Tag: dsma

I Forgot About Fingerstick Checks

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It was just after 4:30 P.M. on a Thursday afternoon. I’d spent the last hour and a half at my work desk in my bedroom, checking email and dialing into a video conference call. I’d deliberately left my cell phone downstairs, wanting to resist the temptation to scroll idly through social media or check my blood sugar, which had been misbehaving most of the day.

At the conclusion of my virtual meeting, I lamented that my cell phone was downstairs. I wanted to know what my blood sugar was doing (especially if it was high so I could get some insulin pumping), but I didn’t want to walk that oh-so long distance down the stairs to retrieve it.

I sighed, resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to check my blood sugar any time soon.

Then…I remembered.

I have a blood sugar meter mere feet away from me.

I could do a fingerstick check and actually know my blood sugar! I wouldn’t have to wait for my workday to end in order to check it, after all!

I still can’t believe that I momentarily forgot that I could check my blood sugar by pricking my finger…

As I ambled over to my nightstand where my blood sugar meter is always perched, I chuckled to myself, marveling over how I could forget that this was an option readily available to me.

Of course, I had the option to not be a lazy Susan and walk downstairs to get my phone, but that’s not the point! (Plus, I was trying to give myself a much-needed break from it!)

It just struck me as funny – I used blood sugar meters for two decades of my life. And bear in mind here, I haven’t even been alive for a full three decades yet, so blood sugar meters are just something I’ve grown up with. How could I forget about them? Have I really become so reliant on the 24/7 reporting from my Dexcom that I’ve shunted aside my only other device that can tell me what my blood sugars are?

I think that this incident indicates that I have. And that scares me a bit.

When I first became a Dexcom user in my late teenage years, I was told that my CGM wasn’t a replacement for fingerstick checks. So up until 3 years ago (when the Dexcom G6 came out), I tested my blood sugar with my meter at least 3-4 times per day, sometimes even more.

But then the Dexcom G6 came out, and the exciting news that the technology was so advanced that it meant that people with diabetes wouldn’t have to do fingerstick checks. Gone were the days of making diabetes treatment decisions only with confirmatory fingersticks or calibration. This was huge, but I was so untrusting of the technology for the first year or so that I continued on with regular fingerstick checks…

…Until one day I just kinda stopped. My multiple-times-per-day checks turned into maybe once or twice a day, then once or twice a week, and now…really, just once or twice a month. And now I’m facing the reality that I don’t exactly feel that this decision suits me because I am the type of person who craves as much data as possible so I can make the best-informed diabetes choices for myself.

So forgetting about fingerstick checks may just be my remembering again to do them. Because when I did check my level and saw that 140 mg/dL flash up on the screen, I felt reassured and thankful for this data point on my blood sugar graph. It was nice to see this number alone, without the reminder of the yucky numbers I experienced earlier in the day…

And best of all…I didn’t have to go downstairs in order to get this snippet of information.

4 Ways Diabetes Motivates Me

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Life with diabetes can be inconvenient, unpredictable, and downright frustrating. But it’s not all bad. In fact, after living with it for more than 23 years now, I’ve actually identified a few different ways in which it helps motivate me.

And what, exactly, are those ways? Well…

#1: It’s constantly challenging me to strive for the better: Better “control” over my blood sugar levels, better management of my diet and exercise regimen, and better care of my entire body, in general. While it involves a lot of work, it’s extremely motivating because I know that anything I do for the better of my diabetes and my body now will pay dividends in the future.

#2: Diabetes encourages me to ask questions. I think that my diabetes is the reason why I’ve learned to be curious. It pushes me to want to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how of various scenarios, both relating to and not relating to diabetes. It’s natural for human beings to be inquisitive, but they don’t always do something to pursue answers to questions. My diabetes pushes me to do that, with varying degrees of success, and that’s something I’m grateful for.

After having diabetes for more than 23 years, I’ve realized that it can be highly motivating.

#3: It pushes me to prove people wrong. There’s so much stigma surrounding diabetes…”You can’t eat that! You can’t do this! You can’t do that!” are exclamations that I’ve heard my entire life from different people. Rather than nodding and smiling politely at these poor, misinformed individuals, I strive to show them exactly why they’re wrong. Whether it’s explaining the facts or going out and doing the very thing they said I wouldn’t be able to do because of diabetes, it’s empowering for me to smash down diabetes misconceptions.

#4: Diabetes inspires me to seek more out of life. This goes hand-in-hand with point number 3, but it counts as a separate notion because this is all about how I view my life with diabetes. I didn’t fully accept my diabetes until I was a teenager. That acceptance represented a turning point for me during which I realized that just because I was dealt this card in life, it doesn’t mean that it should stop me from accomplishing my hopes and dreams. Over the years, my diabetes has made me want more: opportunities, experiences, relationships…you name it and I’m hungry for it.

Sure, diabetes can be my biggest headache…but it can also be my greatest motivator, and I think it’s important for me to embrace the beauty of that.

Luck O’ the Irish Diabetic

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

Last week, it occurred to me that in more than 3 years of running this blog, I’ve never written anything about St. Paddy’s Day here…so I sought out to rectify that immediately; hence, today’s blog post.

I love St. Patrick’s Day. Always have, always will. I celebrate it each year decking myself out in head-to-toe green. I eat a traditional Irish dinner – always prepared by my mother, until this year when I will attempt to cook the meal myself – that consists of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and Irish soda bread. We eat it while listening to Irish music and more often than not, we’ll have a Guinness or an Irish coffee along with the meal. My family’s attended St. Patrick’s Day parades in various locations in years past, though obviously, we didn’t go to any last year and we won’t this year, either. But we’re still proud of our Irish heritage and we made the most of it in 2020, as I know we’ll do today.

My parents’ dog, Clarence, and I certainly made the most of the day last year. I was dressed up like this for all of my work video conference calls, which made my colleagues laugh at a time when we all needed one.

So you know my plans for St. Patrick’s Day, but what does this have to do with my blog that’s about diabetes?

Let me explain.

The common denominator between this holidays, all the others, and my diabetes is…food.

Foods consumed on holidays are often special and laden with carbohydrates. Rather than deprive myself, I like to indulge on holidays, and worry a little less about my topsy-turvy blood sugar levels.

You might be thinking, “But the food you described isn’t even that carb-heavy!” and you’d be right, for the most part. Corned beef, cabbage, carrots…those are all easy to bolus for seeing as the carbohydrate content is negligible.

It’s the combo of potatoes – which normally, I can bolus for without any troubles – and Irish soda bread – hellooooo, carbs – that really screws me up.

You see, the problem is that Irish soda bread is too delicious. It’s a quick bread that has a buttery exterior and a tender, mouthwatering interior that’s densely packed with raisins. It doesn’t sound like much, but my mother’s recipe is sheer perfection and I can’t resist helping myself to a big ol’ slice (and a couple of mini, just-one-more-taste slices) of the stuff every year.

So more often than not, my St. Patrick’s Days end with high blood sugars (which I suppose is better than ending with a trip to the toilet due to excessive…ahem, celebrating).

The Irish soda bread is worth the high blood sugar alone, but this year, I’m hoping for a little luck when I tuck into this festive feast. I’m tired of simultaneously welcoming holidays and high blood sugars…it’s about time that I make more of an effort to have better levels when I’m eating special meals. I know the extra work will make the day and the food that much more enjoyable and special.

With a little luck o’ the Irish (and some aggressive bolusing), this diabetic will finally have a St. Patrick’s Day filled with lots o’ green, Guinness, and great blood sugar levels.

5 Things That Make My Blood Sugar Crash Quickly

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Have you ever noticed that certain activities have a swift and obvious impact on your blood sugar levels?

Well, if you aren’t a person with diabetes, then the answer to that is probably “no”…but I digress! Recently, I realized that there are five things that absolutely, definitely, without-a-doubt make my blood sugar plummet before long. Here’s my list – what’s on yours?

1 – Vacuuming. I live in a fairly small condo – less than 900 square feet total – but when it comes time to vacuuming the floor, it takes me a good chunk of time to do a thorough job. Maybe about 30 minutes total. So it shouldn’t be surprising that by the time I’m done, I’m normally a little sweaty and often in need of a snack because all that moving around has made my blood sugar drop.

Who else “celebrates” vacuuming their entire home by cracking open a fresh…juice box??

2 – Baking. This might be surprising because I’m the type of baker who must lick the spoon and sample the finished product as soon as it’s done, so you might assume that this activity makes my blood sugar go up. Not so. And this is because I am also what I call a “frantic baker”. I shuffle around the kitchen, rifle through cabinets, curse when I can’t find an ingredient and need to rush out to the store to get it…now you must get the idea. I’m always in motion when I’m baking, which pays off in the end. I need to try my baked goods in order to boost blood sugar that went low in the process of creating them. This is one of the many reasons why I love baking!

3 – Playing with my puppy. Little Miss Violet is four months old now and more rambunctious than ever. She loves fetching, running, chasing…and nine times out of ten, I’m fetching, running, and chasing right along with her. Before too long, Violet’s winded and on her way to dreamland while I’m on my way to the kitchen to grab something that will treat my low blood sugar.

4 – Cleaning the bathroom. A self-professed neat freak, I have a very specific process when I’m cleaning the 1.5 bathrooms in my condo. This process probably isn’t the most efficient because it involves a lot of walking up and down the stairs to gather various cleaning supplies, but it does do one thing well: lower my blood sugar, of course.

5 – Walking. This is pretty dang obvious because any sort of physical activity/exercise is bound to make my blood sugar drop, but not in the same way that walking does. I swear that 10-15 minutes of walking at a normal pace is enough to drop my blood sugar by about 100 points – that’s how effective it is for me. Walking is my sneaky little trick when my blood sugar is a tad too high: Instead of taking insulin to correct it, I just have to get a quick walk in and I’m falling fast in no time.

The Best Time for Me and My Diabetes to Exercise

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I am a phony morning person.

By that I mean that I pretend that I like getting up early in the mornings, but truth be told…I hate it. Oh how I long for the days that I could sleep in as late as I wanted and shun my very few responsibilities…

Even though I clearly don’t love waking up early, there is one benefit to it that truly lasts all day long. And that is getting my workouts done within the first hour or so of my day.

Listen, I’m not a fitness freak. I don’t have a ripped bod. More often than not, I’m working out so I can eat and drink the things that I like without feeling as terrible about it (only light sarcasm used in that previous sentence). But I do like exercising and try to do so every single day because, well, it’s good for me and definitely helps me to produce better blood sugars.

Exercising is a thousand times harder than it needs to be, though, when my blood sugar crashes halfway through a routine – which happened a lot more than I wanted it to when I was working out in the afternoons or evenings.

Fed up with the lows, I changed up my routine and that’s when I discovered the beauty of fasting morning workouts.

I am definitely not as flexible as this cartoon lady.

I learned that if I work out soon after I wake up in the morning and wait until after I’m done to eat breakfast, then lows almost never happen. It’s like magic. I’m able to get through my exercise routine (which is usually a half hour circuit of some sort) without having to modify my basal rates whatsoever. Since I don’t have any insulin on board (because I haven’t eaten any food yet), I’m only working out with my basal rate running in the background, so there’s a much lower chance that my blood sugar will really fluctuate when I’m exercising. Of course, mornings that I wake up with a low or a high blood sugar are a little more challenging, seeing as I either have to bring it back up to a good level for working out or get some insulin pumping in my system, but I wake up most mornings with my blood sugar in a range that makes me feel comfortable working out in.

All the diabetes business aside, I gotta say…my other favorite part of working out first thing is that it’s over with and done for the day. Ba-da bing, ba-da boom. It’s not looming over my head for the remainder of the day, and that’s a really nice feeling.

A.M. exercise is A-O.K. to my diabetes and me.

The Dexcom Site I’d Never Recommend Trying

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I don’t usually regret trying new sites for my Dexcom and OmniPod.

But recently, I discovered the one area that I wish I hadn’t tried…and that is my forearm.

For a couple years now, I’ve seen forearm Dexcom sites all across social media. People lauded the location for how comfortable it is and the accurate readings it produces, so I figured, why not give it a shot? (LOL diabetes humor.)

Plus, I wanted to give my stomach and the backs of my arms a break. I put both pods and sensors in those locations and while I like them a lot, I’m wary of scar tissue building up.

So with little fanfare, I tried putting my Dexcom on my left forearm (my non-dominant arm). And I knew immediately after hitting the orange button to insert the sensor that it was a bad choice because it STUNG. It stung something fierce! I remember wincing the moment it pierced my skin, and fortunately, the pain did go away…but resurged with a vengeance about half the time I made any arm motions. It didn’t matter if I was flexing it up or down or twisting it to reach for something – any movement could trigger varying degrees of pain. Nothing incredibly intolerable, but enough to make this site uncomfortable.

My face says exactly how I feel about this site: It’s not a winner.

And this pain didn’t altogether disappear one day: I still felt stings 24 hours after I put the sensor on. Maybe I hit precisely the wrong spot (I noticed a very small amount of blood discoloring the white adhesive of the sensor), but I asked the diabetes online community and it seems that the general consensus is that this location sucks. The half-dozen or so people who messaged me said that either the pain was too much and they took the sensor off early, or they toughed it out for a full 10 days and never used the site again.

What’s more is that this site wasn’t as out-of-the-way as I wanted it to be. I roll up my sleeves dozens of times each day for different tasks, and each time I went to roll up my left sleeve, I had to go about it gingerly so I didn’t risk bumping into the site and prompting ripples of pain. This was straight-up annoying because my diabetes devices don’t usually inhibit my movements so much.

The one plus-side of trying the new site, and the only thing that motivated me to keep it on for the full 10 days, is that it was just as accurate as any other Dexcom site I’ve tried. My readings matched up pretty closely with how I felt and with what my blood sugar meter reported, so that was a saving grace. And I have to admit that even though I was worried that sleep would be impossible with the sensor in such a tender spot, it really didn’t interfere with my slumbers, which was a relief.

All in all, though, the accuracy wasn’t enough to convince me to want to keep forearm sites in my regular rotation. I’ll stick with abdomen and upper arm sites for now, with the occasional thigh site to further prevent scar tissue.

Dexcom G6: Available to Who? A Post by Tracy Ramey

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This post was originally published on the T1International blog on February 17, 2021. I wanted to post it here on Hugging the Cactus because it was incredibly well-written and eye-opening. Thank you to Tracy Ramey for sharing her perspective and prompting me to really think about diabetes technology and who it is available to you. I couldn’t agree more with your closing thoughts. Read on to learn about Tracy’s thoughts on the Dexcom G6, its availability, and the problems with the commercial that aired during Super Bowl LV.

Celebrity. Celebrity in a filter. Technology. Sleek. Celebrity showcasing a device that many people with diabetes can’t afford and telling said people with diabetes that they should get with the times. That’s it. That’s the entire commercial for Dexcom G6, a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), that aired during Super Bowl LV Sunday. To the world outside of the diabetes community, it presents an easy solution to the problem of diabetes management, a quick aside they can tell that person with diabetes they know in the office on Monday.

“Hey I saw Nick Jonas in that commercial. He said you don’t have to prick your finger anymore! Ya know, he doesn’t even look like he has diabetes.”

As a mother of a child that has type 1 diabetes, managing this condition is always on my mind. I am my child’s “pancreas momager,” if you will. For the past three years I have endured well meaning people giving advice, offering empty platitudes, and not understanding the tightrope we walk as a family attempting to raise a well rounded human that is growing physically and emotionally while course correcting a disease that is never the same day to day. I hear often how diabetes is manageable, an understanding that is as true as it is nuanced. Managing diabetes is not a one size fits all leather jacket. Said person with diabetes will assuredly be giving Diabetes Splainin’ Danny an immense amount of side eye.

With this ad, Dexcom and Nick Jonas had an immense opportunity to truly advocate for all insulin dependent people on the world’s stage. Instead of dispelling hurtful myths such as diabetes being caused by eating too much sugar, or insulin being “so cheap, it’s like water”, they created new ones like people with diabetes do not need to prick their fingers. The ad conveyed that there is an easy solution to diabetes management, which is a huge blow to everyone that has been fighting with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and device companies just to get basic insulin and other vital supplies covered, including glucose monitors.

Dexcom’s ad conveyed that there is an easy solution to diabetes management, which is a huge blow to everyone that has been fighting with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and device companies just to get basic insulin and other vital supplies covered, including glucose monitors.

Most people with diabetes know about Dexcom and the other major continuous CGM company, FreeStyle Libre by Abbott. Assuredly, if they don’t have one of these devices, in most cases it’s not for lack of understanding – it’s due to high cost. For many uninsured or underinsured insulin dependent people who are already struggling to afford their insulin, the Dexcom (with an initial out-of-pocket price tag for receiver, transmitter, and pack of 3 sensors that exceeds $1,000) is technology that remains out of reach. The ad boldly proclaimed “It looks like the future, but it’s available now.” Available to who? I know people that have had to plead with their insurer to keep their Dexcom if coverage changes occur. Many can’t get it covered in the first place, even though being able to have CGM technology is a gamechanger in the life of people living with diabetes. IT affords a level of control that is hard to think of giving up once you experience it.

But again, we must ask: who is this available to? This technology requires a prescription, and we know that Black and Brown communities are being offered access at much lower rates than their white peers. I am a Black woman with a family history of type 2 that puts me at greater risk of developing it. Interestingly, despite having several family members with type 2 diabetes, my child with type 1 is the first person that has CGM technology, and that was because I pushed for it.

You know what I’m getting at. The elephant in the room is medical racism and implicit bias. When cries for justice rang out for Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, many companies found themselves scrambling to make sure they appeared to sympathize with Black people and the systemic disregard for our lives. But here we are, almost a year into the pandemic, with a January 8th, 2021 headline from Endocrine.org that reads “Black people with type 1 diabetes, COVID-19 are four times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetic ketoacidosis.”

Companies that make a profit off of medical devices as life altering as Dexcom owe it to their consumers to look at the data and adjust to get their technology onto the bodies that need it most. Instead of addressing how they are going to provide a solution to inequities that black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) face – especially Black patients – in comparison to their white peers, Dexcom paid $5 million plus for a Super Bowl ad that ignores barriers to access completely. This is chump change when, according to Yahoo!Finance, they earned $1.93 billion in 2020.

Dexcom offers a life saving product that I am fortunate enough to be able to use for my child because of my health insurance. I am acutely aware that many who look like us and need it the most don’t have access to CGMs like Dexcom’s G6. The Black and Brown people that are experiencing medical systemic racism deserve better. All insulin dependent people deserve better than a 30 second ad that wags it’s finger at all of us silly Billy gumdrops that are still pricking our fingers. Don’t spit on me and tell me it’s raining.

How I Did My Part to Help Prioritize All Types of Diabetes as it Pertains to COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout in My State

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Across social media, I keep seeing the same type of photo pop in my feeds that sparks jealousy, triumph, fear, confusion, and hope all at once: the COVID-19 vaccine selfie, fondly referred to as the “vaxxie”.

I’m beyond happy that dozens of family members and friends have received the vaccine. It makes me feel good to know that they’re doing their part to help protect themselves and others, and it’s wonderful to know that the vaccine is being distributed to some extent.

However, I take issue with part of the distribution plan in my state.

Using my voice to hopefully change/improve the rollout of the vaccine in MA felt good.

In Massachusetts, COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been chaotic, to put it mildly.

It’s probably similar in many states, but the part that I find most frustrating is the fact that people with type 1 diabetes (and seemingly no other co-morbidity) are being lumped together with the last group of individuals to be vaccinated.

My endocrinologist confirmed this for me the other day during my virtual appointment: “Why is it [presumably her computer system] showing you in phase 3? You should be in phase 2…” I nodded vigorously and we talked for a few minutes about how disconcerting the whole vaccine rollout plan is. I explained to her that the Massachusetts chapter of #insulin4all was coming up with language to email to local representatives to implore them to do everything possible to prioritize vaccination for all people with diabetes, and a couple days later, I got my chance to do just that.

I looked up my local and state representatives with a quick Google search and emailed three individuals who are in positions to revise public guidance regarding COVID vaccinations. As soon as I hit “send”, I felt this amazing sense of empowerment – it felt good to do something about an issue that I’m very passionate about.

While I wish that I could do more to ensure change, I do feel a sense of pride that I tried to do something by using my voice. It represented the first (but certainly not the last) time that I plan on contacting legislators to help improve diabetes care, management, and accessibility of supplies – not just for myself, but for all people living with diabetes.

This Valentine’s Day, Spare a Rose and Save a Child

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Like so many other things, Valentine’s Day is probably going to look and feel a little different to you and your sweetie this year.

But not everything has changed. One thing that remains the same is the fact that a bouquet of a dozen roses is practically synonymous with the holiday.

A dozen red roses is a classic Valentine’s gift. But what if you received 11 roses in your bouquet, instead of 12? What if you knew that a rose was spared because the value of that flower helped support a child living with diabetes in a less-resourced country?

I bet you wouldn’t mind getting one less rose in that case.

Who knew that the value of a dozen roses could pay for a child with diabetes to live another year of life?

This Valentine’s Day, please consider sparing a rose. Life for a Child is a nonprofit charity that created the Spare a Rose campaign. They’re able to support nearly 20,000 young people living with diabetes by using donations to buy them insulin, syringes, clinical care, diabetes education, and more. Anyone who’s familiar with diabetes realizes that access to care, education, and resources is critical to living a healthy and normal life. No one would want to deny another, especially a child, from having to forgo these resources because of the financial burden associated with them.

I’ve written about the Spare a Rose campaign for the last few years because I think it’s a beautiful way to celebrate a day that makes some swoon and others sick to their stomachs. A common complaint among people in this day and age is that too many holidays are all about raking in the dough for companies like Hallmark; in other words, most holidays have lost their original meaning and have become too commercialized.

So here’s your chance to bring back some significance to Valentine’s Day. In the face of a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever that we do all that we can to help people with diabetes access life-saving supplies and care.

Spare a rose and save child this Valentine’s Day.

The Truth About My Carb Counting

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One of the many reasons why I love the diabetes community is that I’m constantly learning new information, finding inspiration, and enjoying support from my fellow friends living with T1D. Sharing our stories with one another leads to us finding that it’s more than diabetes that we have in common.

Here’s an example: My friend, Cherise Shockley, recently wrote an article for DiaTribe in which she made a confession to herself regarding how she counts her carbs. I recommend reading the extremely well-written article to get a full sense of what she discovered, but in short, Cherise recently realized that her carb counting is inaccurate because of the “glass ceiling” for entering carbs into her pump for bolus calculations. In other words, Cherise’s personal maximum of carbs that she was comfortable with dosing for using her pump wasn’t aligning with the actual amount of carbs she was consuming. This excerpt explains part of it:

That was my moment of truth. I told Natalie I ate my favorite chocolate chunk cookie that day. She asked me how many carbs the cookie contained, and I told her 68 grams; she wondered why I only bolused for 55 grams. I paused before I replied – I did not know the answer.

Natalie then asked me if I had a glass ceiling for entering carbs in my pump. She explained that this means even though I know I eat 63 carbs, I will only enter 50 carbs in my pump because anything higher than that concerns me. What she said was interesting; I had never heard anyone describe it to me in that way.

-Cherise Shockley

When I read this, I said, “Yes! Finally, someone is able to articulate exactly how I handle carb counting!”

This is the truth about my carb counting: I have limits when it comes to how many carbs I will bolus for at a time, but those limits do not apply to the actual number of carbs that I consume.

In my 23 years of life with type 1 diabetes, I never knew the meaning behind my carbohydrate glass ceiling.

To explain, I am only comfortable with bolusing for a maximum of 60 grams of carbohydrate at a time. I do not know how I came up with this particular number, but I do know that there are situations (e.g., holiday celebrations) in which I am absolutely consuming more than 60 carbs in a sitting, and yet I only bolus for that amount.

Still confused by what I mean? Read the full article to understand, but this excerpt from it helps to explain why this fear of bolusing for more than 60 carbs at a time exists for me:

To learn more about carbohydrate glass ceilings and why some people have one, I talked to Dr. Korey Hood, a professor of pediatric endocrinology and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University who has lived with type 1 diabetes for over 20 years. Dr. Hood told me that all parts of diabetes management can be challenging, and carb counting is particularly tough because it is hard to be accurate and precise. He always recommends people with diabetes meet annually with their diabetes educator (CDCES) to get a refresher on different aspects of diabetes management, including carb counting.

Dr. Hood said that the glass ceiling is most likely due to one of two issues – worries about hypoglycemia or the meaning behind taking such a big dose of insulin. Dr. Hood said that “many of us with diabetes, particularly those on insulin, worry about going low. Why wouldn’t we – it is a terrible feeling! We often experience fears of hypoglycemia because we had a terrible low in the past and have a desperate desire to avoid it in the future. When we worry about hypoglycemia, we scale back our insulin dosing. This prevents the low but also likely results in high glucose levels. So, it really is not a good strategy.” 

-Cherise Shockley

This was a major revelation for me because suddenly I realized what my reasoning is for my carbohydrate glass ceiling: I have a hypoglycemia fear. I have experienced scary episodes in the past (fortunately, none of which have required medical attention). I have friends who have experienced severe hypoglycemic episodes, and when a colleague of mine experienced a low episode that was so bad that I had to call 911 for him, it left a mark on me. So on the occasions that I do eat more than 60 carbs in a sitting, I simply don’t take the amount of insulin that I should to account for those carbs, and I wind up going high, exactly as Dr. Hood describes in the quote above.

When it comes to diabetes, there is no such thing as “perfection”. My blood sugars cannot and will not be perfect 100% of the time. But one thing that I do have control over is doing the absolute best that I can with carb counting and bolusing. It’s time I hold myself more accountable to my carbohydrate glass ceiling…in fact, it’s time for me to smash through it.

A ginormous thank you to Cherise for being so open and honest in this piece and for inspiring me to own my carbs, too.