You Should Feel Empowered to Advocate for Yourself and Your Diabetes

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This was the message conveyed to me after one of the best endocrinology appointments I’ve ever had, at least in my adulthood.

I’ll confess that I was nervous going to my first endo appointment of the new year. I didn’t know what to expect as I wasn’t bringing any specific concerns with me – besides the fact that I was upset about a conversation I’d had with a different doctor regarding a separate issue.

After the nurse practitioner and I exchanged pleasantries, she sat down at the computer screen that was displaying my record and asked me what I wanted to discuss during our appointment.

That’s when it all came flooding out.

I babbled about how I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to talk to her about besides the fact that I got a very discouraging message from a doctor who told me I needed to have better control over my diabetes, and that this was infuriating to me because 1) not all of my health concerns can be blamed on my diabetes and 2) it was disheartening to be told by one subset of my health care team that I’m doing great with an A1c of around 7, but to hear from another subset that I’m not doing great and need to work harder. Once I finished my train of thought, I braced myself for a less-than-favorable reaction.

But that’s not what I got.

I’m really glad that nobody walked into the exam room as I was taking goofy selfies like this.

Rather, my NP asked me to explain my concerns in greater detail. She sat, listened, and told me that she disagreed with the comments from my other doctor’s office. It was validating to hear someone who actually does work in diabetes reassure me that, for starters, my diabetes might not necessarily be to blame for any other health issues I was experiencing. She also made me feel better about my A1c and that my track record proves how hard I’ve worked over the years to maintain a 7 (or below) and that it’s not indicative at all of a lack of control over anything.

Best of all, when I sheepishly admitted to her that I’d been embarrassed to write in about the health concern in question, she reminded me that I should always feel empowered to advocate for myself and my overall wellness. It was an incredibly powerful message for her to convey to me, seeing as my self-doubt had manifested itself in full-force over this whole interaction with the doctor’s office. And it’s a message that I plan to carry with me to future doctor’s appointments to help ensure that I do stay on top of my health to the fullest extent possible, while also making my voice heard.

At the end of the appointment, my NP turned and said to me that I’m an inspiration. While I don’t exactly agree with her words, I can’t remember the last time I left an appointment feeling truly understood as a patient living with type 1 diabetes. That’s what’s inspiring to me…the fact that a physician took the time to recognize the hard work it takes to live everyday life with T1D. And the discovery that my A1c has dropped by .3 to a level that I’m very proud to have reached – well, that’s the cherry on top of my first endocrinology visit of 2022.

“You Need to Have Better Control”

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I read those six words, all strung together in a terse message from my doctor’s office.

Not exactly the response I was anticipating when I reached out to them to express concerns over a minor health issue I was experiencing…

Let me back up a bit. In early January, I decided to message one of my doctor’s to discuss said minor health issue. A week went by and I didn’t hear anything from them, so I sent them another message, reminding them gently that I was hoping for a reply sooner rather than later. Several more days pass by and I start to get annoyed, but I still keep everything in perspective: Maybe they’re understaffed at the moment. Perhaps a computer error prevented them from getting my messages. Or they might be just crazy busy with beginning-of-the-year appointments and responsibilities. Whatever the case may be, I decided to message one more time, drawing attention to the fact that my first message had been sent two weeks prior and that if I didn’t hear back by the end of the week, then I’d just call the office to hopefully connect with a nurse.

Luckily, it didn’t come down to that because within 48 hours of me sending that third message, I finally heard back from someone. And this someone said something that left me a bit gobsmacked:

“…with an A1c of 7 – you need to be better with your control.”

Life with diabetes often feels like this image – like you’re the only one in the control room of a command center that dictates whether or not you live. And yep, it’s exhausting.

I couldn’t believe what I’d just read, for multiple reasons. For starters, I’d mentioned in my first message that I *think* my A1c was right around 7, but I couldn’t be sure because it’s been a bit since I last had my A1c checked. So clearly, by reading the response from my doctor, nobody had gone in to check my records or look up my historical A1c – which may or may not have provided them with better context so they could answer my question better, but that’s besides the point. What had me most irate was the fact that I’ve been told – time and time again – that I’m doing a great job with an A1c around 7. I’ve had endos and nurse practitioners alike tell me that I don’t need to make any major changes and that I’m too hard on myself when I express a desire to get a lower A1c. So to have a completely different medical professional make a snap judgment right then and there that implies I do not have control over my A1c is obviously in direct conflict with what I’ve heard from others. How maddening is that?

Furthermore…I’m sorry, but A1c does not paint a complete picture of my “control”. I believe, along with many other people in the diabetes community (including medical professionals) that time in range is where it’s at. The amount of time I spend in range is leaps and bounds better than where I was in college – and honestly, so is my A1c.

This is why it’s incredibly frustrating to me that this person handled my health issue as though it was directly related to my diabetes and their perception of my lack of control. The three-sentence, curt reply to my initial message didn’t exactly help matters either, though I’m trying to not read too much into that…after all, you can’t gauge tone via written message.

I’ve decided the best way to handle this whole exchange is to bring my issue up again when I see this doctor later in the year. I’m not going to reply in the message thread, because I don’t see how that would cause any good, but I will bring this up when I go to see the nurse practitioner at my endocrinologist’s office at the end of this month. While she likely can’t fully help me address my health concern, she’s bound to provide me with some insight and some actual helpful advice that won’t involve her jumping to conclusions about my control. We’ll see how it goes.

For now, I will just have to try to keep my head held up high by taking control of the situation, if not my diabetes.

The Best (and Worst) Insulin Pump Infusion and CGM Sensor Sites

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This blog post was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on April 1, 2020. I’m sharing it again today because it’s actually one of – if not THE – most popular blog post I’ve ever written. Maybe folks find it helpful as they ponder trying new sites or maybe they’re simply curious to learn what has and has not worked for me. Don’t worry, I spill all the details on everything – read on to get the full scoop!

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Like many other people with diabetes, I wear two devices on my body at all times: my insulin pump (my pod) and my continuous glucose monitor (CGM). And I’m often asked whether or not these little gadgets are painful.

Fortunately, the answer is that most of the time, they aren’t. I rarely feel it when my CGM sensor or my insulin pod’s cannula pierce my skin, which makes the whole experience of wearing them a lot more comfortable – and much less dreadful when it’s time to rotate sites.

Speaking of sites and pain, though, I admit that there are some sites that, for me, tend to work better than others. The following are the different locations I use for my pod and CGM sensors, in order of what tends to be best to the worst. My stomach is my preferred spot for my pod AND my sensor.

Stomach: This is the site at which I have the best insulin absorption, so it’s a clear winner for me when it comes to my pod placement. I also find that it almost never hurts when I press up against the pod (e.g., when I roll over in bed in the middle of the night) when it’s on my belly. The same is true for my CGM sensors, which also seem to be the most accurate when they’re placed on my abdomen. I guess there’s a reason why the stomach site is the only one recommended by the FDA for the Dexcom CGM (which is what I use)!

Lower back: I have yet to try my CGM here, but I often place my pod on my lower back without issue. This site can be trickier to navigate because if I forget that my pod’s there when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I can come precariously close to accidentally knocking it off – and I have in the past. Plus, the pod can rub up against me in an unpleasant way when I’m working out; specifically, doing any sort of abdominal exercise on the ground. But it’s not something I can’t tolerate, and the insulin absorption in this location is just too good in general for me to pass over it altogether.

Upper arm: I wear my pod and CGM on my upper arms sometimes, but they don’t always adhere well for some reason. Getting dressed can be even more problematic for me if I forget that my sites are on my arms – I’ve totally ripped off pods and sensors when I’ve been taking off and putting on clothing. And for a long time, my CGM sensors would make me bleed when I inserted them in my upper arm. I never figured out why, and the problem seems to have gone away, but it definitely made me a little more wary about using my arms as a site (PLUS any devices I wear on my arms are highly visible, and I don’t always like it when people stare at them).

Thigh: Hands-down, the worst site for my pods are my thighs. For starters, wearing denim jeans – especially if they’re skinny jeans – are such a feat when wearing a thigh pod. The fabric pushes up against the pod in such a way that I prefer wearing dresses, skirts, or leggings for the three days that I have a thigh pod just so I can be more comfortable. And speaking of comfort, it’s tough for me to get into a cozy sleeping position when I have a thigh pod because I like sleeping on my stomach sometimes, and there’s just too much pressure up against my pod when it’s on my thigh. And for me, it seems that insulin absorption just isn’t great on my thighs (maybe because they’re on the muscular side). BUT, I will say…I recently tried a CGM sensor on my thigh for the first time and I didn’t hate it! The accuracy was good and it wasn’t in the way as much as a thigh pod (I keep wanting to type “tide pod”) would be. I’ve only had it on my leg for a few days now so I don’t know yet how the adhesive will hold up, but I’ll find out.

Spots I haven’t tried yet (but want to): On social media, I’ve seen people wear Dexcom sensors on their forearms (eek), upper butt cheek (tee-hee), and even on their calves. And pod placement can get even wilder with spots in the center of the back (HOW can people reach back there) and, um, the upper-breast area (one word: ouch). While I don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to try some of those spots, I am curious about others.

The bottom line is, though, that the sites that work best for me might not work as well for you. (The same thing can be said for my worst sites.) But it is important to remember, above all, the importance of rotating sites…even though I’m clearly not a huge fan of pods on my legs, I’ll still suck it up and place them there because I know that I should be careful of scar tissue buildup.

It just makes the pod-and-sensor-change days that much more pleasant when I can move them from a disliked site to a favorite site, anyways.

T1D and “What If?”

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For me, my type 1 diabetes, anxiety, and the phrase “what if” go hand-in-hand. Or maybe in this case, it should be sweaty-nervous-palm in sweaty-nervous-palm.

In the past, I’ve written about how I believe there is a direct connection between the way my anxiety manifests itself and my diabetes. There’s no denying that the two are related. But another thing that ties the two together in a neat, worried package are these two simple words…”what” and “if”.

Of course, those two words are often followed by a series of other words that turns everything into a full question that is born from my anxiety. The questions all follow the same formula: What if X, Y, or Z happens? Questioning whether something will or will not happen will inevitably trigger me to convince myself that a less-than-desirable scenario will occur, leading me to slowly spiral as I ponder how I can possibly handle said less-than-desirable scenario.

Not following me here? I’ll give you an example. Take my incident last week when I mistakenly gave myself 10x more insulin than I intended to take (10 units versus 1 unit). When I was processing the gravity of that mistake, I asked myself, “What if I’d given myself 100 units? What if I’d been alone when all this happened?”, causing me to think about how much more dire that situation would’ve been and sending chills down my spine. It’s not fun to go down a path like that, yet for much of my life I’ve forced myself to face many “what if” scenarios that have never even happened because my anxiety lead me to that line of thinking.

After 24 years of T1D, though, and living all of my years with anxiety paralyzing me every now and then, I’m trying harder to challenge the “what ifs” and stop allowing them to rule my life, not just my perception of my diabetes.

“What if…”

I guess this is my public declaration, or vow, or affirmation, or whatever you’d like to call it that I want to be better about knocking those “what ifs” out of my way when I feel as though T1D or my anxiety are limiting me. I’m hoping to stop thinking about diabetes as a condition in which I’m held back by “what if” scenarios or one that aggravates my anxiety; instead, I want to have it be more autonomous and separate it from the negative thinking that all too often interferes with my everyday life. I’m just tired of thinking about diabetes with a “worst-case” mindset, so what if…what if I take back control of the “what if” and say “what if I have a really great diabetes day today? or “what if I know more about managing diabetes than I previously thought I did?”

Changing the overall tone of those what ifs sounds like hard work, but it also sounds like worthwhile work. So I’m challenging myself to do it, stick to it, and think…what if I could change how I feel about my diabetes and anxiety, and grow to love them for how they’ve made me stronger, more independent, and brave?

What if, indeed.

The Major Diabetes Mistake I Made

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I recently experienced a diabetes first: I bolused myself for 10 units of insulin instead of the one, single unit that I had intended to give myself.

Whoops.

Major whoops.

This careless mistake occurred because I simply wasn’t paying attention when I was inputting numbers into my PDM. I thought I had entered “10” as the amount next to the number of carbs I was about to eat when in reality, I overrode my PDM’s suggestion from 1 to 10 in the total bolus calculator. And I didn’t even realize this until I heard my pod beep randomly several minutes after I’d fiddled around with my PDM. Thank goodness I did notice that beep; otherwise, I would’ve been alerted to my mistake about an hour later when my blood sugar would inevitably start to plummet.

Upon hearing that beep, I decided to check my PDM to see what was up – I assumed that maybe I had a temp basal running that I’d forgotten about, and my pod was just letting me know that it was finished. Obviously, this was not the case. When I saw that I’d bolused 10 units, a wave a panic crashed over me and I immediately started crying. My poor mother, who witnessed me making this discovery, started inquiring what was wrong and I explained to her what I’d done while I brushed angry, frustrated tears off my face. I was in disbelief that I’d done something so stupid. My mom, though, brought me back to reality and redirected my attention to the fact that I should prioritize finding food to eat that would ensure that my blood sugar wouldn’t crash any time soon. I remember taking a breath, then scanning the kitchen for something high-carb that would kick in sooner rather than later.

My eyes landed on cereal, which is notorious for causing blood sugar spikes but also incredibly easy to eat lots of…especially when you aren’t overly hungry but desperately need to eat in order to avoid a scary situation.

See my finger hovering over the digital touchscreen of my PDM? It’s pretty dang easy for said finger to slip and hit a number when I didn’t mean to do so.

So I poured myself a big bowl of Life cereal mixed with Cheerios – not my first choice when it comes to cereal, but that’s what was in my parents’ pantry and this beggar really couldn’t afford to be a chooser, given the circumstances. I sat there and stewed as I ate what was probably the least enjoyable bowl of cereal of my life because I was too busy cursing myself for making such a stupid mistake and wasting insulin that I didn’t really need. Why didn’t I check my inputs before starting my bolus? How could I have ignored my ticking pod as unit after unit of insulin pumped into my body? What kind of idiot does that to herself?

I can’t answer the first two questions, but I can take a stab at that last one – the kind of idiot who is a human who’s had diabetes for most of her life and errs from time to time, just like any other human being with or without diabetes.

Sure, I was furious with myself for screwing up like this, but all things considered…it was bound to happen eventually. We all make mistakes and it’s impossible to double-check every action taken in life. I’ve had some time and space to process this incident, and I’ve forgiven myself for this reason coupled with the fact that I’ve never done anything like this before in two dozen years of life with diabetes. That’s a significant amount of time to go without an incident like this!

Plus, with that forgiveness comes the value of an important lesson learned, which is to be more mindful when I’m taking a bolus. It’s so easy to mistype something on a computer keyboard or when texting someone and this scenario is no different from that. I need to be better about being my own autocorrect, but balance the weight of that responsibility with the knowledge that I’m a human who is managing diabetes 24/7, which is exhausting, and that perfection is a myth.

Major diabetes mistake made, lesson learned, and time to move onward and upward.

8 Things About Diabetes That Make Me Want to Rip My Hair Out

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This post was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on June 5, 2020. I’m sharing it again today because I’ve had my fair share of moments lately in which I’ve genuinely felt like ripping out my hair (or punching the wall) over my diabetes! Read on and find out if you agree with this list – and leave a comment to let me know what you’d add!

Life with diabetes can be the opposite of a cakewalk. In fact, it can be so frustrating at times that I seriously consider ripping my hair out due to sheer agitation.

When thinking about the things that drive me nuts about diabetes, I came up with a list of 8 occasions in which I come this CLOSE to losing my freakin’ marbles:

1. When low blood sugars refuse to come up…

2. …And when high blood sugars refuse to come back down.

I’m considering these first two as separate list items because the scariness of a lingering low and the frustrating nature of a stubborn high can be two very different types of “GAAAAAAAAHHHH!” But both can be especially suck-y when you feel and know that you’ve been doing everything right to treat them without experiencing the expected results.

3. Pod and CGM sensor failures.

Oooh, any sort of device failure can be so exasperating any time of day. But they’re worse when they happen at inconvenient times, such as in the middle of the night or during an important conference call. All diabetes technology should work flawlessly at all times, but that’s not always the reality that we live in.

4. Inaccurate results.

I can’t stand when my blood sugar meter or my CGM report false readings. Sometimes, I’ll check my blood sugar two times in a row just to see how close both readings are to one another, and it makes me want to throw my meter across the room when I see that they’re off by 20+ points. Once, I had a reading that was off by more than 50 points! That makes a major difference in how much insulin I give myself in that moment in time, so inaccurate results can really derail my blood sugars for hours after.

When I first found this illustration, I could’ve sworn the lady was flipping the bird…which would also be an accurate depiction of what these 8 things make me feel like doing!

5. Folds in the adhesive.

Whenever I apply a fresh sensor or a pod, I try to be super careful and make sure that the adhesive sticks smoothly…but despite my best efforts, that doesn’t always happen. Folds in the adhesive are far from the worst thing in the world, but they do make it more difficult for my devices to stick on for the full length of time that I need to wear them, and I usually end up having to add tape around them to reinforce the hold. More tape = more folds = more irritation!!!

6. Unexplained blood sugars.

Anyone with diabetes has been there, done that. You could follow the exact same routine from one day to the next, even eating the same foods at the same times, and get totally different blood sugar results. Or maybe you thought that you bolused perfectly for a meal, only to find out hours later that you’re much higher or lower than you anticipated. Whatever the reason behind them may be, unexplained blood sugars are just obnoxious.

7. Screeching alarms.

Speaking of things that are obnoxious, let’s talk about wailing OmniPod or Dexcom alarms for a hot second. There’s nothing like a resounding BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP to ruin your day!

8. The INSANE costs of our supplies.

Undoubtedly, the thing that most makes me want to rip my hair out when it comes to diabetes is the cost of supplies. I’ve blogged more and more recently about the criminal cost of insulin – since the 1990s, the cost of insulin has increased over 1,200% (!!!) – and I’ll continue to do so until EVERYONE with diabetes can afford this life-saving medication. We never asked for diabetes to happen to us. But it did. And the fact that many people with diabetes have to make sacrifices in order to, well, survive, is simply not okay, and the most infuriating thing about living with this chronic illness.

The Diabetes Rule I Always Disobey

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If there was a rulebook devoted to the do’s and don’ts of life with diabetes…it would be quite the tome. I imagine it to be as long as the fifth Harry Potter book, which had 766 pages and weighed just shy of 3 pounds, though it would certainly not be as engaging of a read.

As I started to visualize a diabetes rulebook, I started thinking about the actual rules it would list out. It would cover the basics, for sure, of life with diabetes, like “count carbs at every meal” and “remember to take your insulin”. But it would also get into the minutia – the things that aren’t so obvious, even to those who are fairly well-versed in diabetes. Things that I didn’t know until adulthood, like how glycemic index, alcohol, caffeine, dawn phenomenon, and so much more can affect blood sugar levels.

Yeah, it would definitely be a boring-ass read.

The diabetes rulebook would probably resemble this and look completely, utter unremarkable (otherwise known as BORING).

But as I was coming up with a seemingly endless mental list of diabetes rules, it stuck out to me that there’s one that I don’t follow. In fact, I’m not sure that I ever followed it. And that rule pertains to insulin.

The rule is about how if you open a vial of insulin, it’s best to use it within a 30-day (or maybe it’s 28-day) window. I think it’s because manufacturers claim it loses its potency after that timeframe passes, but to me, it’s a bunch of BS.

Maybe I do go through whole vials of insulin in a one-month period, or maybe I don’t. I have no clue, I don’t keep track of my supplies to that extent. But what I do know is that “expiration dates” and “best by” labels aren’t always based on exact science. I’ve totally eaten my fair share of “expired” foods (things like granola bars or cans of soup, definitely not wilted spinach leaves or moldy yogurt) because I use my common sense when making judgment calls about consuming those items. For me, it works kind of the same way with insulin. As long as an insulin vial has been properly stored since opening it (in a refrigerator’s butter compartment, because of course), then I feel safe using it beyond a 30-day period – again, within reason, using logic (I doubt that I’d use insulin dated YEARS ago).

I’ve even heard of folks using insulin that’s past it’s expiry date, and while I haven’t done that myself, I can’t say I blame anyone for trying to use up every last drop of the stuff when it’s in possession and it’s necessary to take. It’s too expensive to waste.

So if by breaking this “rule” makes me or other people rebels, I’ll don the title with pride…and smirk to myself as I think about other diabetes rules (ahem, pertaining to prolonging CGM sensor life, or using sites other than the abdomen for my Dexcom, or hardly ever remembering to change my lancets…) that I’ve broken over the years.

My 24th Diaversary

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My 24th diaversary shall be known as…the one I almost forgot.

My diaversary, which falls on Christmas Eve, has never been something that I actually actively celebrate because I’m always too busy celebrating the holiday season with my family. And that’s exactly what happened this year: I was living in the gift of Christmas present (there’s a pun in there, I know) rather than reflecting on that fateful one 24 years ago.

My 24th year of living with diabetes…my, how time flies when you’ve got a broken pancreas and robot parts on the outside of your body.

It feels fitting, really, that I didn’t remember my diaversary until a couple weeks after it came and went, because this Christmas Eve was extra special in a different way. It was the first significant holiday since the pandemic hit that my entire family could be together. And I mean my entire family – I saw both my mothers’ side and my fathers’ side, and even my big brother was able to come home from Nashville for the week. So I was spending the holidays really rejoicing in the fact that we were all able to safely see one another for the first time since Christmas 2019, rather than dwelling on my diabetes diagnosis.

After all, it’s the people who surround me that make something like diabetes manageable. My supporters – family, friends, partner, dogs – are the ones who motivate me when I’m experiencing diabetes burnout. They’re the ones who let me cry on their shoulders when diabetes is too much. They’re the ones who high-five every diabetes triumph that I experience. They’re the ones who remind me that my life is not defined by diabetes (despite how much I talk about it). So with that in mind, I can get behind doing what I did this diaversary: celebrating them instead of my diabetes for every Christmas Eve to come.

When Diabetes Disrupts Dinnertime

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I collapsed onto my dining room chair, grappling with a dinnertime dilemma as my hands shook from a swiftly dropping blood sugar:

Do I correct the low now with something sweet, and wait to eat my dinner awhile, or do I wolf down my meal and stay seated until my blood sugar stabilizes?

Both options come with their own set of pros and cons. In the first scenario, I’d be eating dessert before dinner – nothing totally groundbreaking, but not overly appealing and requiring me to account for the sweet’s extra carbs in my dinnertime bolus. But at least I wouldn’t deal with low symptoms all throughout my meal. In the second scenario, I wouldn’t be enjoying my food at all; instead, I’d hoover it down like a human vacuum and keep all my fingers and toes crossed that the complex carbohydrates would kick in as quickly as possible. On the bright side, I also wouldn’t have to eat or bolus for any extra/unwanted sweets if I went with the inhale-all-the-food choice.

But what both options have in common is that they also completely ruin the dinner experience for me by either delaying the timing of my meal or rushing me through it, neither of which is desirable.

Hey, diabetes…you weren’t invited to the dinner table.

That’s just life with diabetes, though – dealing with a series of undesirable scenarios. In this particular situation, I ended up eating my dinner as quickly as I could and my blood sugar came back up about 20 minutes after I was done with it. I was simultaneously annoyed and relieved. Sure, I didn’t get to enjoy dinner at the pace I wanted, but at least my blood sugar was back to normal. And I suppose it just makes me appreciate all the other meals that I get to eat that aren’t disrupted by diabetes, and those totally exceed the ones that do (thank goodness).

The Daily Drink that My Diabetes Dislikes

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I remember my first-ever cup of coffee. I was around 10 years old. I had it at my grandparents’ house, where much of my family was gathered for some sort of holiday or other occasion. Coffee was being served with dessert, and I asked my mother if I could try some – I wanted to know why all the adults in the room were so enamored with the seemingly innocuous brown beverage.

I’d like to say it was love at first sip, but I think it was only after I poured in a hearty amount of cream and 2 or 3 Splenda packets that I felt any affection for coffee. But once I did that? I was a goner. Coffee became a staple for me. I’d get it from Dunkin’ Donuts at the mall whenever I went shopping with friends, pour a cup on the weekends to have at breakfast, and when I was feeling fancy, I’d go to Starbucks and get a couple of pumps of sugar-free syrup to jazz up an otherwise ordinary order.

But whenever I try to add anything like milk, real sugar, syrups, or whipped cream…coffee gets real dicey for me and my diabetes.

Coffee can get real confusing for a person with diabetes.

In other words? I’m at a loss as to how to bolus for things like lattes, mochas, or cappuccinos – let alone any of the crazy, carb-loaded concoctions that you can get at cafes or Starbucks.

As a result of my confusion around coffee drinks and, let’s be real here, my laziness (because I could look up carb counts, but the sugary spike that my blood sugar could experience after having one of these drinks make it not even worth it for me to do research), I tend to drink coffee black. And luckily, I like it that way. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not tempted from time to time – like when the local coffee shop that’s just a half-mile away from my home introduced a winter drink menu with things like an Irish cream latte, eggnog latte, and gingerbread latte on it. I seldom give into the impulse to try those kinds of drinks, but they sounded too good to skip out on.

So rather than have all 3 at once – because I’m not totally reckless like that – I did give the seemingly-lower-carb option a try (the Irish cream latte), while my boyfriend got the eggnog latte. I figured it was the best of both worlds because I could have a fancy drink to myself while also getting to try one of the more sugary options.

And guess what? My blood sugar didn’t spike after I drank it, not even a little bit. I think the secret to my success was being super active all morning long after I got the latte (I was busy running errands and tidying up my home for guests that were coming over later in the day). My insulin intake for the latte, coupled with lots of movement, seemed to prevent any disastrous blood sugars – and I think it also helped that I ordered almond milk in lieu of regular milk to go in the latte. Whatever the actual cause(s), I was just thrilled to learn from this little experiment that I can enjoy specialty coffee drinks after all – probably not all the time, but definitely as an occasional treat, which makes me a happy and well- caffeinated T1D.