My husbands blood sugar readings have been between 230 & 250 for quite some time now. No matter what he does it rarely goes below the 230 range. I had not thought of this until recently but am wondering can high continuos sugar levels like that have a impact on his personality. He has been horrible to live with. He has gotten extremly critical, demanding and downright angry all the time. He really doesn't watch what he eats, he eats at least 2-3 packages of pork rinds a week, drinks only diet pops and koolades, and refuses to drink water at all. I think he does this to spite me. We have been married 37 years, for the past several years I cannot do anything right, not dishes, laundry, housework, weeding my garden, nothing without him yelling very loudly at me to where even neighbors can hear, he has even yelled at me in the car driving down the road and people turn to look as they pass or as they walk down the road and in parking lots. He is very careful to not display this kind of action however in public, such as stores, church, or anywhere in buildings outside of our home. Our daughters have all witnessed this action and do not know what to do, they have talked with him but to no avail Is this normal? I have learned to ignore what he yells about and sometimes have gotten to laugh it off. In the past couple months he has made statements many times during the day that he wished he had never been born. I need advice. Anyone? Thanks.
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Sadly, high blood sugars do affect moods as do low blood sugars. Is he on injectable insulin or orals? I think the best thing you can do is try to pull yourself out of the middle (between he and his diabetes
) and see if you can get him some guidance from the doctors office. Many times the resentment is a lack of knowing how to manage his control or feeling like a failure. Statements like "I wish I had never been born" are about feeling like he can't move forward or he cant succeed.
There are lots of possible programs at local hospitals and one that he could even demand for, which I highly recommend is A1c Champions. This is a program that has someone living with diabetes who shares their story and their tools for living better with diabetes. This is a free program, so no cost to you and very encouraging to see someone who is living successfully with diabetes.
Another program is Journey for Control and this sets him up with a Certified Diabetes Educator who helps him navigate the challenges to gain control.
You or your husband can request these programs by talking to your doctor and it is no cost to them, as these are pharmaceutical supported programs and as far as I'm concerned under utilized!
I hope this helps!!
Both my husband and I are military veterans, so we both use the VA hospitals and clinics. I have never heard of either of the groups that you are talking of, He does attend once a year a meeting with other diabetics with a diabetic trained nutricianist. But he hides things from her during the discussions, things as to what and how he eats. At one time I was able to get him to eat very healthy and he not only lost quite a bit of weight but his blood sugars went way down nearly to normal but then he decided he did not want to eat healthy anymore and regressed to not so good eating, I make well balanced foods for him but I can only do so much, when he complains and pushes food away and eats wrongly. These are his choices not mine. Our daughters see whats going on and they have no clue as to what to do with him. He does have a dr appointment comming up so will see what happens.
There is something to understand here, your husband is not to blame for diabetes. Research shows that when someone is diagnosed with type1 or type 2 diabetes there is a reduced number of beta cells to create insulin. In type1 diabetes the beta cells are attacked by the autoimmune system and are almost obliterated. But with type 2 it is more complicated because it is a reduction in the number of beta cells, usually at diagnosis around 50%. With meds and proper diet and more importantly exercise, the beta cells are a little recoverable to about 80-90%. If they are recovered to 80-90%, then meds can be taken orally until there is a shift in the pancreas and beta cell production goes down and then patients may need more diet restriction, OR a change in meds. Let me give you some info to read:
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/9993/122845/cell-regenerative/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12059095
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/222766.php
Much still needs to be understood in both forms of diabetes, but for many type2 diabetics, they have carried a burden of bad health habits as the reason they got diabetes, and in some cases not deserved it. No excuses for bad habits, but more needs to be done to motivate type2 patients that this is managable and somewhat reversable, with no room for the blame game!
So the question for type 2 diabetes is when is the pancreas just not able to keep up with the demand for insulin. Diet certainly helps, but is not the be all end all that many, even in the medical community, think that it is. So when I asked if he is on oral or injected insulin that was a question about how well his system is functioning. I have type2 friends who are on injectable insulin and they have done everything by the book, 60 grams carb/ day, exercise, oral meds and tight blood sugar control and to no avail, they needed injectible insulin.
The first step to helping your husband, regardless of his weight, is figure out what his pancreas is capable of doing. An increase in meds drives down the blood sugar and prevents the complications. It could also be the motivator to feeling better, which encourages him to want to try and do better!
This is a great site with deep resources for you and your husband, if he is willing to ask. I'd be happy to help him fish out some info to ask the doc. (and put the doc's feet in the fire for a while!
)