Type 1 Diabetes Awareness Day!

Diabetes...

I was diagnosed at age 12 and will turn 25 in October. Approaching 13 years...

It doesn't seem like that long, but I think I've adapted as well as I can and some days are definitely better than others. Today was a good day. I slept in till 1:00PM and my blood sugar was 103 when I woke up. I couldn't ask for much better. My blood sugars tend to be lower in the morning and often I wake earlier than I would like to with low blood sugar. I am grateful that my body knows that I need to wake up and I'm always aware and know what I need to do. I'm also grateful that I can live a healthy life and although diabetes sucks at times, I know life could be worse. I've learned to do things a certain way and although I have a lot more things to think about than most people, I try not to let it rule my life or get me down. There are times where I get upset about it, but I think that's normal with any chronic disease.

Carb Counting...

Sometimes I wish I could just eat anything and not worry about how many carbs are in it. I'm always adding and estimating the amount of carbs in any food that I eat. Try counting the carbs for every food you eat for one day. At the beginning when I started counting carbs, I had no clue how many were in all the foods I ate. For a month or so I carried about a carb counting book until I got the hang of things. I also love the nutritional labeling that accompanies almost every food product out there. It makes my life a lot easier, but there are still fruits and fresh things that make carb counting more challenging. I also love the "free" foods where I can pretty much eat any amount of that food and not count a single carb. Hard boiled egg whites, deli ham or turkey, almonds, sugar-free hard candy, light cheese sticks, salad, and green beans are some of my favorites. I'm always trying to find more foods that are low in carbs, but actually taste good and are healthy. Now that the Atkin's Diet Fad has gone away, it's harder to find too many low carb foods, but they're still out there and I just have to look harder to find them. Oh and probably the most annoying thing that people always assume is that I can't eat sweets or candy. I can eat anything I want to! Now, in saying that, I don't eat everything that I want to all the time. Having diabetes has made me very concerned about my diet and I usually try and eat a healthy diet. Blood sugar control is also a lot easier if you eat healthy. I also feel a lot better if I eat well. I do allow myself the occasional sweet, because I have a huge sweet tooth and if I didn't eat real sugar once in awhile I'd go insane. I also try not to keep real candy in my apartment. I do have some sugar free hard candy that I keep around for those times I need a little something sweet. I've found the sugar free Lifesavers are the best and I just recently bought the Lifesaver sugar free butter toffee hard candies and those are pretty good too. As far as chocolate goes, I'm going to eat the real stuff if I need a chocolate fix, because sugar free chocolate has the same amount of fat in it that regular does and regular chocolate is a lot better than sugar free chocolate. I don't really get chocolate cravings though and I keep diet hot chocolate mix around in case I feel the need for some chocolate. As you can see, I've tried almost every sugar free product out there. 

Exercise...

So I love running, but it always makes my blood sugar go down. I've now started taking off my insulin pump while I run, which usually helps my blood sugar stay steady, but I still have frequent lows when I run too far. I used to make sure my blood sugar was 200+ before I ran so it wouldn't get low, but I've noticed I don't feel as good running when it's that high to begin with. I'd prefer to drink water when I run too, but to keep my blood sugar steady I've been drinking Vitamin Water since it's not as sugary as Powerade and Gatorade. As for playing basketball, my blood sugar always increases. So while I'd like to take my insulin pump off when I'm playing because basketball tends to get quite intense, I don't like to because my blood sugar will then go even higher. 

Insulin pump...

I'm on my second insulin pump and this one (Animas IR1250) is waterproof which is nice feature that my last one didn't have. But, all machines tend to break at one time or another and recently it somehow got water in it and stopped working. This episode has happened several times with the Animas pump. The first time, there was crack near the battery well so I figured that is how the water got in. The second time, around the screen there was a suspicious area where I thought water may have been able to get in. This last time, I couldn't find any cracks or suspicious areas, so I'm not exactly sure how water got in it. And I hadn't taken it in any water recently, so I was really puzzled.

Sometimes I wish I didn't have the pump attached to me, but then again it's nice not to have to take several shots each day. And I love telling people about it, because it's a pretty cool little device and most people have no clue how it works.

Well, I'm tired of writing. This was pretty lengthy and if you got to the end I'm impressed. Sorry if I bored you, but hopefully I gave you some insight into what it's like. Oh and I forgot to add that I also prick my finger almost 10 times a day to check my blood sugar. Some people think that my insulin pump checks my sugar too, but maybe one day we'll see a device where it's all integrated and you won't have to wear a separate device to monitor your blood sugars!