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New Parent of Type 1 Diabetes son

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I

isput

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi All,

My son is 19 and was diagnosed with Type 1 in May this year. He is struggling to manage his levels and want to record his carbs but it's difficult as he's just started university. Can anyone recommend any carb counting apps. He has a Freestyle libra sensor. Thanks
 
Welcome @isput 🙂 Sorry to hear about your son’s diagnosis. It does take a while to get used to all the practical things, and emotionally it can take a while too. Things do get easier.

Is he on fixed doses still? Why does he want to record his carbs? If you mean he just wants help with working out the carb content of things, Carbs and Cals is popular. I don’t use any apps, just experience (and Google occasionally) along with info on the box/packet. Soon he’ll have a pretty good repertoire of carb values as he progresses.
 
Thanks Inka. His diabetic nurse wants him to count the carbs so he can adjust his insulin and not have so many highs and lows and have more of a consistent level by knowing how much insulin he needs for a certain number of carbs. He has just moved out and is cooking for himself so he only has a small repertoire of meals, so once he has the info it should be quite easy for him to know what's in each meal. At the moment he doesn't adjust the insulin and sticks to a fixed amount. If he has a big snack he has more insulin, but there's no system as to how much extra he takes.
 
Ah, yes - that’s known as “carb counting” ie adjusting your mealtime insulin dose according to the amount of carbs you’re about to eat. All Type 1s (should) do that. It always used to be taught at diagnosis but is sometimes not now annoyingly. It will give your son more flexibility and allow him to feel more normal in social situations too.

He’ll gradually work out his mealtime ratios - how many carbs 1 unit of insulin covers. As an example, my evening meal ratio is 1:10g. So if I was about to eat 40g carb I’d take 4 units of insulin.

I don’t actually like Carbs and Cals but many use it. He could try that, or simply get a good pair of digital scales and weigh things. I tend to have the same weight of pasta each time simply because I then don’t have to work out the carbs each time. Same with my breakfast cereal - I just weigh the same amount each day.

There’s a good online course about carb-counting called BERTIE. I’ll post a link in a moment.
 
My top tips are:

- get some digital scales
- make sure he’s differentiating between raw weight and cooked weight and reads the packet carefully to see which it’s using
- watch out for US websites and apps. They calculate carbs in a slightly different way. He needs U.K. sites.
- watch out for random slimming sites where users who are not diabetic sometimes put in daft carb counts. If it looks wrong, double-check elsewhere.
- keep a notebook with his fav meals in, along with the weights and carb count, then he can just look in his book without having to count.
 
Thanks for all the information Inka. We actually live in the Netherlands but originally come from the UK. My son doesn't speak Dutch so it's easier for him to use UK sites for information! Here they gradually introduce you to carb counting but he should be doing it by now! Just a lot of changes for him in the last 6 months.
 
Sorry to hear about your son’s diagnosis @isput.

I think most of us end up with a list of ‘regular’ meals that we know the counts for and the weight of the dry ingredients (eg rice/pasta) that make a known carb count, and (fairly!) predictable absorption behaviour.

I completely agree with all of @Inka’s top tips. Digital scales are very handy!

It might be worth his signing up for the ‘learning zone’ (link in the main menu) which has loads of informative modules to work through.

Members here also frequently recommend two well respected books, which are a mine of helpful information

Type 1 Diabetes in Children Adolescents and Young People by Ragnar Hanas - Don't be misled by the title - this book is relevant to people of all ages!

Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner - A practical guide to managing diabetes with insulin

And do keep asking questions on the forum too, we have literally centuries of lived T1 experience on the boards, and no question will be considered too obvious or ‘silly’ 🙂
 
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