Jim - Interview 26

Age at interview: 78

Brief Outline: Jim has been retired for several years, but is still very active and likes to work in the garden. He does suffer from diabetes and this has affected his health and his sleep. He finds he has to be careful to carry sugar with him, and think about when he should be eating and drinking. Occasionally he has problems during the night caused by his diabetes.

Background: Married, six children, retired Handyman at a Caravan Centre, formerly in the Army.

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Jim has found his sleep has changed since he retired, about 18 years ago. He finds that because he is less active now, he sleeps less well, although he does try and keep busy, especially in the summer months when he enjoys being outside. But Jim also thinks his sleep is now affected by his diabetes. About once a week he has a hypo in the night and has to get up and get something to eat and drink, and this does worry him. Sometimes when he wakes up in the night Jim comes downstairs, makes a cup of tea and has a snack, and watches the teletext on the television. After this he feels ready to go back to bed.

 

Jim also finds he now has to get up a few times in the night to go to the toilet, but he has been told this is because of his age and because he has diabetes. He feels he would go back to the doctor about this if he found he was getting up a lot more in the night and it was disturbing his sleep.

 

When Jim sits down in the afternoon to read a book, he sometimes finds he has fallen asleep, and may sleep for about an hour. He would rather not do this because he believes it may interfere with his night time sleep.

Jim's strategy for good sleep focused on how to prevent having a hypoglycaemic episode in the...

So if I said to you if you could give some advice to other people who are having problems like you sleeping, what kind of advice would you give? Have you got any strategies or anything you could give to people and say I recommend this to you?

 

Well it depends really what problems they have got. Whether they are diabetic or not. Or what I could say that if are diabetic all you could do is you take your medication, stick with that, be aware of these hypo things, the bad times they are. Make sure you know how to deal with it you know, your doctor will tell you what to do and that sort of thing. And make sure you have always got something handy to take, especially if you go out, you know, you should always have a disc on you. I haven’t got one but I will get one. Always take some sugar with you or something, because like I say if anybody comes across you and you are collapsed in the street, they don’t know whether you are drunk or what unless you have got that disc on and if you are working with people make sure that they are aware that you are a diabetic so that they know what to do to help you at that time. You know. If you make sure they know you have got some sugar with you or something or you can get an injection you carry something for an injection and make sure these people know how to administer it, you know. It is quite difficult really for people at work to do that for you. But if you only see a lot of friends they would wouldn’t they.

 

Yes.

 

As for being in the street, well it is anybody’s luck isn’t it. The only thing is they might whip you into an ambulance and they would be able to tell. The ambulance people would know you hadn’t been drinking, so they would know what it was. I have got a book on there all about hypos. 

Jim's doctor has told him that the reason he now gets up a lot more in the night to go to the...

So when you get up in the night, is that the main reason you get up for is to go and get something to eat and drink and that settles you down?

 

Well mainly I get up to go to the toilet actually.

 

That is normal.

 

That has got worse. Yes. I am getting up three times a night.

 

Right.

 

To go to the toilet. So I go to bed ten or eleven. I go before I go to bed, get up about one, half past one, three o’clock, six o’clock. It is worse than the actual hypo thing. You know.

 

So that happens as well every night?

 

Practically yes.

 

And how long has that been going on?

 

Well that has been going on about a couple of years. Yes. It has gradually got worse. I mentioned it to the doctor and they said, it is age, you can’t do nothing about it. It just comes and goes.

Jim's diabetes means he may have a ‘hypo' in the night which wakes him up and he has to get up to...

So perhaps if you could just start by giving me a description of what your normal night’s sleep is for you as it is now?

 

Well, I we sit around, watch television up to about ten, ten thirty. Retire at 10.30 to 11. Basically we hope to sleep throughout the night which is not always the case. Due to, as I mentioned earlier, about being a diabetic and suffering some hypos they can come on at any time. Day time or even during night time hours, so consequently if you get one, it sort of automatically triggers things so that you wake up, you know, you can’t have one and continue to sleep. It wakes you up, so you have to do something about it.

 

So how are you aware that you are having a hypo what happens?

 

Well it is a strange sort of feeling really, you sort of become disorientated, but of course that doesn’t matter really if you are lying in bed. You are not going to fall down or anything but the point is you have got to make the effort, get a grip of yourself to get out in the kitchen to make a cup of tea, you know. You tend to shake and you lose focus with your vision that sort of thing you know, it can be very bad outdoors anything like that, but of course if you are indoors you are all right.