When we were in Paris, V forgot to take his digestive enzyme at lunch (no pancreas) which made him unable to eat dinner. He had to eat sugar cubes as he’d already taken the insulin.
Yesterday his numbers we’re good in the morning - and he forget to test after lunch.
And I forgot to remind him.
It’s only been 10 weeks…
Does one get so used to this that one forgets?
Do you tend to forget when the numbers are good? Kind of unconsciously pretending you don’t have diabetes? (it’s not easy to forget when they’re bad…)
When does it become automatic - like brushing your teeth… Ever?
Hello Katie. I do think for some, it does happens. Frequency, schedules, fatigue and stress plays a major factor.
Ive been doing the same things for a bit longer period of time now and I think, i do not forget…What’s bad about me is that I ignore on purpose. I get lazy. Or, I get laxed. Or, I get selective memory. But I try not to forget since I feel it should be a routine (bad as it sounds). And when it’s done routinely…it becomes a habit. Ideal perhaps but we are humans though.
Recently, I was eating dinner and I forgot to count my carbs and ate like I didn’t have diabetes. I got dizzy and really sick. Also, I forget to eat sometimes when I am just enjoying life and then the low will hit. I believe unconsciously I trick myself out of eating too, when I feel I need to lose weight.
Yes, I agree with Teena, Basic Testing and dosing for meals ( bolussing/injecting), and for maintenance(basal/long-acting insulin) has become routine for me after 41 years as a Type 1 diabetic. I some times choose not to do a post-prandial ( after meal testing) or get lax about redoing basals and the multipile testing it requires. I like your reference to “selective memory”, Teena. We have all probably done that from time to time.
Diabetes management will eventually become like “brushing your teeth” more quickly than you think. I read somewhere that it takes but 21 days of practicing a behavior until it becomes a “habit” that you do, basically without thinking about it…but then as diabetics, we have so much to think about!!! But believe me, it gets less of a memory drain the more you do it.
God Bless,
Brunetta
You have to ‘redo basals’??? We haven’t gotten it figured out for the first time yet!
How often do you ‘redo’? Just when your levels stop working the way you want? Or on a regular, maintenance-type schedule?
Yes, basals need to be assessed periodically. If your schedule changes, if your hormones change, if your body changes. Checking them is such a hassle though. I’m with Brunetta - I am very lax about it. I don’t know why, but I can go low at the same time every day for a month before willingly fasting long enough to seriously check a basal rate out. Then sometimes, I’ll overtweak it and have a few days going higher than I should before I kick myself into gear and find a happy medium. It’s one area where my CDEs are always fighting with me. My favorite CDE even stopped using the term “basal check” in favor of “let’s just skip a meal and watch your numbers” because I get so agitated at the thought of the fast - which always proves my basals are off.
I think every diabetic forgets to eat or forgets to bolus once in a while. I’ve been pumping for 9 years and I can’t TELL you how many boluses I’ve forgotten to punch in!
You’ve discovered why diabetes is so difficult. It’s unrelenting. That’s the part that so many of us get supremely frustrated about because–unless you’re a person living with diabetes–it is very difficult to understand the constant demands (as a type 3, you have more insight into the burden, of course).
Sure, we can forget or choose not to test. We can forget to count carbs or choose to overindulge in them. And doing so every once in a while doesn’t usually present a danger.
But to stay safe and stay healthy, one has to have a laser focus on all the daily self-care steps. Granted, after a while some parts of the regimen become quite routine. But at some level of consciousness, constant vigilance is needed.
I like to compare it to parenthood. Even the most dedicated parent is able to hire a babysitter or ask a family member to care for the child. A person living with diabetes NEVER gets to hand over the physical care of the disease to someone else.
I recently met a woman who works for the Taking Control of Your Diabetes non-profit group. She, like me, is a type 1. I was struck that during our 1-hour breakfast meeting, she and I each had devoted at least a dozen thought processes to our disease (fasting blood sugar, timing of breakfast, reading the menu, taking bolus, assessing how much we actually ate, assessing whether any extra food or extra insulin would be needed to cover the meal, planning at what time to do a post-prandial blood check, what time lunch would be). And all the while, we were carrying on a great conversation about our jobs, our lives, and our pleasure at finally meeting. Geez. I’m exhausted just thinking about it!