recently, I was listening to a podcast where Arthur C Brooks (a Harvard Professor) mentioned a 3 step protocol for happiness – 1/ understand, 2/ practice and 3/ share. these steps led me reflect on the past 10 years of my life – a decade that i have spent being diabetic. almost 9 years, i spent unintentionally, but particularly this year i consciously put an effort to understand what the disease is and what works for me and my body. i had a lot of learnings so far and i am still discovering better/ newer ways to manage my t1d – through the blogs that i wish to write on my website, i want to share all the learnings with everyone, learn from them and also build a habit of writing 🙂
so here it is!
let’s start with some basics – diabetes is when your body is either not producing insulin (a vital hormone produced by pancreas and responsible for moving glucose into your cells for energy production) or not using the insulin that is being produced by your body. type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, where simply put your pancreas do not produce insulin or do not produce enough insulin for your body to use, hence patients usually inject insulin into their bodies.
in June 2012, towards the end of my summer holidays and before the beginning of my 7th grade, i fell terribly sick – i was vomiting everything that I was eating or drinking, even water. my family thought that it was because of the food poisoning and they took me to our regular doctor – after undertaking some checks, he wasn’t able to detect what is wrong with me. i remember he recommended that i should be given a glucose IV to increase energy levels (i know, i know, i would have probably died if i would have gotten it), but my dad for some reason refused until what is exactly wrong with me is diagnosed. next day, i was taken to a pathology to a nearby town and my blood tests were done, except the blood sugar test – no one in my family thought of doing this since diabetes doesn’t run in my family (no one, none of my relatives etc. have diabetes). again, in the blood tests that were done, nothing was detected. i was put on some oral medications, but again nothing improved.
after a few days, i was taken to nagpur, maharashtra to get more blood tests done. i met a doctor there and he immediately checked my glucose level using the glucometer and there it was – my memory is very hazy right now, but at that time my glucose level was around 550 mg/dl i guess (for a normal human being, blood sugar ranges from 70 to 140 mg/dl). i was immediately admitted to the ICU for a few days. again, i do not exactly remember what happened during that week when i was in the hospital, but i remember when i was stable, i was told that i will have to take injections before i eat anything and will have to avoid foods with sugar. at that time it was shocking and devastating for me, i remember, because i didn’t know at that time what diabetes is, why is this happening with me etc.
its been more than 10 years now that i am living a type 1 diabetic life and in this entire decade, there have been multiple phases i have been through:
an unaware rule follower
after i was diagnosed, i was following all the protocols as they were told to me and when i reflect back on this, i was doing it because i was too young and totally unaware about what is happening with my body and why am i taking injections before every meal. nobody – my friends or people in my circle – knew about me taking injections everyday because i was scared to tell them about it – i used to take injections in a secluded place, sometimes would miss taking them too and would not let anyone touch my bag (huh, so many things to be careful about). until my 10th grade, i was not eating anything sweet (sugary) and was taking my insulin as it was instructed to me. during this time, diabetes was not being managed that effectively – my sugar levels used to range between 150 to 250 mg/dl and i used to visit my allopathic doctor once a year where he always used to increased my insulin doses.
the anti-diabetic life
when i moved to nagpur to pursue my grades 11 and 12, i became rebellious towards my diabetes. i used to feel bad that why do i have to restrict myself from eating things i like and other people can eat whatever they want to. and i started asking questions such as why me?, why me at this age? etc. and as a consequence of thoughts like these, i started eating everything that i was not supposed to eat (this was kind of a revenge eating that i was doing)- for example, all kinds of desserts, chocolates, biscuits etc. i started living in denial and since the immediate consequence of eating these foods was nothing, i wasn’t able to understand how i am ruining/ abusing my body for long term.
i spent majority of my diabetic life (from grade 11th and 12th till the end of college) as an anti-diabetic where i am injecting more and more insulin and eating whatever i want to. as a result of this behavior, i used to get hospitalized (because of diabetes ketoacidosis aka dka) at least once every year – but this also didn’t stop me from eating what i wanted to.
walking the perceived right path
in 2021, i started working at central square foundation and was living alone in delhi. it was the first time i had told people outside my immediate family members that i am type 1 diabetic. telling people about this brought a sense of responsibility and accountability in me that i should restrict myself from eating foods that diabetics are not supposed to. hence, i started avoiding sugar and was eating the usual food. this reduced the incidences of me getting hospitalized and helped me gain confidence that yes, i am managing my diabetes effectively – which when i reflect back now was not the right approach, even though the intention was right, but i was walking the wrong path because of the lack of awareness. what i mean by this is that, i didn’t have information regarding how my bio markers are looking (never did blood tests to understand this), whether eating the food that i was eating (dal, roti, rice etc.) and packaged foods not loaded with refined sugar is helping me manage my diabetes or not.
i was operating with a mindset that no sugar = effective management of diabetes.
walking the actual right path with right information
every day with type 1 diabetes looks very different even when you are doing the same constant things – one day your blood sugar levels will be in range and the other day, they will be beyond 300 mg/dl. and as a type 1 diabetic, there are thousands of decisions that you have to take every day to manage your blood sugar levels. and to take these decisions, it is very crucial to have the right kind of information – for example, what foods affect your blood sugar levels, when is your blood sugar levels are spiking, how much insulin you should inject for what kind of food etc. and in my little more than 9 years of being a type 1, i just had one piece of information that ‘eat whatever you want to eat (except sugar – maybe sometimes this also) and just inject more and more insulin’ – all the allopathic doctors told me this since i have been diagnosed.
wanted to highlight that, this is not the right piece of advice anyone should give to a type 1 diabetic, because high insulin has adverse effects on metabolic health (more on why this is not the right advice in the future blogs).
in the beginning of 2023, i moved to bangalore for my new job at scaler – little did i know that along with this being a new professional journey, it would be a health transformational journey as well! my manager who then was on his journey to reverse pre-diabetes told me about dr. roshani sanghani – an american board certified endocrinologist, helping people change their lifestyles and improve metabolic health (check out https://reisaanhealth.com/). i immediately wrote to her and got onboarded on type 1 diabetes management program.
this was the beginning of my journey to effectively manage my type 1 with right information. the program focused on making me aware regarding 4 aspects of lifestyle change – nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep – and how i can use them to effectively manage my type 1 diabetes. during this program, i also started consuming a lot of information in the form of books, podcasts, articles, yt videos etc. regarding the science behind metabolic diseases and how to manage them effectively. with all the information at hand, i set a goal for myself to reclaim my health back by the end of this year i.e. 2023.
currently, i do long hour and intermittent fasting, am on a low carb high protein diet, go for long walks everyday (min 10k steps a day), have been strength training and regularly check my bio markers (via continuous glucose monitor and quarterly blood tests). it took me time, a lot of iterations/ experimentations and data (bio markers such as blood sugar, ketones, lipid profile etc.) to understand what works for my body and i am still on my discovery phase trying to understand new patterns and ways to handle them. all these practices helped me reduce my daily insulin requirement by almost 50%, keep my blood sugar levels in range most of the time (which has never happened in last 9 years) and keep me energetic throughout. after adopting the above lifestyle, i started seeing results in 2-3 months and this made me realize how refined carbs and processed foods affect the body and metabolism.
what’s next?
in these past few days, i was feeling very grateful and privileged to have people around me who could help me with my metabolic health crises and to have resources to use to understand in depth about my own body and being able to take effective decisions. and that is when i decided to start sharing more about my journey and pay it forward – my intention is to share everything that i have learnt and am learning and help people simplify type 1 diabetes management in india.
i know that the above read was not that deep and you might have some questions. through this blog, my intention was to share about my journey in brief and the different phases. the blogs that i intend to write in future would include more specifics around what i am doing, why i am doing it and how am i doing it. nevertheless, i am very happy to connect and discuss specifics around anything mentioned above or any questions you may have! 🙂
stay tuned!!
azeem panjwani 