I’m just after all the information i can get on handling diabetes while drinking. this is the first time i will be drinking since having diabetes and i just want to have a good understanding of what to do. Thanks Adele
Count carbs, test, bolus, etc. It depends what you are drinking as some drinks (e.g. hard liquor and soda…) are very carb neutral and don’t seem to affect my BG very much (but they might yours? I’d bet not but you never know…). Lite beer is about 2-6G/ serving, Some of the “heavier” beers that are trendier now can have quite a few carbs. I used “Lose It” (food app…) on a can of Old Chub Scotch Ale and it rang up 34G of carbs!
Stuff like Margaritas, I often guess about 30G of carbs but the sour mix/ simple syrup is very spiky carbs so most of the time, I’ll ask for tequila with a lime which often gets a shot. I’d rather sip it out of a rocks glass but one local place, when I asked for that, brought a rocks glass full of Patron for like $10, which is a pretty good deal!!
Test a lot, maybe more if you are getting crazy as it can be less fun if you have some sort of BG (high or low…) to manage. I also like to eat some kind of snack during the proceedings.
My experience agrees with what acidrock23 says. I regularly have a couple of glasses of red wine with dinner, and occasionally a wee dram of single malt scotch of an evening. Never bolused for either and never a problem. YMMD of course. I usually bolus for a beer the same as for a sandwich (the two pieces of bread standard) and that seems to work fine.
Standard warnings say alcohol may make it more difficult to sense hypos–and may actually lower your BG–so that’s something to be aware of, but again, never a problem for me.
I never bolus for beer/wine and have to pay very, very close attention to low BG’s when having 1-2 glasses with meals.
I do find that I may have to bolus a correction 3-4 hours later, when the alcohol is out of my system.
I don’t have to bolus for wine when I drink it, it drops me and I often bolus less insulin. My endo said no more than a glass and always with a meal which is what I follow. I hardly ever drink now- I have always been sensitive to alcohol and being on insulin makes it more worrisome.
I usually stick with whiskey/bourbon/rye/scotch and vodka and none of those seem to effect BG much for me. Red wine I small bolus; white causes me problems for some reason I get a big drop after a few glasses of dry white’s. As said before beer is basically liquid bread.
thankyou so much for all the replies, they’re very helpful. Definetly better talking to people with first hand experience instead of doctors.