Thyroid issues? The more the merrier.

Having a baby is like setting a bomb off in the centre-most part of your life.  Everything gets blown to smithereens and scattered around, and chaos ensues.  It's marvelous, in the most 'Armageddon' type way you can imagine.

By four months old even during her most sleep-resistant nights baby McP was doing 3-4 hour stints in between wake-ups, and a routine had started to emerge.  I was told it would take about 4 months to start feeling a little more normal by my more experienced baby-mama friends.  Only at four months exactly I started feeling worse.

My self-raising world-exploding  bomb

Just as I had started to figure out her arse from her elbow (and my own, for that matter), and life had begun to become manageable again (meaning I showered once a day and didn't leave the baby in the Supermarket by accident), I was hit with an overwhelming wall of illness.  If Jamie or my mother were around, I would fling baby into their arms and slump into bed for anything from 3-6 extra hours of sleep each day  

My heart was racing all of the time and stairs left me panting and dizzy at the top. My vision was blurry and my blood sugars all over the place, having already jumped from 6.1 - 7.2 HbA1c since the whirlwind arrived. My blog, advocacy work and consulting had all but disappeared. But it was the fact that my daughter was practically raising herself meant I had to get things checked out.  

Symptoms explained and blood drawn the results came back with a bump.  My last thyroid tests taken only six weeks before my symptoms began had been absolutely fine.  My latest ones showed my T3 and T4 to be as much as four times the levels they should.  And the hyperthyroidism diagnosis followed.

The job at hand at the moment is to find out why it happened (in the hope that it may be temporary) and how to manage it alongside the 'normal diabetes' (whatever that may be) and current lack of hypo symptoms (yay!).  Thankfully the beta blockers mean the pounding heart no longer makes it feel and sound as though I have a little man running around in my head, and I am no longer pounding along at 100 miles an hour.

And hey, when it comes  auto-immune disorders, it's the more the merrier, right?

Anyone else living with this and able to give an old tired girl some tips?

New UK Dexcom shenanigans

Until now the use of Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring in the UK has been through distributors, mainly Advanced Therapeutics for those using the G4 system with the separate receiver, or for those on the Animas Vibe, which has integrated Dexcom CGM, we could purchase directly from Animas.

However, as from this Monday, 16th May, 2016, Dexcom will be distributing themselves in the UK, meaning changes to the way its done and most importantly, new pricing.

From now on there will be no postage charge (which at a steep £6.95 per delivery would have been an extra sensor and up to one months use, per year), and single sensor cost has been reduced to £61 per sensor, or £246 for a 4-pack.

Below is the official letter from Dexcom with formal price list (***screams at Google Docs while trying to create document***).

And perhaps the most important thing you need to know is that the distribution has been taken over by Karen Baxter, formally of Animas Marketing team and one of the key figures in the creation and running of the Animas Sports Weekend.  I have known Karen for four years since first attending the Animas weekend a the blogger for the event, and know personally of the passion, dedication and second-to-none service she will bring to the Dexcom team.  Your service is in good hands.

Here are the details in photo form, because even threatening to throw my laptop across the room did not yield a suitable Google document...