Bill Stewart
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1.5 LADA
Paul
Having just read all through your thread, i am glad like the others to see you have started to get to grips with the insulin and food stuff, we all have to deal with.
I am , like you a "workaholic" I get up at 6am and work until 4am most days. I am 56 and have done this most of my adult life. The problem of diabetes is that you must punctuate your days with food and insulin, it does not matter which way you do it. Eat first then stab or stab and jag, as long as you supply the body with enough to absorb the free sugars floating around in your blood stream. The DAFNE course will help you greatly, but be aware that when you do end up in hospital you will probably meet DIABETIC SUFFERING nurses who are less aware of such systems than you will be. I am often asked what would you take for lunch as if lunch always contains the same amount of carbohydrate everytime. Insulin opens your cells enough to get the sugars in and the more you want to do the more sugar needs to be absorbed. You cannot follow some strict diet or medication regeme because each day ,each meal and each activity requires different treament. Fortunatly you will know what you need (in time). Dafne needs you to look at what sugars you have floating aboat unabsorbed in your blood before your meal and to add a correction to you insulin to account for that old sugar, so you will dose a little more for any excess and then consider the meal you are about to consume. All of the doses we take are based on our own unique phsyiologies and are expressed as ratios. for me I take 1unit for every 7.5g of carbohydrate and 1unit for every 1.5mml/l of sugar in my blood. I am a little lax and like to run at around 10 or 11 as I am working these crazy hours like yourself, so I target each reading to get to 10 except when I have a sick day and then I push for an 8. BTW when sick ( keatones present) I push 5 units every 2 hours until my sugars return to a normal range and the keatones fall below 0.6.
I must say you have been very lucky to get this far and to find this welcoming and helpful forum.
I got here by having a DKA (Which I would not recomend) way too much drips/titrations and pain!
Now that you are getting sorted, you could try what I have done with friends and family and also classes when in schools and educate them to enable them to get a diabetic up and running or fetching assistance which ever is best given the circumstance.
My 3 year old granddaughter Chiara - when she visits - wakes her grandfather at 6am and feeds him his painkillers (every so often 1 might be a little salty, but she's only 3), she them "stabs pop" and take a bloood reading and disposses of the strip in the sharps bin. Now for the good bit - she gets out the safety needles and sets up my pen for the pre porridge dose and presents it, clears the needle with 2 units and then checks that it reads 8 before thrusting it into my arm (less painful if she gets anything wrong- and she never has) depresses the button counts to 6 and then disassembles pen placinig needle in sharps bin and the pen in the box - and then drags pop down stairs to share in a big bowl of porridge. Her older sister is a little less forward and not so good with the pen, but wants to try. Everyone knows what to do (and they have to - god forbid i should ever need them to help - but I know they can) I carry as you should something overly sweet and fast acting for the hypos that we will surely have (fun sized bags of haribo and hypo-stop/glucogell). "pops medicine" is a talking point and a nice treat which even in the most confused state I will happy take and they are always there at the end of the day to say thank you to my private nurses.
Everyone should know what to do with a diabetic
Having just read all through your thread, i am glad like the others to see you have started to get to grips with the insulin and food stuff, we all have to deal with.
I am , like you a "workaholic" I get up at 6am and work until 4am most days. I am 56 and have done this most of my adult life. The problem of diabetes is that you must punctuate your days with food and insulin, it does not matter which way you do it. Eat first then stab or stab and jag, as long as you supply the body with enough to absorb the free sugars floating around in your blood stream. The DAFNE course will help you greatly, but be aware that when you do end up in hospital you will probably meet DIABETIC SUFFERING nurses who are less aware of such systems than you will be. I am often asked what would you take for lunch as if lunch always contains the same amount of carbohydrate everytime. Insulin opens your cells enough to get the sugars in and the more you want to do the more sugar needs to be absorbed. You cannot follow some strict diet or medication regeme because each day ,each meal and each activity requires different treament. Fortunatly you will know what you need (in time). Dafne needs you to look at what sugars you have floating aboat unabsorbed in your blood before your meal and to add a correction to you insulin to account for that old sugar, so you will dose a little more for any excess and then consider the meal you are about to consume. All of the doses we take are based on our own unique phsyiologies and are expressed as ratios. for me I take 1unit for every 7.5g of carbohydrate and 1unit for every 1.5mml/l of sugar in my blood. I am a little lax and like to run at around 10 or 11 as I am working these crazy hours like yourself, so I target each reading to get to 10 except when I have a sick day and then I push for an 8. BTW when sick ( keatones present) I push 5 units every 2 hours until my sugars return to a normal range and the keatones fall below 0.6.
I must say you have been very lucky to get this far and to find this welcoming and helpful forum.
I got here by having a DKA (Which I would not recomend) way too much drips/titrations and pain!
Now that you are getting sorted, you could try what I have done with friends and family and also classes when in schools and educate them to enable them to get a diabetic up and running or fetching assistance which ever is best given the circumstance.
My 3 year old granddaughter Chiara - when she visits - wakes her grandfather at 6am and feeds him his painkillers (every so often 1 might be a little salty, but she's only 3), she them "stabs pop" and take a bloood reading and disposses of the strip in the sharps bin. Now for the good bit - she gets out the safety needles and sets up my pen for the pre porridge dose and presents it, clears the needle with 2 units and then checks that it reads 8 before thrusting it into my arm (less painful if she gets anything wrong- and she never has) depresses the button counts to 6 and then disassembles pen placinig needle in sharps bin and the pen in the box - and then drags pop down stairs to share in a big bowl of porridge. Her older sister is a little less forward and not so good with the pen, but wants to try. Everyone knows what to do (and they have to - god forbid i should ever need them to help - but I know they can) I carry as you should something overly sweet and fast acting for the hypos that we will surely have (fun sized bags of haribo and hypo-stop/glucogell). "pops medicine" is a talking point and a nice treat which even in the most confused state I will happy take and they are always there at the end of the day to say thank you to my private nurses.
Everyone should know what to do with a diabetic
Let them watch an adult, maybe, but not set up and use the pen themselves.
