Today we speak to Alice Wadey from @Alice.In.Type.Wonderland on her experience of living and dealing with Type 1 Diabetes.

https://www.instagram.com/alice.in.type.wonderland/

Eve: Today we are speaking to Alice about Type 1 Diabetes. Do you want to start telling us about yourself? (0.30)

Alice: I have been a Type 1 diabetic since I was about 11. I have been married for 6 years now and live in a little village in West Sussex. I have two daughters, Matilda who is 2 and Florence who is 3 months old, a lockdown baby!

Eve: How did you find out you had diabetes? (1:15)

Alice: I’m type 1 diabetes, which is more common whilst in childhood and a young age. There are 3 main types of diabetes that people have heard of, but there are so many others. When I was diagnosed, I was very lucky, I was very sporty, but my mum picked up on the symptoms and did a home test kit on me to test my blood sugars. The diagnoses happen very quickly, I went to the doctors and hospital the next day. A lot of symptoms are weight loss, tiredness, vision blurring. I was a sporty 11-year-old and was always losing weight and being tired.

Eve: What are the three main types of diabetes you mentioned? (4:00)

Alice: The differences are mainly how it comes around. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks yourself and you require insulin. There is no cure. Type 2 is more common in adults. It’s more of a lifestyle thing. This is where your body doesn’t use insulin correctly. Then there is gestational diabetes which is what a lot of pregnant women get during their pregnancy. For the majority it is temporary and when the baby is born the diabetes goes. There is also Lada diabetes, which is a form of type 1. It can take 3 or 4 years for the symptoms of this type to appear. There is Neonatal diabetes as well which is from birth. This can come and go, or it can stay.

Eve: Wow, I honestly didn’t know there was so many types! How does your type 1 diabetes impact your life day to day? (6:35)

Alice: In every way possible. I think deep down its really best to embrace your diabetes. When I was younger, I was really unwell with my diabetes. I had an appendix and any form of an infection if you have diabetes is not good, and so I was in intensive care for a bit.

Things like stress, illness, exercise can change your levels without you doing anything to them. Food is really big thing when being diabetic, you have to carb count. You have to work out your ratios of insulin and over how many hours this is. It can be very overwhelming. I’m very positive about my diabetes and I’m proud to be diabetic. It made me grow up at a young age and become independent.

Eve: You said you ignored it in your teenage years, what do you mean by this? (10:15)

Alice: Most diabetics should test their blood sugars 8-10 a day and inject every meal. I never just used to inject, I would eat chocolate. My mum used to ask my how my diabetes was, and I would say they are fine, well knowing that I hadn’t checked in about 2 or 3 days. There was a result of being like this and I became very very unwell.

Eve: So now you look after your diabetes very well, but how do you stay positive every day? (11:30)

Alice: I think one of the things that helped me was the advance in technology. Having a flash glucose monitor was really useful. Just looking at my phone to see what my sugars are doing on a graph and not having to prick my finger all the time makes it a lot easier. I’m on an insulin pump and it’s just a disc that sticks to the skin. All I have to do is just type in how much insulin I need at mealtimes.

Eve: You now have 2 children, and you have been open with your fertility struggles. Could you tell us more about this? (14:20)

Alice: At the time, I kept it to myself and it’s not till after that I shared things about this. We tried to conceive for about 4 years after getting married. With my health and other issues there was this debate whether I had polycystic ovaries or endometriosis. There were these background issues and not falling pregnant and miscarriages. I spoke to my GP and she said she thought there could be some issues. She referred me to a specialist to get things checked over. To this day I think we could have been stuck in the system if we hadn’t been referred so quickly. She was invested in me and my health. We had what is known as unknown fertility struggles, they didn’t know what was wrong. After several months to nearly a year we were sent down to a fertility clinic where they said hormone treatments might help. We went through IVF and had 2 failed rounds. We decided we would have one last try and we couldn’t afford to not go through the NHS as that can get very pricey. We knew we had 17 weddings coming up, so we took a break. Then the next month we found out we were pregnant with Matilda! It was a very difficult pregnancy, for at least the first 20 weeks I was worried whenever I went to the toilet there would be blood. Any tweak or pain I thought the worst. We always talk about Matilda as our miracle baby.

Eve: That’s so great! What about Florence? (18:20)

Alice: Florence was natural. We got to thinking about having a second child and thought we may have to go down the IVF route. We thought about trying and then fell pregnant within 2-3 months. We were both shocked! I’m so happy to have both of my girls now.

Eve: How was your pregnancy and birth with both of them? (19:00)

Alice: Let’s just put it this way, I have a very good relationship with my diabetes nurse and after Florence they both said, don’t do this again to us! Both were very high-risk pregnancies, and both needed a lot of monitoring. They were very touch and go the whole way through. Matilda’s birth was deemed trauma and there are open cases with the hospital about ways it was managed. And a very emotional pandemic birth with Florence. I’m really lucky I have two healthy girls at the end of it.

Eve: Did your pregnancy impact your pregnancy other than it being monitored all the time and high risk? (20:35)

Alice: All diabetes is deemed into a high-risk category. You need a lot more appointment and higher up people. I had a team of 6 medical professionals around me supporting me. You have the maximum number of scans. My appointments were 3 or 4 hours long. With Matilda’s pregnancy my body took a battering, but she was born perfectly at 35 weeks. Her birth was really difficult, both mine and her stats kept dropping. There were lots of complications and ended up being a forceps delivery. She stopped breathing and needed to be resuscitated. She was taken straight up to the special baby unit. We had Christmas that year in the special baby unit, the hospital made it very special. She came on very quickly and we were only in hospital for about a week with her. We came home on new year’s at 10pm.

Eve: How did you recover mentally from all the trauma? (26:20)

Alice: I didn’t it in all honestly. I swept it up under the carpet and kind of forgot about it for a while. The hospital did their own investigations, but I didn’t that. I was happy, I had my daughter. I put it all down to my diabetes nurse, she is so supportive and positive. It all came flooding back when I gave birth to Florence. She was a planned C- Section at 37 weeks. I remembered the sounds, noises and the smells of how it was before. I thought at the time that I wasn’t over this.

Eve: What’s your main mantra you live by and why? (30:00)

Alice: It’s going to sound a bit negative but, prepare for the worst as anything else can be a positive.

Eve: Thanks so much for coming on, it’s been so informative and eye opening.