Friday, November 27, 2009
Today we just got back from a party we went. We had to sleep over at a family members house. My bg was all over the place!
Plus i wasn't hungry the whole time i was there. Everybody kept thinking my mom was the one who had diabetes not me. The thing was they had chocolate cake!
Everybody was saying it was so good i wanted to scream! My bg was fine at home before we left then it was high (probably from the pumpkin pie) then it was high ,normal, then high, then low. It was crazy. My mom said that we'll stay home for christmas.
) just remember that YOU CAN DO IT and that parties will get easier as you find the ways that work best for you to manage your sugar.
Hey jenny,
I'm sorry to hear your blood sugars got in the way of your Thanksgiving party! Hard to have fun and enjoy everything when your BG is all over the place!
But...don't let that one experience prevent you from going to holiday parties ever again -- that's definitely not the solution! I know your mom just wants to protect you from having to deal with that, but you can't avoid parties for the rest of your life just because of diabetes. That's not living! That's letting diabetes control your life in a negative way.
So let's make a better game plan for the Christmas season:
1. I think you might've already seen Maggie's Holiday Season Tips
2. Here's an old blog of my own on Diabetes & The Holidays
In the end, though, what you need to think about is increasing your insulin doses, but if you do this right at the same time as you're consuming all these sweet treats and carb-loaded holidays dinners, the insulin won't have enough time to keep up with you.
Most fast-acting insulins start working in your blood within 15 to 30 minutes, but they don't peak for sometimes 2 to 4 hours! So unless you space out your shots well enough or give yourself a temporary basal rate (do you use the insulin pump?), then insulin isn't going to keep you steady the whole night. It's understandable that you went high, and then eventually came way down to normal because all of the insulin you took was really peaking.
Other approaches:
if you're on long-acting insulin, ask your doctor about increasing your dose for the few days around Christmas. For example, I usually take 23 units of Lantus right now, but the day before Christmas and Christmas day I might up it to 25 or 26 to help battle all the extra carbs.
Also, take your injection at least 15 minutes before you start eating at the party.
Either way, you shouldn't give up on parties altogether. Yes, we want to enjoy all the same food at the holidays, but we do need to put some limits on what we eat for the sake of our BG. Just because of everyone else is eating it doesn't mean we need to. We can't let ourselves get into a self-pity pattern just because "they can have the cake, and I can't."
We don't need to do that! We have different needs and different requirements to stay healthy. A man in a wheelchair would be wasting his energy if he got mad everytime he saw someone running down a basketball court. That is life, and it's not always fair!
-Ginger