I agree that 30 carbs with no insulin is a lot considering his carb ratio is 25 grams per unit of insulin. When we first left the hospital they had it at 15 grams or less. But, my son was going to bed starving. The dietician gave us the okay to raise his snack to 30 carbs or less for a snack with no insulin. So far that has worked fine. His bedtime readings are running typically around 130.
So when you say you dont give any snacks for free…can you explain what you mean?
Free, I mean with no insulin. He’s on a pump so we can give very small amounts of insulin. He doesn’t have even 4carbs without it getting covered. On shots I don’t think we gave any uncovered either though. We left the hospital thinking 15carb snacks w/no insulin, but his regular endocrinologist told us no when we met her. He was ending up high afterwards.
My son was also starving on shots. It was too rigid a schedule for him. The pump really does put life close to normal again (food-wise, timing-wise). He can eat any time he feels like it now and give the smallest amounts of insulin to cover whatever he’s eating.
I am BY NO MEANS saying what you’re doing is wrong. Every person with diabetes is different. My son just doesn’t get any ‘free’ snacks unless his blood sugar is low.
oh I totally understand what you are saying. Not knowing a lot about the pump, if it is possible to dose for a small carb snack, then that makes sense. Dosing for small carbs with injection is almost impossible. I do get confused at the fact that my son can have a snack with 30 or less carbs with no insulin, when his ratio is 1:25. So that actually should be 1 unit if the snack totalled 25 or more grams. But, so far, it hasnt caused him any highs or lows.
The pump really does sound wonderful. Like the difference of going to the beach at some Lake in Michigan or going to Hawaii. I want Hawaii.
You probably already told me, but how old is your son?
It is confusing, maybe it’s certain times of the day or bedtime that he can have that amount uncovered? The one thing I do know is that there’s not always a rhyme or reason to why things work with diabetes. If it’s working, sounds good.
The pump IS Hawaii 
Is your son interested in it also? My son was NOT until we went on the pump websites and watched the videos of how they worked. He was sold. We watched those about 3-4 months after diagnosis. Long enough for him to be sick of shots and schedules and realize that the pump was going to be better for him.
My son is 11. He was diagnosed in July 2009 just after turning 10.
Why wont it let me reply to a reply?
Anyhow…technically, according to our dietician, he can have 30 carbs or less between each meal. But…if he has a snack in the morning at school, it is usually something very small, 15 carb range. After school its a hit and miss. Sometimes he comes home starving and ends up going the full 30 carbs, othertimes it is as little as 10 carbs. Even then, his dinner level is usually right where it needs to be, according to the nurse. After dinner is the biggest problem because come 8pm or so, he is hungry. So we have just made his nighttime snack a bowl of cereal with a spoonfull of peanut butter (just to add protein).
My son does want the pump, but knows that his doctor usually introduces that after a year. So he is satisified with knowing our next appointment he can get the pen. December 15th we see the doctor (our last appointment was with the nurse educator). I think I will bring this up at his December 15th appointment. It certainly sounds like it would make life easier on both my son and my husband and me and why wouldnt the doctor want that, right?
If your son does not mind the injections, I feel that the CGM would be of more value (and less hassle) for you than the insulin pump. I was an adult when I was diagnosed, so the dread of injections was much less than for a child. I have always liked not being connected to a medical device, so have always chosen to continue with multiple daily injections (MDI). I was almost ready to switch to a pump when Lantus was developed, but that insulin has made for such a smooth baseline for me that I was able to stay on MDI, with A1C results as low as 5.4%. I had loved not having to be plugged into anything permanently, but that all changed this spring when I was going off to college and my wife insisted that I get a continuous monitor so that she would not need to worry about me being low when she was not around. So I succumbed and received approval from my insurance co. to get a Dexcom and have not regretted it once. The sensors are easy to place, cause little or no discomfort, and they let me know 24 hours where my tissue sugar is and where it’s heading. My entire family has felt more at ease because of this. It is simple to use the CGM as a guide to take extra boluses of fast-acting insulin as needed (though it is highly recommended that you do a finger stick to confirm BG first) or to know when you need to have a snack or maybe some exercise if that is possible at the time. I think that the big plus for a Mom, though, would be the alarms that can be set to alert when sugar is getting high or low. They add such a measure of security and freedom from the constant fear and vigilance. Yes, there are occasional errors as from any tech device, but the pluses way outweigh the minuses. Reading through your posts here, it is fun to see just how strong you and your son have become already. Soon you’ll be the ones passing out advice! Best of luck to you. To respond to your earlier question about where people are, I am in Massachusetts. I am a school nurse who is working on a project, aimed at other school nurses, to help increase the use of CGM in schools in hopes of improving students’ control and safety.
I did think about that, jerodsmom, and I’m truly sorry to have upset you. I thought long and hard about it before I posted it though and I had a reason. Usually, when I talk to parents, I try to show them how easily managed diabetes is and I tell them how it didn’t hurt my chances to grow up healthy and successful. I failed here and you’re right that it was the wrong thing to say to you.
But I said it because I’m haunted by those 13 year olds, too. I woke up the other night with my BG in the 30s and couldn’t go back to sleep thinking about how unfair their loss was. One of them was just in the last couple weeks. It has completely unsettled many parents and many of us here in the TuDiabetes community.
I said it because I recently communicated with at least one of those moms who lost her child to type 1 and I felt like I needed to come to her defense. I was bothered by the suggestion, however well-meaning, that people who have complications have them because their standard of care was different as children than our standards today. I just wanted to come to those moms’ defense because those deaths have been keeping me up late at night, too.
It’s important to know that what took those young people accounts for only 6% of deaths of T1Ds who die before age 40. And most of us don’t die before age 40!!! So that’s a tiny tiny tiny percentage.
It’s important that we blame diabetes for its evils and not diabetics. Not doctors. Not treatments. That’s the point I was making. That it’s infinitely liveable, but that it also doesn’t discriminate.
Again, I’m sorry I upset you.
Melissa,
Thank you for your reply and apology.
I understand completely that you are haunted by those 13 year old children. It is a sad and tragic loss and my heart goes out to those parents
I don’t think anyone was saying that perfect management will prevent any complications. Just that good management reduces those risks. I realize completely that I can do everything right and still have complications otherwise I wouldnt feel so scared and overwhelmed. I would just move forward and make sure without doubt that I will make sure my sons diabetes is managed well by him and us. The warnings I have recieved so far…being told that you can do everything right and still end up with highs and lows, that was enough defense for any parent whose child ends up with complications.
If I understood correctly, the replies that talked about complications for poor management had nothing to do with anyone diagnosed in the last 5 years. They were talking about people who are above 40 years old that when they were diagnosed, treatment was so different and diabetes wasnt so easily managed.
Thank you for understanding. Being new here I certainly didnt want to put on flame proof jammies for starting any fires. Just needed to express my feelings.
I feel the need to apologize to both of you. i didn’t mean to make anyone defensive. my intent was not to blame anyone for when things go wrong, but rather try to provide some comfort and remind that things are very different now, and look to be changing very rapidly. We all know that things go wrong even with the best care. That point is painfully obvious for many of us since so many of us feel blindsided by this disease. We as parents need some hope to cling to that we can make a difference for our kids, or at least improve their chaces if we are dilliegent. if we didn’t have that hope then i am not sure that any of us would be able to get our of bed in the morning.
we have all heard the horror stories, one of the first things my second dx’d daughter asked was if she was going to lose her toes! we need to know that tight management will at least HELP avoid those horrors. that doesn’t mean that we don’t also realize that awful unfair things still happen. if they didn’t we wouldn’t need this site.
i would NEVER blame a parent for losing their child. that is the big thing that we all fear, it is what keeps us all up at night, and causes many of us to double check BG’s in the middle of the night. We all know the statistics, and i for one, even knowing how slim the chances are, still fear that it could be my child. Lets face it, statistically speaking many of us won the lotto! my first daughter had only a 0.3% chance of being dx’d, then my other children only had a 5% chance, and yet here we are less than a year later with another child dx’d. we need some hope to cling to that we can make a difference despite all the odds, or we have nothing.
Hi Karen,
Several great responses to your post which is one of the most comforting things that I’ve found as a new parent of a Type 1 as well. My 18-year old daughter was dx’d back on Sep 7 of this year just into her first 3 weeks at college some 2500 miles away from home. I spent 3 weeks with her while she continued to attend school to help get her arms around the day-to-day management of this disease. Although I don’t actually do all the counting, calculating and injecting, I can tell you that living clear across the country having to put 100% control into the hands of your child, regardless of age, is daunting. Thankfully, my daughter is extremely responsible, so, things are going pretty well.
My sister and I just participated in the Walk to Cure Diabetes for JDRF here in Los Angeles yesterday. Being amongst the thousands of people that participated in the event helped that solitary feeling that can hit all of us at times. The unfortunately fact is that there are millions of others dealing with this disease directly and indirectly. Just from the response you received I’m sure you realize that there are many out there to help, lend an ear or offer advice. Continue to reach out as it’ll help with the melancholy that can set in especially when thinking too much about the pre-dx days, etc.
Best of luck with everything! Feel free to ping me or any of us at any time…
-Rob.
Hi,
My daughter Samantha is 14 & was diagnosed with Type 1 on November 29, 2010. I am still stunned & part of me wants to hide, but the other part is scouring the Internet for information & clinical trials. We are making it through the holidays on auto-pilot & she seems to be doing ok. Sam just started high school & is an excellent athlete: she plays field hockey and softball. I am going to make sure she keeps doing the things she loves. Her school is being a little hesitant about the idea. She is the only Type 1 at the high school of 1500 kids. I have another daughter, Annebelle, who will be 13 tomorrow, so I worry about getting her tested. My husband & I lost our first child, our son Hayden, to a rare disease when he was 8 months old. That was 1994 & I didn't have the Internet to turn to. Now I am committed to researching this disease extensively and finding any possibilities with the potential to improve Sam's life. I am in Louisville, KY.
With the holiday rush, I only just saw your note. Hang in there, it will get easier to manage the day-to-day stuff after you have been with it for a while. In my opinion, you are absolutely right to have Samantha continue with her athletics. You and she will need to monitor and study the results of your approaches to find out what the exercise typically does to her numbers. For instance, my son goes low at swim practice (many, many laps) but runs high at swim meets (several short bursts of exercise, and lots of adrenaline). We work really hard to stress to him that, with good planning, he can do whatever he wants.
As with anything, I would be careful about what you find on the internet. There are great resources and not so great ones. I like Children with Diabetes website, the Pink Panther Book (from the Barbara Davis Center) and sites like TuDiabetes, with real experiences to draw from. For school, I think the NIH publication, Helping the Student with Diabetes Succeed (http://ndep.nih.gov/media/Youth_NDEPSchoolGuide.pdf?redirect=true), is a great starting point. We found this several years after my son started Kindergarten, but I think it would be especially good for your High School setting.
Thanks for the ideas. I guess we’ll learn how to handle practices & games as we go through the seasons. You’re right, the practices will probably be tougher on her. I’ll check the info you suggested. I was looking for a book about teenagers & diabetes.