Don't let Diabetes spoil your (Christmas) Day!

[Adrienne]

O dear - Can open, worms everywhere...

Hahaha don't worry, no-one has argued at all, all very interesting I reckon. 🙂🙂

 

[Nemo]

O dear - Can open, worms everywhere...

Oo- er, How many carbs in an average worm (if any)? and are the green ones impersonating Jelly babies or snakes?🙂

 

[Robster65]

Can I ust interject and say that I will be eating chocolate as soon as I cross the 4mmol boundary, but would not recommend anyone else to do the same.

I'm another coke and JB abuser.

Rob

 

[Northerner]

That's what I was told, if I had a hypo, take three jelly beans to recover my BG levels. I assume the green ones aren't your favourite Northerner? 🙂

It cannot be so far away,
When dawns that dreadful, fateful day
As, reaching to treat my hypo shocks,
I find just green ones in the box!

Oh, tell me Mr Basset please
Why waste your time producing these?
Tart on tongue, and jealous hue,
An aberration! Shame on you!

For lusty red, beguiling black
I could consume those by the sack!
Bright orange, sunny yellow too ?
I?d even accept a baleful blue!

But green brings foaming at the mouth,
One eye looks North, the other South,
Gripped by a kind of emerald rabies,
The Dark Lord of the Jelly Babies!

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Oo- er, How many carbs in an average worm (if any)? and are the green ones impersonating Jelly babies or snakes?🙂

http://www.naturalconfectionery.co.uk/jelly-squirms.aspx these squirms work out to 5 carbs a worm if that counts. Very yummy and sour.

 

[HelenM]

First we are talking of mild hypos, not ones caused by very much to much insulin or exercise.
For me, It depends on what you mean by chocolate. Good chocolate isn't going to help at all, a beautiful dark choc brandy truffle wouldn't help much at all, a milk chocolate filled with strawberry cream fondant might be fine.
If I'm not 'very' low I like to use pepermint aero, milk 'chocolate' and goodness knows what in the green bit. I bring it back from the UK especially for hypos when doing mild exercise. I'll use dextrose when running ... choc melts!.
This afternoon I went with a walking group on a 10km walk. Nobody except OH knows I have D and I'm not advertising it.My pump was set at 0.1unit an hour, so can't get much less. There were 2 times on the walk I 'know' I was hypo, light headed, loosing motivation, becoming self focused etc, didn't test but from past experience would have been 3 and 3.8mmol. Ate 2 pieces of pepermint aero each time. Finished the walk at 4.1mmol.

 

[Nemo]

It cannot be so far away,
When dawns that dreadful, fateful day
As, reaching to treat my hypo shocks,
I find just green ones in the box!

Oh, tell me Mr Basset please
Why waste your time producing these?
Tart on tongue, and jealous hue,
An aberration! Shame on you!

For lusty red, beguiling black
I could consume those by the sack!
Bright orange, sunny yellow too ?
I?d even accept a baleful blue!

But green brings foaming at the mouth,
One eye looks North, the other South,
Gripped by a kind of emerald rabies,
The Dark Lord of the Jelly Babies!

very good lol

 

[Copepod]

First we are talking of mild hypos, not ones caused by very much to much insulin or exercise.
For me, It depends on what you mean by chocolate. Good chocolate isn't going to help at all, a beautiful dark choc brandy truffle wouldn't help much at all, a milk chocolate filled with strawberry cream fondant might be fine.
If I'm not 'very' low I like to use pepermint aero, milk 'chocolate' and goodness knows what in the green bit. I bring it back from the UK especially for hypos when doing mild exercise. I'll use dextrose when running ... choc melts!.
This afternoon I went with a walking group on a 10km walk. Nobody except OH knows I have D and I'm not advertising it.My pump was set at 0.1unit an hour, so can't get much less. There were 2 times on the walk I 'know' I was hypo, light headed, loosing motivation, becoming self focused etc, didn't test but from past experience would have been 3 and 3.8mmol. Ate 2 pieces of pepermint aero each time. Finished the walk at 4.1mmol.

I must admit HelenM that's very much my approach to dealing with knowing I'm going low and not wanting to advertise it - only drawback with filled cheap chocolate is that it melts in clothes pockets, but OK if in rucksack pocket or jelly babies can be discretely scrumped from trouser / shorts pocket. Outside UK, one of the pleasures is finding other things to treat hypos - I think that crystalised fruit peel when marshalling on a multi day & night adventure race in Portugal was my favourite 🙂 Apart from Christmas with aunt & uncle at their Brittany small holding just after starting insulin, I haven't been back to France since diagnosis. Belgium was paarticularly good for fondant / caramel filled chocolate bars.

 

[Adrienne]

I think that my thoughts are that generally newly diagnosed people have to learn the proper rules ie 15 rule for treating hypos, 15 grams of quick acting, wait 15 mins, retest and repeat if still hypo.

It is once they have the knowledge and information they can decide what work for them as you guys have and that is where the rules are tweaked and people find what works for them.

I think for kids (and don't forget that my where my view is coming from) they need to learn and stick with the rules. There are some parents out there who have no idea and need help so basic rules are good.

Lots use jelly babies as well. Personally I couldn't because I would eat them all, including the green ones, and that wouldn't help Jessica's hypos one little bit 😉

 

[shiv]

Minor point but I disagree strongly with them saying excitement makes people go low. The majority of people I know, myself included, shoot up when I am excited (unless I use temp basals, I end up in the 20s during concerts, and last weekend at a christmas meal with my friends I didn't get below 12 until I put on a temp basal and started drinking!). Not saying they are totally wrong but just misleading for people who might change insulin because of that advice.

 

[Robster65]

Minor point but I disagree strongly with them saying excitement makes people go low. The majority of people I know, myself included, shoot up when I am excited (unless I use temp basals, I end up in the 20s during concerts, and last weekend at a christmas meal with my friends I didn't get below 12 until I put on a temp basal and started drinking!). Not saying they are totally wrong but just misleading for people who might change insulin because of that advice.

I did wonder that too. I always equated excitement with the same as stress. Increased adrenalin, etc so logically go up.

Rob

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

But then again I've had stress drop my levels through the floor!

Tch! Never easy is it!

 

[Adrienne]

Minor point but I disagree strongly with them saying excitement makes people go low. The majority of people I know, myself included, shoot up when I am excited (unless I use temp basals, I end up in the 20s during concerts, and last weekend at a christmas meal with my friends I didn't get below 12 until I put on a temp basal and started drinking!). Not saying they are totally wrong but just misleading for people who might change insulin because of that advice.

Whispering : I disagree with lots they say but wasn't going to start listing it here............ I think their sweeping statements are not a good impression and can mislead

Creeping quietly back into my corner

 

[imtrying]

haha this is why I love this forum!!

but yes, for me personally....stress & excitment seem to have the same affect. maybe they should have just stuck to saying that emotions such as stress & excitment may affect your levels, so test more frequesntly... people need to know what to do, but not be dictated to about what will happen to them, as most probably it won't!!

 

[trophywench]

Aaahh Copepod

May I recommend you to a Belgian Choc maker/shop by the name of Leonidas?

They actually take strips of candied orange peel and cover em with dark chocolate!

My two favouritest things in the world, joined together .....

Dribble .......

 

[MeanMom]

O dear that will teach me...

I'm afraid I was not really thinking about the hypo advice etc when I posted the link - just thought the advice re carb counting Christmas Dinner would be useful.

Thing is (whispers very very quietly) I posted a question a few weeks ago about fast treatment for hypo's and was advised by several people to try OJ, which we did, and it so far has worked for K Also she can and does go low if she is excited (ie 'good stess') but can go high if she is anxious ('bad stress')

So I had no idea I was opening a can of worms and I promise to be more careful with my links in future

 

[Northerner]

I'm afraid I was not really thinking about the hypo advice etc when I posted the link - just thought the advice re carb counting Christmas Dinner would be useful.

Thing is (whispers very very quietly) I posted a question a few weeks ago about fast treatment for hypo's and was advised by several people to try OJ, which we did, and it so far has worked for K Also she can and does go low if she is excited (ie 'good stess') but can go high if she is anxious ('bad stress')

So I had no idea I was opening a can of worms and I promise to be more careful with my links in future

It's spawned a very interesting discussion MM, so no need to apologise! It just shows that we need to find out what our most effective treatment of choice is. I can see how giving guidelines to people is necessary, but also highly confusing if it's not explained just how complex and individual diabetes is. It must be much harder for parents of T1 children I think because you can't actually feel the hypo and they can be very difficult for the child to articulate (or adults too!). So sometimes I might have a 3.8 and have a slice of toast because I know that I'm not dropping quickly and have no fast-acting insulin circulating. Other times it's pretty clear that it's dropping rapidly.

 

[imtrying]

It's spawned a very interesting discussion MM, so no need to apologise! It just shows that we need to find out what our most effective treatment of choice is. I can see how giving guidelines to people is necessary, but also highly confusing if it's not explained just how complex and individual diabetes is. It must be much harder for parents of T1 children I think because you can't actually feel the hypo and they can be very difficult for the child to articulate (or adults too!). So sometimes I might have a 3.8 and have a slice of toast because I know that I'm not dropping quickly and have no fast-acting insulin circulating. Other times it's pretty clear that it's dropping rapidly.

I agree. It just strengthens that we are all different and different things work for different people. we all should just be open to trying new ideas (see if they work) and then decide if they are right for us personally or not.

I have no idea how my parents coped it makes me feel very sad reading all the parent's posts on here & thinking that was probably my mum & dad, but they didn't have any support network.