Tag: Diabetes

Diabetes Adventures

The Struggle of Eating Out

Diana Barreto

Last week Friday, I went to dinner with some friends, we met up around 7:30pm. We went to a sushi place, we placed our order, ordered drinks and when I reach for my pump to pre-bolus…..BAM!!! I noticed that I only have 27 units left of insulin! Eeek!

I had ordered one beer and one roll of sushi, an albacore roll. The sushi roll has rice in it so it is going to have carbs and my beer also has carbs. As soon as I saw how many units of insulin I had left, 1,234,834,283,698 thoughts flew through my mind. Yes, us diabetics can have that many thoughts!

Let me give you some insight: For every 1 gram of carb, my pump’s settings are set to give me 4.2 units of insulin (I stick to that carb ratio, 1:4.2, because that is what my body needs) and my background insulin (which basically just means the insulin my pump is giving me 24/7) is 66 units of insulin in 24 hours so that means every 1 hour I am getting 2.75 units of insulin. According to Google, my albacore roll is roughly 57g carbs which means I’ll be using 13.5 units of insulin + I had ordered a beer which is roughly 13g carbs which means I’ll be using 3 units of insulin = 16.5 units of insulin for my dinner (one roll and one beer).

So if I bolus for my dinner this is what it would look like:

27(units of insulin in my pump)-16.5 (units needed to bolus for my dinner) = 10.5 units (of insulin remain).

Let’s say dinner is about 2 hours so 2.75+2.75 (background insulin) = 5.5 units of insulin

So if I only had the one roll, one beer and dinner was 2 hours long that means I would have 5 units of insulin left.

Side note: Everyone’s insulin needs are different so there are people who have a higher ratio and others who have a lower ratio. There is NOTHING wrong with you for having different insulin settings from someone else and you are NOT a bad diabetic, it simply means your body needs more insulin.

Back to my dinner story!

I started thinking that I should have checked my pump before I left the house, I should have brought my supplies to change out my reservoir, I should have brought up a back up insulin pen, I shouldn’t have ordered the roll and should have ordered a salad instead, I should have ordered water and not beer, I should have this, I should have that, I should have, I should have, I should have, why didn’t I? Basically I was beating myself up and felt like a bad diabetic. This has happened to me before so I also thought to myself, “haven’t you learned yet?!” All these thoughts flashed through my mind in a matter of seconds.

I didn’t have an outwardly reaction and I honestly didn’t think any of my friends noticed and I did my best to contain myself because I was at a dinner with friends and there was nothing I could do except maybe excuse myself from dinner and go home but home was also 40 minutes away and it had been a few months since I had seen my friends.

In that moment I made the quick decision to not bolus for anything so that I can still have enough for background insulin to last me the whole night. Was that the best/smartest idea? Who knows! LOL I think that sometimes being a diabetic is similar to having two right answers and needing to chose the best right answer! And sometimes we don’t get that answer right and sometimes we don’t know it until after the fact.

I’ve come a long way with being kinder to myself regarding my diabetes management and putting at ease my thoughts and worries so despite of my insulin situation, I was still able to enjoy myself, enjoy my food, enjoy my beer and enjoy time with friends.

I didn’t check my pump until after dinner and I was holding steady in the 180s but I know that with rice, my blood sugar was going to start rising over the next two hours. After dinner, we felt like we still needed more time to talk/catch up and I didn’t want to leave so I made another decision to stick with the group. We walked to our friend’s house and we stayed there till almost 11:30 pm. Then I drove my friend to her house where my husband was hanging out with her husband and we stayed another hour or so. At this point, I already knew my blood sugars were high and didn’t feel like checking since there was nothing I could have done about it. I was able to stay in the present moment and I had so much fun.

We got home around 1:15am, I checked my blood sugar and it was at 293. I didn’t beat myself up about it, I wasn’t mean to myself and just saw the number matter-of-factly. I proceeded to change my infusion set since I obviously had already run out of insulin and did a correction before going to sleep.

The above scenario, as I briefly mentioned earlier, has happened to me more than once. I think its because I am a baby diabetic and diabetes is not always at the forefront of my mind even though its a huge part of me. It’s always a reminder to myself that I am more than my diabetes and that one night of bad blood sugars doesn’t mean I am a bad diabetic, it’s not enough for me to make me feel badly about myself and definitely not worth losing out on a fun night with my friends.

I do recognize and am aware that I need to be better and do better but then again, I’m only human and no one is perfect 🙂

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How to Deal with Diabetes Burnout

Diana Barreto

What is Diabetes Burnout?

Diabetes burnout. Some might know what it means, some might have never heard of the term before yet have lived through it. For others, they might know what the words mean individually. Simply put, diabetes burnout is when someone with a diabetes diagnosis has grown tired of the daily challenges and tasks that come with being a diabetic. Diabetes burnout is real and it happens to everyone who is diagnosed with diabetes. It looks different on everyone just like stress, happiness, or any other emotion that the human body is capable of having. As a diabetic myself, I have gone through diabetes burnout more times than I can count. For me, it manifests in different ways such as when I start to decrease the amount of times I check my blood sugars, when I get frustrated everytime I look at my meter and it reads a number I wasn’t expecting or wanting, when I lie to my family about what I ate or how my sugars have been, when I don’t pre-bolus, when I start to eat junk food and get the “I don’t care” mentality and think “well I already had one donut, might as well have two more”, then later decide to get pizza for lunch and then maybe a hamburger and fries for dinner since my sugar levels are already going to be out of range. For you, diabetes burnout might look exactly the same or vastly different.

Why Does Diabetes Burnout Happen?

If you are a diabetic or take care of someone who has diabetes, you know that in order to manage the chronic illness, it needs your attention 24/7/365. For those who don’t live with a chronic illness, let me give you a little glimpse of what it entails. There are many different types of diabetes but for this article, I will focus on Type 1 Diabetes. As a Type 1 diabetic who uses an insulin pump, I have to check my blood sugars at least 4x a day, I have to learn and know how many carbs are in each food item I eat so that I can then pre-bolus (give yourself insulin prior to eating), and then in order to avoid spikes in my blood sugars, I have to try and wait 10-30 minutes before eating (depending on how many carbs I will be consuming). I also need to make sure I check my feet at least 1x/week for any infections or cuts, I have to change my infusion set every 3 days (which means using a device that has a needle in it so that a catheter gets inserted into my skin so that the pump can deliver insulin), and then change my continuous glucose monitor once a week (which also means using a device that has a needle in it).

Can you see why someone would get tired of having diabetes? As diabetics, we also have to deal with unexpected changes in our blood sugars that can be caused by lack of sleep, stress, anger, exercise, breathing, and just being a human. This, in turn, can cause frustration and thoughts of no longer wanting to deal with it all which is exactly what diabetes burnout is. Having diabetes requires 24/7 attention. We are not allowed to take a break from our diabetes, we can’t shut it off, we can’t get away from it or it’ll get worse, we can’t put it on pause, and we can’t decide that today we don’t have diabetes. Well, we can but that has consequences! Because of this constant attention that diabetes is needed, we get tired. Imagine having to work your job 24/7 and never being able to take a vacation or even a small break? You’d want to quit!

For some, diabetes burnout will last days, for others it can last weeks, and for some months or even years. You might have gone through diabetes burnout but did not know the term for it. Know that you are not alone. We are human and we have emotions and we are allowed to have them. Your frustrations and anger is valid. But being in a constant state of diabetes burnout is not healthy physically, mentally, spiritually or emotionally.

How is Diabetes Burnout Dealt With?

The main thing you have to remind yourself as a diabetic is that managing your diabetes is not a straight line, it’s not 1+2=3, and it’s far beyond perfect. 

With that being said, the next important thing is being aware of the signs that lead to diabetes burnout. This will take practice, trial and error. Maybe you start to notice that you are eating a bit more ruthlessly, maybe you are starting to care less about your diabetes regimen, maybe you notice yourself isolating from your family and friends, maybe you notice that you are starting to lash out at your loved ones, etc. Once you start to notice these changes and are aware of them, you can do certain tasks to help decrease diabetes burnout. Some of these techniques include:

  • Reaching out to a diabuddy, a close friend, a family member, an online support group, a therapist
  • Going to the beach
  • Going for a walk at the park or walking your dog(s)
  • Taking a bath or shower
  • Doing some yoga or breathing exercises
  • Creating small goals to help you get back on track or reminding yourself of your long-term goals.

Remember that diabetes burnout is not something that will just go away and is not something that you will get over in one day. Be gentle with yourself because diabetes is already hard as it is, there’s no use with us being hard on ourselves as well.

When all else fails, look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud:

“I am a diabadass and I will not let diabetes run me, I will run it!”