Hi all
Just want to pitch in here as another mum... What's most difficult I think in these early days (we are only 10 weeks in) is actually matching carb to insulin...We can carb count til the cows come home, but at the moment my son has a cap on his dose, which means that if we do suddenly decide to build in cake or something, quite often this means that we *know* he will have a big high because we *can't* cover it with insulin because (I guess) no one is entirely sure yet how his body reacts to everything. This was proven last week when we had a whole entire week of regular hypos on levels which had been just fine. Now suddenly we are in higher doses again.
I understand that much of this fluctuation and care is down to the honeymoon period and/or puberty, and of course we have run into constant problems with things like rice, pasta and potatoes -- so nothing is predictable! But I have to confess that we are not allowing high carb *snacks* really at all -- certainly nothing over 15 g (though within this 15 g there are times when it might be a little bit of chocolate, or a couple of biscuits). This *has* been a change, because he quite often used to grab a sandwich between meals. Any carb heavy sweet treats he is having, he is having with meals, so we can at least try to cover them. The obvious solution would be to make sure that his main meals are low-ish carb to account for the sweet treat, but we are only sometimes managing that!
Another option is to inject after the meal, so you know what he's eaten; none of us can know going in exactly what we will want? Again, we've just started this when he thinks there's a possibility he'll want pudding (which none of us have with regularity anyway, so it's no big deal).
One thing I have been doing occasionally is changing the balance of his packed lunch, so I might pack a jam sandwich, which he loves, alongside cold sausages, cheese, baby tomatoes and a pot of yoghurt... Then he gets some sweet carb, but the low carb healthy stuff too, without another carb heavy sandwich. He does LOVE jam doughnuts, which we have never had regularly anyway...but I suspect I will sometimes do the same with them.
If he feels like a square of chocolate though, we let him have one! The background insulin should always cover...
Another of his favourite things is hot chocolate, and while the carb content of the one we normally have is too high for a snack, we have switched to Options, made with milk, which all of us like. He can then have it with breakfast, or in from the snow, or whatever.
Okay, enough from me! I guess I just wanted to say that as parents of newly diagnosed, near-puberty kids, we are advised to take things slowly. AND mixed messages are sent: I spent the first two weeks looking at sugar content for snacks rather than carbohydrate. Duh. But in hospital I was just flummuxed by the dietician, who was pushing low sugar AND low carb, and was just confusing. It was the worst experience ever: we all left the consultation feeling that he can't have honey on his yoghurt anymore ('try dried fruit'), jam, honey nut cheerios ('plain is better'), etc. OMG. It was awful. Much better now!
Thanks for listening....
