My experiences of having a 'hypo'.

I mean I resent having hypos. They are sort of a bane of my life really and I consider it to be time wasted because for me that a hypo is an out-of-body experience where I'm feeling not quite in control of my thoughts, my language, and weirdly my vision. One of the signs of going hyper for me is that I get what I would describe as a cubist view. It's like I'm looking at the world as if it were a Pablo Picasso painting. It's very, very angular and things become straight lines, you know, a person's face will look like it's slightly pixelated and certain features in their face will be accentuated, but it's not normal vision. And so if I don't have calves quickly enough, it kind of creeps along and suddenly I'm in I guess it's a bit like a lobster being boiled in a pot. They don't notice as the heat goes up and the heat is maintained. It's a similar, I've never been a lobster in a pot but I think it's probably similar. And it's not good because there's risks if you're driving or there's risks if you're in charge of a motorbike. There could be risks as a pedestrian even. And the thing that worries me is that I could be at risk to other people. It's not just my own safety that's compromised, it's other people. So I take it very seriously, even though I resent it. You know, I know that it has to be something that's dealt with, but if there was a way of getting rid of hypos, I think that would make a huge difference. And we talk about, I talk about the benefits of pump technology and continuous glucose monitoring, but I reckon if there was something one step closer to an artificial pancreas and that's something that could deliver insulin but also deliver concentrated glucose as an antidote to an excess of insulin, and I know there's a chap in the States who is kind of really keen on developing this, you know that would be a close to perfect solution and I think the continuous glucose monitoring technology now is as close as I can get for now and it's a hell of a lot more sophisticated than a urine test where you were waiting for the five drops of urine and the ten drops of water or was it the other way around, and a fizzy tablet to give you a result that was either blue or green and you were dreading the orange because that meant that you had really high sugar levels that had spilled over into your urine. Things have come a long way since then but I think a hypo is still a hypo and And as I said, if that could be avoided, that would be probably the most significant development that would be out of there. If I can talk about the other side, which is high blood glucose, would that be of help? Should we cut and pause it and do the, yeah, tell us about the experience of having hypoglycemia or very high glucose levels? Okay, so hyperglycemia should be avoided as well because I think what the dangers of it are that it can lead to long-term conditions. So many people know about the issues of ketones but I think continuous high blood glucose levels are in my non-medical way I think compromises peripheral circulation, it can cause nerve damage. So you know we're not just a diabetic, we're a human being, we're a kind of collection of different systems just like anyone is, but you kind of have to look at the whole picture I think. And for me the kind of complications, the risk of complications is really increased if you have too many episodes of high blood sugars. it's as if the body is kind of poisoning itself, I think. So, you know, the things that come to my mind are foot problems and the issue of amputation. It can also lead to kidney disease and potentially kidney failure and there's the risk of eye damage. And one of my jobs was working at Hammersmith Hospital where they were doing, Eva Koerner was the professor's name and she was doing some pioneering work in dealing with retinopathy where she was kind of lasering the affected eyes of patients with retinopathy and it was scary for me listening to what was going on across the corridor. My office just happened to be in the wrong place but maybe it was the right place for me. And it just drove home the point that it really is important to maintain the best blood glucose control that you can because if you ignore it and you have continued high blood glucose results there are serious knock-on effects which are life-changing stroke, life-inhibiting or maybe even life-ending. So it's not something to be dismissed I think which is why I think it's important to keep up a regime of regular testing so you know where you are and if you are going high you can do something about it. you