Are you a "Bad Diabetic?"

Some of my bads are due to poor standard of care!

I am bad, because I refuse to keep my a1c at 7.0 as per ADA guidelines.
I am bad, because I eat low carb, instead of the recommended 55 - 65% of calories from carbs, and low fat.

Some of my bads are to save money, and/or laziness / reluctance to generate medical waste:-

  • I am on MDI because I can’t afford a pump
  • I reuse needles
  • I never change my lancet (that’s laziness)
  • I use every drop of insulin in every vial, regardless how long ago it was opened. Fortunately I’ve never had a bad vial so far (in nearly 10 years).
  • I tried the libre but it doesnt’ work for me. After the first few units, it consistently reads low. Like very low. My blood sugar can be 120 and it says it’s 2.9 (52)… that happened continually… makes it useless… I suspect some sort of immune response preventing proper readings… the alternative is several really bad batches, of which I caught every single bad one. Spent to much money to get no information. :frowning: I can’t afford any of the other CGMs on the market.

Some of my bads are altruistic:

  • Spending far too much time in social media support groups trying to help others with diabetes learn what I’ve learnt.

Some of my bads just are me failing to achieve what I know I should do in my life and yet not doing it. And I guess that is not the fault of diabetes or even being a bad diabetic. Though diabetes does sometimes take more energy and attention that I would desire, and I guess that does take attention and energy from other things that should also be prioritized.

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I usually only have 15 - 20u remaining. So I typically just extract/bolus right from the pod and then toss it. I tried keeping an “extracted” vial (not mixed with fresh insulin) at one point but that was slightly past my comfort threshold for “badness”. :joy:

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Thanks!

You use a pump plus using Lantus? Why? I thought the pump, due to such frequent doses of Humalog/Novalog/whatever, that taking a long acting insulin would not be ncessary. So am curious about your having pump while using Lantus.

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@Morrisminor72 is using a technique called the “untethered regimen.” The usual pump basal is either shared or completely replaced by an external dose of long acting insulin like Lantus. This gives all the convenience of pump bolus dosing and the ability to disconnect from the pump for many hours for athletic and other pursuits. Some people like the control it gives them. The untethered regimen is nice for beach vacations or where you want to disconnect for sailing, scuba, or kite surfing.

Edited to change “bolus” to "basal’ in the second sentence above.

I think you meant basal.

I love the flexibility of my pump, and for 20 years used no long acting. I currently train in aikido, a fairly acrobatic martial art, and can’t wear my pump, it would get damaged, or damage me! But in order to train for more than an hour or so (I can train for up to 4 hours on Saturdays, 3.5 hours on Tuesdays), I need a bit of background long acting. So I have 75% of my basal via Lantus, the rest of my basal and all boluses via the pump. It works for my specific circumstances, and for anyone with extended off pump times. Swimmers and gymnasts in particular…

That makes sense, glad you are able to do it.

Yes, I did. Thanks for catching this.

Maureen, that’s sad. I don’t always need input from my doctor, but when I’ve had a problem, he’s been a real help. Any chance you can get a new endo?

T2s here don’t get to see an endo, Trudy. Medical people here are mostly horrified by low carb, it saves time and effort if I keep quiet.

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I’ve gone to a once a week schedule…becuz I was bein’ so bad at it ;0)

My solution is to have some cake with a side of salad ;0)

I agree, if we didn’t care, we would just ignore it, throw our meters in the trash, and go grab a bag of candy! I first joined when I was trying to learn some of the little tricks for my pump, but since then, I have learned so much, as well as hopefully helped others learn! The only “Bad Diabetics” are the ones that ignore it and expect it to go away on it’s own.

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Try putting 25 units less in the pod from the beginning

Thanks. I put the minimum amount I can in my pods, just till it beeps at me, but use less than that in the 3 days it gives before it shuts off. I’m just accepting it now as a “cost” of using Omnipod and don’t bother saving those extra units…

How to recover diabetic? My mother is suffering from it over 4 years. Though everyday she walks about 2 hours in the morning as well as evening.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. My sense of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes is that you may not “recover” from either one. You may successfully treat diabetes and in some type 2 cases you may successfully reverse some or all of the symptoms.

The underlying disease, however, is not cured. My understanding is that if a person with type 2 reverses symptoms with a change in diet and exercise, those symptoms will return if the diet and exercise changes are not sustained.

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I know it’s hard to recover like winning an Oscar award. But I would like to keep it control.

Eating ice cream

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