"If diabetes is one of the reasons I'm not doing something, that's more reason I should do it."
Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 13, Felix talks us through the adjustment of managing his diabetes independently for the first time at university, the reality of hypos in lecture halls, and why he refuses to let diabetes be the reason he doesn't do something.
A note: what worked for Felix reflects his own experience and physiology, developed over years of living with T1D. It isn't a set of instructions to copy – everyone's management is different, and any changes to insulin or routine should only be made with your own diabetes team.
This is Felix's Hypo Diary…
Could you tell us a bit about your background – when were you diagnosed, and what was that like?
I was diagnosed in December 2016, when I was 13, in a fairly classic story: needing the bathroom loads, my mum getting a bit of an inkling it was probably diabetes. Then it was off to the doctors, waiting for the ambulance, and it was all much more serious than I ever imagined. I spent a couple of days in hospital, and then I was out and just managing it.
At the start, management was much more manual: a lot more finger pricking, a lot more injecting. You're learning what it actually is at the same time as living it, and I definitely had thoughts of "why me," almost a "what does this mean for the rest of my life?" feeling. It gets so much easier though; medical advancements mean the technology and insulin available make management a bit easier over time. I'd say I manage it moderately well now.
What was the biggest adjustment moving from home to university?
Managing my own insulin stock – working out how many boxes I'd need before I next went home, rather than realising last minute I only had one left. I went from having that managed by someone else, to suddenly managing it myself. That's the biggest adjustment, I'd say. I wouldn't say it changed my overall experience of university, it just made me a bit more careful than others, perhaps.
Did hypos ever affect you during lectures or exams?
Definitely. I remember it so vividly… sitting down for a two-hour lecture, starting to beep, sweating, not being able to concentrate, looking around to see if anyone's got sugar on them. It's hell. In a lecture, I'd just turn my phone off completely rather than disturb the whole hall. You don't want everyone craning their necks to look at the guy who's beeping. So you turn it off, know you're low, sort yourself out, and get on with it.
Was there a stand-out moment where you didn't let T1D hold you back?
Definitely the amateur boxing event I did. It wasn't a huge organisation, and I wasn't sure they'd have the right setup in place for a diabetic fighter, so I made the decision to manage it myself rather than risk being told I couldn't take part. I strapped tape over my Dexcom so it wouldn't be visible - people probably just thought I had a bicep injury. I was really focused on not going low during the fight, and had a plan in place just in case, but didn't end up needing it. I didn't go low at all - though to be honest, it didn't last long, I got knocked out within a minute.
Part of why I wanted to do it in the first place was thinking: if diabetes is one of the reasons I'm not doing something, that's more reason I should do it. I'm certainly proud of that.
What's it like managing your glucose on a night out, compared to your friends?
Alcohol is one area where nights out probably look a bit different for me. I'd usually stick to diet drinks to avoid an extra sugar spike. There's a particular memory from my graduation day: everyone was drinking, in a great mood, we'd just finished the ceremony, and then I had a hypo, and it completely knocked the wind out of my sails. It didn't just sober me up, it felt like a reminder: well, that's reality now, isn't it.
It feeds into a bigger misconception, too, that Type 1 diabetics can't have certain things. I’d get comments like "you need to watch your sugar with that," which is more of a Type 2 assumption applied to Type 1. I think when you're doing something people see as excessive, like drinking, exercising, whatever it is, you're bound to get more of those comments.
What was the support like when you started university, and what would genuinely help students with T1D now?
Honestly, I didn't really ask for guidance, and probably would have turned it down anyway. I was put in accessible accommodation, two doors down from the only other person with T1D I knew from college, and got a mini fridge, which was great. The support was adequate – they gave me the facilities to manage things myself as best I could.
What would help more is education for people who aren't diabetic themselves. Playing rugby most of the team knew I was diabetic, but they didn't really know what that meant in practice - that I might need a hypo recovery drink instead of water at half time, or need to test my blood, or that there's a lag between having sugar and actually being able to perform again. It's the kind of thing that's easy to underestimate: if my blood sugar dropped during judo in my final year, that was often the whole session gone - treatment can take a good half hour to work, so there was no catching up once it hit.
What are you proudest of, in how you've navigated the last few years with T1D?
Definitely the boxing event, and just generally not letting diabetes talk me out of things. It doesn't stop you from doing anything, you’ve just got to be on it.
Keeping the balance is almost certainly the hardest part of diabetes. You can get frustrated about the misconceptions and everything else, but really it's about preventing yourself from going low, getting out of a low as fast as you can, and stopping yourself from yo-yoing. That's the most difficult part, for me.
TAKEAWAY
Felix's story shows what it actually looks like to manage T1D at university day to day: figuring things out yourself, learning your own patterns through trial and error, and not letting it be the reason you sit something out. The gap he points to is less about the support available to people with T1D, and more about the understanding among the people around them: teammates, coursemates, and friends who mean well but don't always grasp what day-to-day management actually involves.
Thank you to Felix for sharing his story and experience with us. Stay tuned for our next Hypo Diaries interview!