People: I love my iPhone. No, I mean it. I LOVE my iPhone. I love it. I didn't realize what an amazing tool I was buying when I bought it, and I was pretty impressed at the time. I prepared for some time for the arrival of my iPhone- about a year. I scoured the app store every few days looking for sale prices on good apps while I could get them cheap, and did a lot of research about free apps, as well. Well, my iPhone is my best technological friend. As a person without an insulin pump, logging was not previously a priority to me. It always fell by the wayside, and all of my doctors hated it. Well, my iPhone has stopped that problem and I have better control of my diabetes than EVER.
Not only do I have TuDiabetes on my iPhone (the app, that is), but I have some really helpful apps that do a lot for me in terms of management. I feel more motivated than I have to continue doing better, as well, than I think I ever have. There is a lot less fear that I can mess up, and it is so much easier for me to understand what I'm doing and see how what I do effects my diabetes. I am not good with numbers. I have dyscalculia (severely) and numbers really mess me up. I have feigned knowledge about the math involved with diabetes and hoped that it wasn't a guess. Using the tools I have found to assist me, I have successfully maintained my diabetes better than I did before.
The Glucose Buddy app (www.glucosebuddy.com) integrated with the Calorie app helps me plan my meals and my exercise, log my blood sugars, graph my trends, estimate my a1c, plan my weight loss and goal a1c and calculate my doses. I also have an app I use called Insulin Calulator. You input your before-meal bg, the carb value of your meal, your goal sugar and your basal dose, and it tells you how much insulin to take. It cuts out a lot of the number crunching I used to have to do that I was really not very good with before... and it works.
I am sometimes really afraid that people who don't realize how crippling my inability with numbers is will make fun of me. I've had trouble with numbers my whole life, and never realized how much they were limiting my ability to deal with my diabetes. I feel rewarded every time I take my blood sugar and see the graph level out where it should. I feel rewarded when I wake up and my sugars aren't astronomical. I feel rewarded when I see my average bg level come down and my estimated a1c is headed towards its target. I feel rewarded. And that's something I have never felt from my diabetes before. I'm not filled with dread when testing time comes around- I'm excited. Every two to four hours, I can't wait to know how much better I'm doing because I've been vigilant and worked so hard. I get so enthusiastic about how well I'm doing, I text my bg to my husband to celebrate. "Woohoo! I hit hypo at 3.8!" I know I shouldn't cheer over a low, but it's still a low and not a high- and one that is barely there and totally manageable.
I'm feeling fantastic. My alarm goes off at 4am every morning so I can test, and I do it with a smile. Why? Because I know that number is going to be one I want to see.
Kass
Keep up the great work!!