you’re a different breed to me.
Next year when I reach that fateful milestone, I’ll probably feel alright about it. I don’t know if it will be that ‘finally’ moment I was expecting back at diagnosis, but my memory is shit so I definitely won’t be able to remember a time before it.