When type 1 diabetes and an eating disorder collide.

 If you are regular reader of my blog you will know that I will always try and make it light hearted, well as much as living with 3 people with type 1 diabetes can be!! This is not going to be one of those posts. That said this past year, like for everyone else in the world has  it been great. Thankfully we got through the first wave of COVID unscathed and I hope the same can be said as we enter the second wave. 

The original lockdown in March allowed us as a family to eat around our dinning room table together , something we had only managed to do at weekends. We spent more time together, we managed to not kill each other!!! Which, let me tell you when there are seven people all living together and spending that much time together is no easy feat!! I started to work on improving my fitness again as I had been given this great gift of time and my T1 daughter started to workout more. I encouraged this as we did it together and she seemed to be enjoying it. 

However, after a while there was a noticeable shift in what she was doing. Her workouts became more frequent, three times a day after every meal and increased in length. She decided that she was not going to eat after 7pm, which was not a concern to me as many people intermittent fast. What it did do however was shift dinner to 5pm, and she became quite insistent that we ate at that time. 

As lockdown continued throughout the summer her body was changing and she was becoming stronger. Her determination was fierce as she had a plan and knew what she wanted to do. From a mother’s point of view there was little concern over what she was doing as I could see that she was eating alongside her exercise. As September approach I begun to talk to her about going back to school and what that would mean for her routine. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do but didn’t seem that worried about it.

September arrived, I went back to work, and the children went back to school. At this point I’m not going to go into great detail as I’m not going to betray my daughters trust. She doesn’t necessarily volunteer information to me, but if I ask her an outright question she will tell me. 

She hasn’t been eating breakfast and lunch she only eats dinner. If dinner looks like it may go past 7pm she refuses it. She weighs herself when she gets up, home from school and again before bed. She will work out how many calories she has eaten in the day and then workout to get rid of them. From a diabetes point of view she has been turning her pump down as she doesn’t want to go as that would mean she needs juice or glucose tablets and she doesn’t want the additional calories. The problem with that is that by running her sugar levels high she risks complications.  The saving grace here is that due to her having diabetes we have access to the dietician, who my daughter has a fantastic relationship with and we have access to the psychologist. I am pleased to say we have had conversations with both and have started the ball rolling in getting her some help with an eating disorder team. With a condition which in order to control means you have no choice but to look at the back of the food packages of every single thing you eat is no wonder so many young people with diabetes also develop eating disorders. That’s without the continued bombardment of diet adverts and filtered pictures on social media. I also have to take some responsibility for this, I constantly complain that I’m too fat, I weigh too much and that I have nothing to wear. This is especially true as like many I have gained some COVID weight. However when we are being so critical of ourselves we need to remember who may be listening.

The road we are currently on is going to be long, and it’s going to be hard for everyone but we must take it so that I can hopefully get my happy daughter back.