Type 1 diabetic - eating every meal?

[mum2westiesGill]

Do we as a type 1 diabetic have to be eating every meal ie breakfast / lunch & evening meal?
It's a question I'm being asked all the time & i'm not even sure myself eg if i wanted to skip a meal because i may not feel hungry.

Thanks in advance for any help / replies 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

On MDI/pump as long as your basal insulin is set right there is no reason to eat a meal if you don't want to. The only thing you have to watch if not eating/fasting for any length of time is your liver getting twitchy about starvation and releasing glucose and/or any acted fact of activity (walking to the shops etc) on your BG - so not eating doesn't meal not testing 🙂

Edit: 'acted fact' was auto-corrected from 'action' :-/

 

[mum2westiesGill]

Thank you very much for your help on this everydayupsanddowns 🙂
This explains to me then why when I've skipped breakfast it's sky high by lunchtime or skipped lunch it's high by teatime. Correction dose would be needed at these times?

 

[mum2westiesGill]

As well as the constant question of "ohh do you have to eat all the time" I also get "ohh do you have to inject with every meal or every time you eat" 😡

 

[Marc]

If you are on a basal bolus regime then the answer to the first one is no and the second one is yes when you pancreas quits you have to do everything it would do and there is a heck of a lot of thought has to go into it too. It can be quite a fun game to get non diabetic people to have to pretend to be diabetic and do all we have to do, do finger prick tests 4 plus times a day, carb count their meals and snacks work out their hypothetical insulin dose, not forgetting carry hypo treatment.

Marc

 

[trophywench]

I think re breakfast, actually I would strongly recommend having it, of course it doesn't need to be carbohydrate based, but to get your metabolism going - it IS v important to literally, break your fast.

Not nutritionally wonderful but if nowt else, have a biscuit !

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Whiskeysmum - if you think of basal testing, that is basically missing a meal to evaluate one sort of insulin, so effectively missing a meal should be fine 🙂

 

[Otenba]

The DAFNE course teaches that the background insulin is designed to support you when you're not eating. It should hold you stable if the dose is correct for your body's needs, and as long as there are not other factors to consider - like an acute stress response, illness or you decide to do exercise. This applies regardless of your regime choice also (MDI or pump).

You might have to regularly eat though if you're Type 2, but I'll let a Type 2 confirm this possibility. Best wishes! 🙂

 

[Clarkey]

The DAFNE course answered all these questions for me, and i've put what I learnt in to action also.

Most have already answered these questions anyway, but i'll just add my experiences in too.

The other day I had a hotel stay and didn't feel like breakfast. I checked my sugars in the morning and they were fine. I took my morning BI then at lunch I was 6.9. So, because my BI is correct it did me no harm skipping breakfast.

You don't have to inject with every meal unless it has carbs. A carb free meal won't require any injection, and is also a method of Basal testing.

 

[mum2westiesGill]

The DAFNE course answered all these questions for me, and i've put what I learnt in to action also.

Most have already answered these questions anyway, but i'll just add my experiences in too.

The other day I had a hotel stay and didn't feel like breakfast. I checked my sugars in the morning and they were fine. I took my morning BI then at lunch I was 6.9. So, because my BI is correct it did me no harm skipping breakfast.

You don't have to inject with every meal unless it has carbs. A carb free meal won't require any injection, and is also a method of Basal testing.

Thank you!