What are you "7" Bad habits has a person with Diabetes?

LOL! I don’t know why I decided to make this list, since I have nothing to hide I thought I would blog about My 7 “Bad” Habits as a Diabetic. I am not perfect and if anyone with diabetes say they are, you should play “knock, knock” on their head to make sure their brain is still there, lol.

Here I go…

  1. Falling asleep before checking my bg’s!!! I have wake up at 5 am to make it to work by 7 am. I have to get Niya and myself ready before 6:30 am; I have to be out the door by 6:30. My Husband has a new duty, lol WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO TO BED DUTY! I am actually getting a little better at testing before I fall asleep.

  2. Reese’s Peanut butter cups…OMG!!! just thinking about them makes me want to hop in the car and drive to the gas station…lol I guess if I walked I could “Walk it off”…haha

  3. Doritos (nacho cheese), and BBQ chips…I can not keep these 2 items in my house. I have to keep them out of site, out of my mind because I can eat them all day long. Not good for my girlish figure.

  4. Changing LANCETS! When I was first DX I changed my lancet all the time, lol everytime I tested. The last 6 months I haven’t been good at doing it. I am going to work on this also.

  5. Walking Barefoot! Here is another thing I use to do when I was first DX. I always walked around with shoes or socks on, scared I would get an infection. Plus, my ENDO said I should always have something on my feet. I stopped doing this about a year ago. If I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I don’t want to pee my pants (we usually wait to the last minute to go pee). It’s either shoes, socks or pee my pants!!! What would you choose?

  6. Washing hands before testing- Ok! I know I am not the only person who doesn’t wash their hands all the time before testing their bg’s. I learned a lesson, now I make sure I have something with me to clean my hands. If you touch something sweet it makes your bg’s higher than what they are; not good for someone who is insulin dependent.

  7. Diabetic Preaching- I didn’t know if I mentioned this or not but I am Certified to Preach Diabetes to people…hahaha not! I do have a bad habit of trying to tell people who don’t take care of their Diabetes, how to do so! I am trying to work on it, if you don’t want to know the “Truth” don’t ask. I have toned down a lot patting myself on the back*

Here is my list, I came clean. I admit it’s not really at that bad! I know there are a few things I need to improve on. I think tomorrow I am going to blog about MY 7 “Good” habits as a Diabetic.

I shared mines, what are yours?

No particular order…

  1. Checking my blood sugar the 4 times a day (morning, noon, night, bedtime) that I am supposed to.

  2. Reese’s Peanut Butter cups

  3. Going to sleep before I check my bedtime blood sugar. Though some of that has to do with the medicine for my bipolar that I am on makes me fall asleep.

  4. Walking barefoot or in sandals that don’t cover much.

  5. Cleaning testing area with a alcohol swab.

  6. Just taking 10 or 20 units of insulin without testing.

  7. Not speaking up about the medications that I am on for my bipolar because they tend to cause spikes in my blood sugar. (Them being 600 mg of Seroquel and 5 mg of Zyprexa.)

I probably could have more than 7 but I’m not going to go that far. :0)

Cherise

1.) Never changing my lancet… if truth be told, i doubt i have changed it in over 6 months

2.) Never swabbing with alcohol before testing or shooting. My theory is, they are my germs aren’t they?

3.) Using syringes multiple times because I am cheap like that.

4.) forgetting to test 2 hours after meal times and at 2 am. ( I HATE that one.)

5.) I am barefoot all the time unless I have to leave the house

6.) My absolute fav thing is when I forget if i have taken my shot or not. Yeah, that one is fun.

7.) My justification for having a piece of chocolate is that “i am low”… yeah … a low down dirty liar. I WANTED it.

I do your number 3 to save money. I have no insurance at all and found out from a nurse that it does not hurt to use them more than once. I have one syringe a day for Humalog and I keep my Lantus syringe for 4 days.

Cherise

  1. Bare feet. Oh, I’m bad about the shoe thing. I love to be barefoot. Since I developed plantar fasciitis though, I wear tennies all the time. The podiatrist cleared me to wear heels and tennies only - no flipflops or flats if my feet have to grip them to keep them on.

  2. Exercise. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

  3. Overtreating lows. Ouch. I was worse about this before my current pump, which tells you how many grams to eat to bring your BG to target. I’m low, I must be able to now binge on glucose tabs and granola bars until I feel normal. Nevermind I’ll be in the 230s an hour afterward.

  4. Lancets. ha.

  5. Ordering supplies. I am better about this now, but as a kid, I would always run out of strips or insulin in the middle of the night and we’d have to drive into the city to find a 24-hour pharmacy. Now it’s remembering to order a new 3-month supply order of pump supplies when I open the last box.

  6. Being annoyingly proud of TuDiabetes and talking about it everywhere I go! Students I’ve taught for five and six years right now who never really thought about me being a diabetic are now watching me test during lessons, dropping the extra pounds I was carrying, and hanging blue flying discs on my bulletin board for World Diabetes Day. I am so afraid I’ve become “that annoying diabetic chick” around the water cooler. giggling…proudly

  7. My husband says “those d*mn strips everywhere!” LOL On the nightstand, in the bed, in the bottom of my purse, on my piano, by the coffee pot, in the laundry, under the couch, under the driver’s seat, in the roomba, in the mail… He says that he hasn’t found one in the refrigerator yet. Methinks I have a surprise for him in the morning.

(I also chew on strips after use, which is probably how they end up everywhere. Just in case you were wondering, BD strips have a better taste than Freestyle and One Touch ones. Freestyle’s are papery. embarrassed smile)

Funny! you like Reese’s cups and we have the same name and spell it the same:) You are a lot braver than me, taking insulin w/o testing, that’s scarey:)

You haven’t changed your lancet in 6 months…wow! it doesn’t hurt?
I use to do alcohol swabs for testing but lol not any more

Nope, doesn’t hurt a bit… its the only finger i tend to test on, so i have a little speckeld callous there. :slight_smile:

Melissa-

You CHEW on strips??? really???

lol 6 and 7 are funny! let us know how you eye appointment goes.

Just the ends of them. I think I’ve developed it as a nervous habit.

really??? what do they taste like??? just curious?

Kind of like chewing on a pen cap. Just plastic-y. The BD/Novamax ones though were fun because they had the gold foil part and it was crunchy. (I feel ridiculous saying this.)

lol…funny:) I am going to try it…lol I sound like a kid:)

Good question, mmmm let me count the ways…

  1. Love to go barefoot, however only do this around home
  2. only change my lancets and needles when dull and hurt!!!
  3. I love chips and dip, and can sometimes over indulge (I do try to be careful about this one)
  4. Exercise doesn’t happen as often as it should, though I consistently do one sit up a day (you got it, when I sit up out of bed in the morning!!) lol
  5. Diabetic preaching, yep me too! Sometimes the ignorance in the community is amazing, so I do carry a soap box with me, and it makes me look taller when I stand on it
  6. Love a drink every so often
  7. the worst habit is…smoking!!! I know, I know disgusting and in no way good for my health, however seems good for stress and we all know how that one can affect BSLs.

Thanks for sharing all of you, it is good to know I am not the only naughty one out there!!!
Cheers

  1. Eating something I shouldn’t, telling myself I’ll run it off … and then, not running.

  2. Testing obsessively / wasting strips. I’ll have to scale down now that my insurance is going to a high deductible, but for a long time I was testing 8-10 times a day, just because I was so curious to see what was going on in my blood.

  3. I only change the lancet when it starts to hurt – maybe once a month, if that.

  4. I almost never use the control solution to test my meter.

  5. “Lick-n-stick” – licking my fingers to clean them before testing, instead of washing with soap and water, alcohol, clorox, lysol or whatever else we’re supposed to do.

  6. “Stick-n-lick” – the reverse of the above – licking fingers after testing … never had a problem yet, though.

  7. There’s this person in my office who makes the most spectacular gooey chocolate layer cakes …

  1. Relying on my cgms more and more instead of finger pricks when I don’t feel like checking.
  2. NEVER and I do mean never changing my lancet unless someone else is going to use my lancet.
  3. Changing my infusion set, if I have infusion set nirvana I will refill the reservoir instead of changing infusion set.
  4. Licking finger after blood sugar check even if it is in public (habit now and don’t realize it).
  5. Eating stuff I shouldn’t
  6. Blind bolusing, I seem to do that more and more often.
  7. Not keeping low supplies by bed and then have to walk downstairs to find juice in a diabetic stupor (yes I know stupid on my part).
  1. Exercise. I despise it. It’s the worst chore on the planet. I’m a klutz and don’t like competitive sports. It’s torture, and I don’t know how to make it tolerable.

  2. Record-keeping. Another chore. I did it briefly before I got my pump in '04 to prove to the insurance comapny and myself that I could stick with managing things better than I had been for years. Prior to that, I hadn’t done it since I was maybe 14. I don’t feel like my diabetes management is suffering because of not doing it, but I suppose it could be helpful.

  3. Changing my cartridge and set when I run out of insulin. I hate doing it, so I tend to dilly-dally, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for up to an hour after the alarms have started alerting me to an empty cartridge. I’ll take an extra bolus to make up for the missed basal once I finally change it, but I wouldn’t have to do that or deal with possible wonky BG’s if I would just take care of it by the time my cartridge is empty.

  4. Leaving home without backups. Insulin, infusion set, syringe - whatever I could use if I get in a bind. I’m getting better, but this needs work.

  5. Being more forgiving of myself. I screw up. I forget to bolus, I have inexplicably high BG’s, I forget to do a temp basal when it’s warranted so I end up high or low. I’m human, and I need to just fix it and move on instead of saying mean things to myself.

  6. I can get easily aggravated. Mostly with people who say ignorant things about diabetes. I need to more objectively decide if they might be receptive to getting correct information, and move on if I don’t think they will be. Getting myself in a huff isn’t helping me… but when you hear the same inaccurate comments, criticisms and questions for 30 years, it’s really difficult to not pop an occasional gasket.

  7. Myself. I am my own worst enemy. I have diabetes-related career goals, and there are things I could be doing to further those, but I let things like fear and uncertainty stop me.

  1. Not exercising. I started off well, but then I twisted my ankle, and then the weather was bad etc etc.

  2. Lindt 70% chocolate. It barely affects by BSL, and I love them. I could eat 3 bars a day. I need to get this under control again.

  3. Licking my finger after testing

  4. I’ve developed a habit of sticking used test strips in my handbag. And forgetting to throw them out. When I want to find something in my bag it often comes with a few strips stuck on it.

  5. Not logging my eating. Really, it’s just too anal and scheduled for me. Doing it on a regular basis would drive me nuts.

  6. Diabetic preaching - to my friends and family, because they don’t know much about it and I have to explain everything. I preach about low GI all the time, and would convert the world to eating this way if I could.

  7. Forgetting to test before I go to bed. My fasting BG has been higher lately, but I have no idea if it’s been high all night because I haven’t been testing. Am busy working on this one, pronto!

I definitely relate to 3 and 4 that Lee listed. Chips and salsa are one of my hugest weaknesses.