Diabetic Dialogue – Keith Manuel

Welcome to Diabetic Dialogue. We are keeping the conversation going about diabetes and fighting the war on diabetes. I'm Sandra Ewers and we are on Women's radio Station talking all things diabetes. So what do we know so far? We know that type 1 diabetes is where your pancreas is producing no insulin, and type 2 could be where you are producing a little insulin, or whatever you are producing is not working properly. So we're here to talk diabetes with Keith Manuel. Welcome, Keith, to Women's Radio Station. Hello there. Right, Keith, you're somebody, obviously, I know, from my ukulele group. I know that you've got type 1 diabetes, but tell me all about it. So when were you diagnosed with type 1 diabetes? Well, I'm 57 now and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 11, so that's 46 years with type 1 diabetes. So, 11. You were 11 years old and you discovered that you had diabetes, but what symptoms did you actually have? Can you remember? Yeah, I can remember reasonably well. I was drinking a lot of water, you know, constantly drinking water. And that led to a period, a short period of wetting the bed and, of course, that was fairly traumatic. At the age of 11, I lost a lot of weight as well. Over a very short period of time. My mum called the GP out and the GP almost instantly diagnosed it as type one diabetic. And I was pretty much whisked straight into hospital. That must have been a very, very hard time for you. And I'm quite emotional as well. And then what after that? I mean, how were you. Well, I say, how were you treated in the first instance? Can you remember? Well, I can't remember the actual treatment. I think it was getting you really onto a regime of insulin injections. And so it would have been a combination of. I know I was attached to. I wasn't a fed, I was attached to like a. A drip to drip feed me whilst they were tweaking with sort of, you know, levels of insulin. And then when I was discharged, I was discharged, you know, on two injections a day. Wow, that must have been very hard for you. So at first, when you were having the injections, did you find it very hard or was your mum giving you the injections? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This I do remember really well. When it was time to sort of, you know, getting up towards being discharged from hospital, Mum and dad were called into practice and they had to practice on an orange and my dad did his injection on the orange and my mum kind of stabbed the orange quite Hard. And I remember saying to my mum, I remember saying to her about. I said, I don't think I want you doing it. And the sad thing is, I probably shouldn't have said that because my mum actually never did an injection. My dad always used to do my injections, or I did them myself. I would imagine your mum probably would have been worried about hurting you as well, because she probably loved you. I think that was probably a large part of it, if I could go on. Because there's one other very interesting thing for anybody that's listening, that's type one, when I was discharged, so that's back in the 70s, it was glass syringes and reusable metal needles that you had to boil. And I can remember my mum boiling them in a saucepan of water. Goodness. And what. Is it true that the needles were much bigger as well? Yeah, yeah, they were great big things, a lot wider, you know, much bigger diameter than the needles now. So I imagine, although I don't remember it as such, but I imagine it was far more painful than injecting now, I would imagine so. Gosh, it's a very hard time. So, growing up as a child then. So you had type 1 diabetes and what was it like at school for you then? Did you let your friends know about it? Yeah, I mean, I think the advice you were given and there was, back then it was called the British Diabetic Association. I think it's Diabetes UK now. They were quite helpful. My dad and my mum were both quite involved with it. And so the mum and dad told the school, so all the teachers knew. I told my friends. I always carried sugar around with me or glucose tablets, so most of my friends knew what to do if I ever went hypo. Fortunately, I've never suffered too much from hypos in my life, so in that respect, I haven't needed people to leap in and sort of force feed me sugar. So, hypo. Are you able to tell our listeners what a hypo is and what you were told a hypo was as a child? Yeah, hypo really is when your blood sugar level drops to a very low level. And again, fortunately, I get fairly good symptoms of it. You feel a little bit shaky, maybe sweaty, you kind of switch off, lose, lose interest. And the immediate treatment really is just to get some carbohydrates into you. So the easiest thing is sugar or glucose tablets or a sugared fizzy drink. I always carry glucose tablets around with me, so. So, you know, if it's ever needed. And most of my friends know I'm diabetic. And I would imagine, like because you've had diabetes for so long, do you feel like that you're an expert on things, that you sort of know what you're doing with your diabetes? I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I think you get to know your own body probably better than the doctors and the nurses. You certainly know, you know how your body reacts to things. And therefore some people, some type 1 diabetics don't get very good warning if their blood sugar is low. But I've always had reasonably good warning that my blood sugar's low. So I just kind of feel just a little bit light headed. I mean, that's usually a trigger to just to test my blood sugars. Very often they are low and then it's just the need to have some quick carbohydrates, really. Well, it's good to know that and it's good to know that you are aware, I've got to say that I interviewed somebody recently, a lady by the name of Sonia, who had type 1 diabetes and she'd had it for 24 years and advised me that within five years, so it would only be in the last five years of her life that she'd managed to sort of get it under control. And that control was that she now had a pump. I also see that Theresa May has one of these pumps. So have you ever considered, or have anyone, medical professionals ever discussed maybe you having one of those pumps? No. And I'll be honest, injecting. I inject four times a day, three times being a short acting insulin, once before each meal and then a long acting insulin, which I do before I go to bed. So I actually inject four times a day. But I'll be honest, injecting really isn't a difficult thing to do. You know, the reason why I've got a big beard is actually shaving is far more of a nuisance than actually doing an injection. Fair enough. A very good answer. So how can I put this? Do you monitor what you eat through the day, do you? Are you choosy about your diet? Yeah, I mean, I'm careful. I'll confess here to certainly not being the best type 1 diabetic you'd ever encounter. I'm probably not the worst either. Initially, when I was diagnosed, and that's way back 40 odd years ago, my mum used to weigh everything. I don't weigh food now because I've got a reasonably good feel for sort of the Carbohydrate levels. A lot of food actually, you know, you know, will. Will have carbohydrates actually printed on the label. So you've got a pretty good feel of the carbohydrate intake that you've got. And part of the regime that I'm on, really, if you take regular blood sugars and I don't do my blood sugar perhaps as often as I should. If you take regular blood sugars, you can adapt the amount of insulin that you take to your blood sugar level and to what you're about to eat. That's very interesting there. And just to actually clarify, a couple of people I have interviewed in the past, and I've got to say more perhaps women than men, when they. Obviously with Type one, you get it in your childhood. One of the women that I did interview said that as a teenager she was conscious about her weight and the insulin was making her gain weight and not that for that reason. And she played around with the diabetes and didn't take the insulin when required, which unfortunately has now later on affected her eyes because of it. So were there ever times that you sort of didn't want to take the insulin or did you just roll with it and take that insulin? I'm sure there were times, but fortunately I came from a lovely family, very supportive mum and dad, and so I don't think I ever fully rebelled against my diabetes, as in just refusing to do injections. I'm sure there were some tantrums, but I never deliberately avoided taking insulin. That said, you know, I've started To, you know, 47 years in, I've started to develop some of the complications of type 1 diabetes. You know, possibly if I'd have looked after myself a little bit better, you know, I could have staved them off a little bit. So what complications are you actually having? Can you tell our listeners about that? It's also not just. It's raising awareness at the same time and letting listeners know in case they might be having symptoms. So what have you been having? Well, probably about 10 years ago, I had to have laser treatment on my eyes. I haven't since. I have regular retinopathy and so my eyes are checked fairly regular up at the hospital. And that's, you know, that's quite painless. They just look at your retina, take photos. More recently, I won't bore you with all the history, but probably about 16, 17 years ago, I broke my ankle badly. Well, as a diabetic, breaking your ankle is not a great thing. It's Not a great thing to do anyway, but it's not a great thing to do as a diabetic. I then started to have problems with ulcers on my toes, started to pile on weight. So as a result I have lost a couple of toes and actually at the moment I've got a rather stubborn ulcer on my heel and those are some of the biggest complications. It's not my place to give people advice, but perhaps if I can offer just one piece, it's look after your feet. Don't walk about in bare feet, Always wear shoes and look after your feet. Because it's not uncommon for diabetics to get neuropathy, so they lose sensation and I've got very little sensation in my feet, ankles and the lower leg. That's very good advice. Now, Keith, we're gonna take a short break and we're gonna come back to you and listen to your Type one journey, which is really interesting. If you have any questions about the show, do go to womensradiostation.com and click presenters and you can ask any questions. 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This is where careers ignite, where playwrights take risks, where great actors perform just feet away from the audience. This is where magic happens. We would love you to join our mailing list or become a sponsor or just buy a ticket to one of our shows. The website is www.germanstreettheatre.co.uk. Women's radio station is a not for profit community interest company. Supporting women is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. Welcome back to Diabetic Dialogue. We are keeping the conversation going about diabetes and fighting the war on diabetes. I'm Sandra Ewers and we're on Women's radio station talking all things diabetes. And today we are joined by Keith Manuel, who's talking about type 1 diabetes. Welcome back, Keith. Well, hello. And Keith was actually telling us about looking after your feet. And this is a very important message, listeners out there, that you must look after your feet. And one of the symptoms I personally was getting, I was getting foot symptoms. I didn't know I had type 2 diabetes, but I was having issues. But not linking it to diabetes. If you do have any, perhaps tingling numbness, it's always worth going to your GP or speaking to a health professional. So, Keith, what about your. You said you had retinopathy, so how are your eyes now? Are you 100% with your eyes? Yeah, as I say, I attend the retinopathy clinic regularly, which is common for most folk with diabetes and haven't had to have laser treatment for quite some years. So my eyes are okay, you know, I mean, I'm still. I'm still okay in terms of driving. So in that respect, you know, my eyes are okay at the moment. But of course, I think the thing with diabetes is that you don't kind of cure things. So you don't cure retinopathy? No. It continues, doesn't it? Yeah. It's down to trying to keep, you know, reasonable diabetic control hopefully will keep further retinopathy away. I certainly appreciate that. So in terms of your family history, do you know if you've got a family history of diabetes? Have you Ever looked into it? Never actively looked into it, but no. My mum, dad, neither of them were diabetic, as far as we know. None of my grandparents were brothers, sisters. Nope. So there seems to be no family history at all of diabetes. I know at the time when I was diagnosed, there were no really clear views as to why People develop type 1. Type 1 tends to come on when you were younger, which it did with me, and there was a view, certainly at the time that it might have been something like a shock that caused it. I have heard that said before and I've got to be honest with you, I personally. This is for type 2. My dad actually tore his Achilles and then developed diabetes sort of like weeks later. We've got a family. I personally have a family history of type 2 diabetes, but I too, fractured my hand 10 years ago and I wonder if there was a connection to that. So I've heard talk of that as well. So, you know, listeners out there, I'm not saying every time you get a fracture or every time you have a shock, but is something to consider. So what about your. Do you think that people have been supportive in terms of your type 1 diabetes? Has it been good? Yeah, I would say generally people are supportive in so far as I'm open with people and say I'm diabetic, so most people hopefully would know what to do. If I looked off color, they would know to give me some sugars or something sugary. I've never suffered any kind of, I don't know, prejudice or discrimination through being diabetic itself or not that I'm aware of. I think it's. I think that I've just. I'm sorry to interrupt you there, but I wondered if I find it more of a sort of sympathetic thing. I don't mean that people feel sorry for you, but I always think that people are very sympathetic because it's not an easy thing to deal with. Unless that's. Maybe that's not your thoughts. I don't know. No, I think. I think that's right. I think that there's awareness of what diabetes is in its simplest form. I don't think there's the awareness of the wider implications and it's the way it affects your eyes, kidney. Well, the whole body, really. The vascular system, your whole body, definitely. I certainly agree with that. In terms of your mental state, like, how have you felt over the years? Because obviously, I know it's an emotional kind of sort of roller coaster. If someone was to ask me what the Type one was like. Even though it was a short period and I'm in remission, I'm always sort of fighting it every day. Has it been a bit of a roller coaster for you, sort of ups and and downs type of type thing? Well, I think I've probably said during our chat that I'm lucky. I wouldn't claim that anybody who's got diabetes, type 1 or 2, is really lucky, but I'm fortunate. My mental health has always been pretty good. I'm a very positive person and therefore I've never really let it get me down. I've lived a pretty good life, work most of my life. I was able to retire a bit early, so that's nice. But I've worked pretty much all my life. I still get away a fair bit. I like going to music festivals, which probably isn't the most sort of, you know, sort of easiest thing necessarily to do as a diabetic, but I've always found that there's very little you can't do. And although I'm not a big fan, I mean, you know, our Prime Minister is a type 1 diabetic. I have seen that. And the strangest thing is the more that you hear about diabetes, and even as yourself, with myself learning that I had type 2, the amount of people I meet along the way who have diabetes or type 1 or type 2, and that they've got their own story to tell. And it is a journey. I know that. So what would your daily diet consist of? What do you normally do? You sort of plan your meals. What would you eat per day? Yeah, I mean, I've always enjoyed cooking. I've actually been vegetarian for a long time and I don't actually eat masses of dairy either. But my eating is fairly, sort of, fairly routine. I mean, for breakfast I'd normally have something like a bowl of cereal or I might have some toast. Lunchtime, probably something like a sandwich in the evening, I do tend to cook something from scratch, so in that respect, my diet is probably a reasonably good diet insofar as I actually quite enjoy cooking. My problem is, and that's partly a problem of having broken my ankle and broken my leg in the past, is my mobility isn't great, so therefore I don't really exercise. Right, that's fair enough. So, in terms of your diet as well, though, have you seen about or heard about these low carb diets? I know that diabetes.co.uk and are promoting low carb diets and quite a few people are. Have you looked into any of those diets? I've not. And this may sound strange, but having had diabetes for as long as I have, I tend not to read a lot of articles about it. It's just become part of life. So I don't tend to sit and read lots and lot things about diabetes. I, I'm, I'm not convinced that a low carb diet would be something I would necessarily want to do. As I say, I'm sure that my overall health would be improved if I lost some weight. That, that said, my quality of life to me is more important than overall quality of life, I think is good. I enjoy life. I, I guess I'd like to lose some weight, but actually I enjoy life. Do appreciate that. And I mean, I'm not telling you to lose weight. Do you want to lose. Have you been advised to lose weight? Perhaps that's the better choice of words by your doctor, by health professionals? Yes, yes, a fair bit. But I've explained to nearly all the health professionals over the years that for me, I kind of apologize because I like the way, you know, I like what you're doing in terms of trying to get issues around diabetes out there. But to me, quality of life is almost as important, if not more important than quantity. I'd rather have a good quality life than necessarily a very long life. No, I do appreciate that. I've got to say that since I've personally, because obviously I've lost two stone on a personal level, it's been hard. So I've lost two stone because I felt that I needed to and it's given me a better quality of life, but I don't eat any less. So that's one good thing that I felt in my favor and I do appreciate that listeners and Keith, that it's about quality of life. It is about eating. You know, you want to eat good food, but you, you have to work it out. This is what I keep telling people, you have to work it out. So I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's still called it. The magazine that the Diabetic association, as I think they're called Diabetes UK now, used to produce, used to call Balance, I think I've seen. Yeah, and that always struck me as quite a good, a good name because I think that applies to so many aspects of diabetes. It's about trying to achieve a balance that you're happy with. And it's about get. Also I believe it's about getting support because listeners out there, a lot of people tell me they, you know, they need support. So it's about reading up, talking to people, speaking to health professionals, speaking to your doctor. I do know that, but is there anything that you'd advise your younger self or what advice would you give to somebody that has got type one that maybe is struggling? Certainly in terms of advising my younger self, as I have said, I don't think I'd have done anything significantly different. I'd have perhaps not to have broke my ankle all those years ago, but that was just a genuine accident. My only advice, and I don't feel that I'm, you know, in a good place to give people advice, is, you know, particularly with your feet, look after your feet, but don't sort of, don't not do things that you want to, you know, life's there for living. So I'm sure we could all be very, very careful and cautious and probably not really enjoy life. No, I do. I certainly think that's very good advice. The other thing is I know that I spend. I probably spent the last year and I don't know whether you still get. But I personally have spent the last year people advising me what I can't eat. And it's obviously, I know what I can eat and what I can't eat or what I don't want to eat. There's a big difference. Is that the sort of advice you get, people sort of saying you can't eat this, or do people now they're so used to not give you that advice anymore? I think people know me too well. I think at the end of the day, an important thing in life is, you know, kind of trying to know your own mind. I think I know enough about my own diabetes to know what I can and can't eat and what I should and shouldn't eat. So I'm afraid, by and large, I generally switch off if people start trying to give me advice about what I should and shouldn't eat. I understand. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to actually come to the show to speak to us today. It's been really, really interesting and listeners out there, if you do have any questions that you'd like to ask, do email us. Don't be forget email womensradiostation.com so thank you very much, Keith. No, thank you. I really enjoyed it. Women's radio station is looking forward to a great 2019 with more shows coming your way. All the presenters and the team behind each program would like to say a big thank you for listening. We are the voice of women worldwide and we cannot be without you. The journey has just begun with more exciting programs soon to be revealed. Women's Radio station. The voice of women worldwide. 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