after one of the best weeks in a very long time controlling my sugars. We took the kids to the movies last night. I ended up taking the boy to see Invictus (which was a decent movie by the way). We stopped at the concession stand and spent $17 for a bottle of water, a gatorade, a pack of gummi bears for my wife and daughter going to another movie and a large diet coke for myself. we settled into our seats and watched the coming atttractions and as the movie started I took a long pull of my soda. Now one of many bad habits is that I gobble up food and rarely take the time to actually taste it. at the end of the sip I thought something was off It was coke flavor but tasted off not super sugary but offf. I didn’t think about and kept watching the movie (and a couple more sips) then decided to take my oral meds just in case. of course at the finale of the movie the boy had to go to the bathroom so I escorted him out and took the time to check my sugars. 241. F@#$! I took more meds but 1.5 hrs later my sugar was 281. By this time it was dinner and I was starving so I took more meds and ate chicken for dinner w/ a glass of red wine (my secret blood sugar lowering weapon) . we get home and I take my regular nightime meds and another glass of red wine and two hours later my sugar falls to 54 so I eat a hershey’s kiss and blueberries 30 min later I feel the shakes I check again and I’m at 36. double F#$%! so I made a berry smoothie and had some ice cream. I could feel the low pass and feel asleep before I could retest but woke w/ a 178 this morning - a very disappointing number but I can work with it and get it back in line, hopefully, by lunch time
Lessons learned:
if possible watch them pour your drink better yet get it in a bottle
if it tastes off don’t drink it
Don’t chase your highs too hard or you’ll be chasing your low
never brag to your wife how good your sugars are - you’ll end up jinxing yourself
I taste my pop at the counter before accepting it. Often the kids working at the movie theatre are not real careful how they hook up the hoses on the pop machines. I have done the very same thing.
There is of course a trick you can use when you are unsure. You can use a urine sugar test strip. In the end, without a comparison, I could never definitively tell that a soda was not a diet just from taste and I could not stand carrying around another vial of diabetic supplies. So, I just gave up all soda. I’ll still drink soda if I can prove it’s provenance, but even watching them fill it from the diet coke dispenser has not proven foolproof. Yes, they can hook it up wrong and call you a liar in your face (don’t ask). I drink large quantities of fluids and a mistake on an 8oz coke is manageable, but if I drink 32 oz or more ,that is just bad news.
I will test the beverage with one of my test strips, if I dont have someone to verify that it is diet. You dont need the uring test strips…the regular test strips will work. I have been doing it for years. It will usually read “Lo” or “Hi” or a very low number if it is diet.
And yes, everytime I brag about my great bloodsugars, I jinx myself.
You just hit my pet peeve button! Your four rules must have come from my playbook!!! That is why I go for the canned diet drinks if possible, otherwise I watch them like a hawk. I additionally hate the burger joints where you can’t see what drink they are giving you. If you want to toss a stinky variable into the equation, tase a Coke Zero. Same taste as regular (sugar filled) Coke, but no carbs. Another variant is something I encountered frequently in NYC and CT - coffee with milk added, regardless of what you asked for.
I’d rather not drink soda at restaurants, and I won’t waste expensive strips on soda. I feel so much better now that I don’t have any, anyway… no more headaches, edginess, or stress on my metabolism… Though I understand wanting the occasional treat. I might sneak in a bottle at the theater, instead. lol
True Lizmari…why bother! Considering that I could kick myself when I waste a strip when it doesn’t register because I gave it my drop of blood before the metre was ready for it!
I pretty much stick to green tea but find when I have to go out and lacking energy that the caffeine will pick me up for the time that I am out. I have been drinking diet since I was 14 and old habits are hard to break!
Tell me about it, Judith… My parents and grandparents would give us kids Coke in our baby bottles, and pick us up at kindergarten with a can of Coke and a cup with ice. I’ve been having about a litter of soda a day, since I can think… and I had switched to diet for a while, a few weeks after diagnosis, and then I completely went cold turkey. Horrible headaches for about 2 months or so, but now I hardly remember what it tasted like anymore. I never used to have much water, just all soda…
Sometimes, Lizmari, there is nothing like the old familiar taste of diet Coke or Pepsi after months of going without one. If nothing else the smell, the fizz, the bubbles, it all brings back great memories. I was a bad parent and put watered down apple juice in my kids bottles and gave them horrible teeth problems but they loved it so much.
