Going on vacation, I load my supplies and insulin in a lunch box the night before, add a good ice pack or bag of frozen veggies to it to keep it cool, then hang it on the door. I have ADHD and forgetting critical items is basically a hobby for me.
have i been diagnosed since i was 4 and been living with T1D for 22 years? yes. did i still stay and listen because everyone always has something informative? yes. also stayed because justin’s great?? also yes 🥰🥰 also love this type of content!
I am an active outdoor adventurer who has had Type 1 insulin dependent diabetes for 52 years. For most of those years I have averaged around 300 bGs of 70 mg/dl per year. Needless to say I have experienced some worrisome lows during my outdoor adventures. Once while ice climbing on Mount Washington (15F 30 mph wind and snowing) I experienced a really bad reaction. Hanging from an ice screw about 80' up a nearly vertical ice curtain I was belaying my partner who was out of sight about 60' above me. For some reason he'd stopped climbing and the rope hadn't moved upwards for 10'. Losing consciousness or even the ability to think clearly in a situation like that could prove deadly. Happily I carried a pocketful of lumps of sugar and I choked down a handful. Fifteen minutes later when my partner started to move upwards again I was almost back to normal. A few years after that I was sea kayaking near my home in Maine and after getting a late start I wound up faced with a 6 mile open water crossing just as it was growing dark. Having already paddled 15 miles I was tired but although I would have preferred to stay put I had no sleeping bag and, worse yet, no food for dinner. So somewhat reluctantly I started the difficult crossing. When I got about one mile from shore the wind began picking up and waves began to wash over the deck of my kayak. The symptoms of fear are very similar to those of low blood sugar so when I started to shake I wasn't sure if it was low blood glucose or just plain fear. Figuring better safe than sorry I managed to access several small boxes of raisins from my deck pouch but in the darkness and rough seas I couldn't get the boxes open...so I just ate the cardboard boxes along with the raisins.
We need to build up a "stash" of supplies and insulin! This past week, my brother ran out of fast acting and he won't have a new supply until tomorrow! I was able to take care of it from my supply ( I was looking into donating but I guess the donation stayed in the family this time!)
I've had T1D for 47 years. I've learned more than I ever wanted to know. I've probably spent more time experimenting with each of the forms of insulin and administration than Diabetech has had diabetes. By importance: - Hypo can quickly incapacitate, uncontrolled hyper is eventually dangerous. (Should be the first thing every person with T1D is taught) - Always be over-prepared to handle hypo and do it early. If you know your carb to BG ratio, early correcting hypo should be a precision exercise not a panicked reason. Orange juice is a poor choice for treating ambulatory hypo - it's too easy to over-treat. I don't have fruit juice in my house because it sopikes my BG. Glucose tabs work as well and are more easily controlled. (They can be dissolved in water by someone else if you can drink but niot chew.) Vanilla wafers are even more precise, better for early intervention, and if taken with sips of whole milk are a gentler response. - Never bolus for food unless you KNOW the time you will start eating it. - Having a way of measuring blood glucose is more important than having a specific delivery system or a faster or slower product. - Knowing blood glucose level and how to calculate insulin dosage is wasted without effective application. Unless the measurement is accurate AND the information is applied dynamically, accurate food measurement and appropriate timing of dosing is necessary to get predictable results. - There is no difference between the overall effects of different variations of insulin other than convenience. Convenience is the inverse measure of how much effort is required to achieve a goal. Increased convenience has a cost. Unless that convenience improves outcome it is a luxury. - There is no difference in outcome or manufacturing cost to justify any variation of insulin having a price that is several times the price of the least expensive one. - Very few accessories marketed for insulin administration are worth the difference in cost compared to more commonly available products. Functional protective equipment covers are very high profit margin products that are frequently available from makers or distributors for substantially lower prices.
For going out to eat I prebolus for about half the carbs that I roughly estimate I'll be eating. I typically prebolus 15 or 20 minutes prior. Then I order whatever I order and bolus for the rest when the food arrives. That way if the food doesn't come in a timely way, I'm not committed to a full meal of bolus and just need bread or a juice to stave off the low. This technique seems to work pretty well.
One more tip for what to be sure to have with you when you're away from home for any length of time....batteries (if you use a pump - or a CGM that may require batteries). I once went to a conference for a weekend and I had an extra battery with me, but when I put it into my pump, it failed. I know that some of the pumps have a rechargeable battery, so you at least need whatever items you have to have for charging, but if you got an additional battery - for any reason, be sure to have it with you (and maybe an extra in case that one fails).
I love the insulin silicone case! I had a horrible experience about 10 years ago. I had just picked up my Novolog from the pharmacy. I had it on a table, I was preparing to give myself an injection, my cat jumped on the table, the vial was near the edge and yep you guessed it, the vial fell off the table and fell on to my tile floor completely shattering. I began to cry. Once I had calmed down enough, my mom suggested I talk to my doctor. I called my doctor’s office and she was able to give me a physicians sample. After that I looked up if there were ways to protect insulin vials and kept my vials in a padded case in the fridge until I learned about Sugar Medical and saw they had cases for the vials too! I was happy and excited! To this day I have about 20 of them in the house, at my work and in my car. I never want to experience breaking another vial like that again.
There are better ones than the ones shown. VialSafe covers the body and neck. These last for a lifetime. There is no reason to have more than one at each location of each size.
As the wife of a diabetic, we have gotten used to using glucose tablets over the years to help manage lows. They’re really convenient to keep in the car or in your pocket. You don’t have to refrigerate them and normally they get used before they expire so they have been a very useful tool to use for a long time and come in a lot of different flavors. The taste is sort of like a sweet tart candy. They sell them at drugstores and we also buy them on Amazon.
Agreed - so easy to carry, doesn't melt or get affected by heat, etc. AND you can test them while your blood sugar is normal/stable and learn how much effect a single tablet has on your blood sugar so that you can take a measured dose to arrive at the blood sugar level that you want - for example sometimes I just need a single tablet, other times 1 1/2, etc.
All true. And much better than any other low snacks because they are made from dextrose, the fastest acting form of sugar. Some gets directly into your blood from your tongue and you recover from lows within 5-10 minutes.
While some of your was more about handling lows than about insulin, I was surprised how many of your talk was about pre-bolusing. Honestly. I never pre-bolus. Never have in 42 years of being diabetic. I find it makes very little difference with modern insulins, and not work the risk of mis-judging carbs. Something you didn't talk about, but I discovered recently, is that with the usage of pumps and having the insulin essentially directly against your skin for most of the day (and at night, probably under blankets) the temperature of the insulin is high enough to cause degradation. I found that after 2 days, the insulin in the pump stops being as effective...so I now only fill the reservoir enough to cover 2 days, then refill the reservoir. It has made a big difference. And also...in 42 years of diabetes, you know how many vials of insulin have broken? Zero. I'm wondering what people are doing with their vials that you need to have a silicon wrap for it!!!
Maybe you don't live in an area with tile floors?? T1d here for almost 40 years. I've broken 2 vials - dropped one in a bathroom at a restaurant and dropped the other in a bathroom at a hotel when I worked for a company that forced us to have roommates at conferences, etc.
I've been a type 1 diabetic for 22 years now an I never had ever broken an Insulin bottle.. Until this past year .I had moved into my new to me home about 1-1/2 ago .An I was Keeping my insulin in my fridge butter shelf .An since I have lived in my new to me house House I have now broken 4bottles! Reason being is b/ci would open up the butter door an the bottles would f Roll off of the shelf an fall on my kitchen tiled floor an Instantly break! ( NOT FUN ) by any means what so ever !especially on 2 occasions my bottle just happened to be the last of My script that I had left! Ahh man ..an 1of those times was on a Friday. So instant extreme anxiety of a 12 on a scale of 1-10 .just awful Tk say the least. I was very lucky at the time because a good friend that lives on the next street over just Happened to had just filledhis script (same insulin) that day. So I borrowed abottlwan have him back a bottle From my new Script! Close call for sure. With that said I heard Justin talk about Pre bolus before he had his food!! Whatttt that is absolutely nuts /crazy I tell ya man!!!. Ani am definitely it judging by any means whatsoever! All I'm saying is that I am absolutely having anxiety To the max just thinking about pre-bolusing before putting anything on my mouth !! Reason being is because so many things coumdgi wrong. 1 time I was in a rush to get home an I had food in front of me in my truck driving my phone rang and at that point, I became distracted and answered my phone on speaker Bluetooth, of course through my radio. Then after I had been through talking, I totally forgot I had taken my insulin bolus, and my sugar level went extremely low and I was on the highway an I had passed out due to low sugar and then I Re-ended someone at about 40 mph!! Luckily the occupants of the other vehicle we’re OK as I was OK as well. Lesson learned I will never Ever pre-bolus again, unless the food I’m about to eat is in front of me and ready to be eaten. too many things could possibly go wrong when you have a habit of pre-Bolussing.
its amazing how different your life is at 3 years in compared to mine at 28 years in. we dont do anything the same, but I do remember having your issues when younger
I’m been type 1 since 1986. I’m 48 now. For most of my life it was manual shots using Regular and NPH. Now everything is done so different. lol back than Accue-check glucometee took 3 minutes to give you a blood sugar.
When I was in college I was going to Mexico for the summer to visit family and I somehow forgot my omnipod transmitter (back when you couldn’t control it on your phone). Luckily I had just set up a new pod so I had my basal going for a few days. I had to get syringes and a basal prescription to be covered for the two weeks. I definitely had a panic when I found out. I will triple check I have all my supplies even for short day trips.
These were so helpful! I recently had a wild experience when going to my local Renaissance fair where my infusion site was causing me issues and raising my BG by the minute. My best friend drove me to the nearest CVS, hoping we could score a new infusion set to replace the malfunctioning one. When they didn’t have the supplies specific to my pump, I had the idea to use a syringe instead. I asked for a ten-pack, which is much more affordable than a box of pump supplies. I grabbed a box of alcohol prep pads and in my friend’s car drew up insulin from my pump cartridge and administered my correction subcutaneously. It was only fast-acting insulin. I knew it would only be a temp solution for the day, but it brought my blood sugar back down and I was able to enjoy all the fair treats 😋 The lesson I learned was that if you’re changing your infusion set, carry a spare on you for the first 24 hours in the case of a malfunction, like a bent cannula (in my case that day). Or keep one on you at all times. A malfunction or a sudden removal can happen at ANY time.
Hi I love your channel and thank for the hard work you put in to them I just want to let you know you should should have sugar tablets from Walgreen or CVS so you can put it in your pocket or in your jacket anytime you feel low. I do that all the time I get the big ones for Home and then I get the travel ones and then I if I’m done with that, I refill it with the ones that I have at home they help for lows and can’t fine anything to eat they have them in liquids too.
Just flew to St Kitts. Always take 2 juices for lows and used them on the way there and the way back as I was chasing highs. When the insulin finally caught up I was challenged as I overdosed. I think liquid juice is absorbed faster than anything as it doesn’t have be broken down. In other words, straight to your blood for the fastest recovery
T1 62 years. I use glucose gummies for treating lows. I use 1 gummy for every ten mg/dl need to raise my BS then wait 15 minutes and check BS again and follow up with 10-15 grams of protein. Eating your way out of hypoglycemia is a recipe for disaster. Candy, such as Snickers or other chocolate has too much fat and that slows the metabolism of the sucrose delaying your blood sugar response. I have never pre-bolused for a meal, to easy to misjudge when you are out to eat.
I weigh everything I eat at home. I don't prebolus for meals outside my home with the exception of when I'm forced to pickup at McD or BK when traveling. I have their compositions listed on my phone. For those I pickup, bolus, and eat later. For regular restaurants I estimate the carbs when they arrive, underbolus for them and expect to make a correction later. Precision corrections are easier than precision guesses. I have noticed that whenever I travel, my BG rises, probably from stress hormones. There are ways to precision-eat to make a negative glucose correction other than using sugar candy. There are packaged foods that are very precisely measured like vanilla wafers or saltine crackers that are easily assimilated carbohydrates. Although they can be literally crummy, I prefer using these instead of candies simply because I DON'T prefer to eat them. Dark chocolate bars that have portion segments can be useful for intentionally making negative corrections that you WANT to occur over an extended time. The biggest danger is growing to enjoy them.
Some of things I have is have back up battery and extra supplies and always have a silicone protector I've dropped so many vials or they have fell off the table
he mentioned about prebolus, i do only when i see the food, excatly what i need. My time in range is 90%. Do i have to do it 10-15 minutes before and maybe i dont need preboulus becuase i still have production as i was diagnosed 5 months ago
Great video I tend to inject when my food is in front of me so while I'm waiting for the insulin to kick in my food will be cooling down then eat pretty good with my insulin take it everywhere with me and my emergency supplies
I have certainly learned my lesson here. Years ago i had two bottle of insulin - short and long insulins. I picked up my quick acting one first instead of the long and ended up putting 40 units in instead of 4. A trip to hospital for a few days followed.
Mixing up your insulin…long acting and quick acting…..I switched to using refillable pens earlier this year and one morning managed to inject the amount of the long acting dose with the pen filled with short acting insulin! So about 3 times the amount of quick acting insulin I ever inject for even the most carbs meal I eat. Luckily soon realised what I had done, and felt sick. Told my husband what I had done and asked him to check on me every quarter of an hour for the rest of the morning and chugged all the fruit yoghurt in the fridge and several small boxes of apple juice! I now strictly separate my insulins and have a little woolly marker on the quick acting insulin pen wallet. I now try and remember to check to read the type of insulin in the pen before I inject. One thing I’m not sure about is leaving insulin in hotel rooms. I used to work in a school and would always carry my insulin around with me, in a little silk dolly bag. As much to stop anyone picking it up as to ‘keep it with me’.
OMG, pre-bolus...yes at a restaurant when you think the food will be out within 15 min, and then they have a delay..."Ok can you get me more soda please, NO the real stuff, no more diet"
It’s been one year since my son found me unconscious in my bedroom I woke up in ICU after 3 days in a coma. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I just eat a Keto diet and don’t need to bolus makes it easy.
With a CGM, set your FALLING alarm so that you don't get a low alert when you're actually LOW. If I were driving, I'd know I was going low before I actually got low and I would pop a glucose tablet in my mouth and keep on driving.....
Almost ever restaurant has sugar packets on the table, so if you don't actually have glucose tablets handy, just eat a packet of the sugar on the table.
This may sound like the weirdest thing to wish for or to have Christmas money to spend on. “I want a Dexcom Stelo for Christmas” I’m not a diagnosed diabetic but I know I’ve had my a1c at 6 both in 2023 and 2024 which is borderline normal number but in the last 6 months I’ve had Nocturia (getting up at night) more than twice. Although my desire to drink water has not changed that much just may get thirst at 7pm but not throughout the day like I’ve heard of from other diabetics. I am overweight by ~40lbs (not embarrassed to say) so I know I’d be classified as a Type 2 but I know in life things are not always what they seem.
I just don't pre-bolus. I'd rather be briefly high than risk going low. High kills you slowly over the years, but low can kill you right now. I guess I'm too risk-averse to risk a low, which I read somewhere (no idea if it's scientific or not) that 4% of diabetics die from low blood sugar. That's too high of a risk for me to be complacent about the possibility. Oh, also, I feel like my brain really doesn't fully recover from a low, that I don't get all my acuity and intelligence back, which could build up over time with multiple lows. I'd be curious if other diabetics feel the same as I do about this. I feel a little bit fuzzy, a little brain fog, after recovering from a low, that I'm not sure ever is completely cleared. Also, I've noticed with several diabetics I know that they're a bit ditzy or spacey after many years as a diabetic. This is not a scientific observation, it's just something I've noticed. I wonder if frequent lows could contribute to this over time. Please reply to this comment and let me know your experience.
If I pick up food and driving home I do not bolus. Why, what if I was in a car accident on the way home? Imagine being in a bad car accident after you bolus and unable to eat. I always play it safe.
T1 > 30 years . Love your channel ! Always great information! I fell in a diabetic coma 3 times in my lifetime due to (very very) low bs. Each time was different but all were very scary. I dont want to go into much detail but if you live alone have glucose in every room. Have it easily accessable bc you will not be able to remove packaging etc in these situations. You will be glad if your hand finds your mouth due to full body cramping for hours. You will not be able to walk. Use baqsimi or glucose pens = no chance. You will not be able to handle it. Be careful with insulin.
Yes, the medical info is on Android watches, I have a Samsung watch 4. It pulls the info from your phone. On the watch, you pull down under setting scroll down to safety and emergency. Medical info and emergency contacts.
Great video! I have been sharing these with my wife which gives us both hope and another voice explaining things in a different way or better way. If you are driving while having a blood sugar low and get into an accident, you will be charged with a DWI (Driving While Impaired) which is as serious as a DUI. Your license will remain suspended until you receive a doctors authorization which can remain suspended if your a repeat offender. Have you ever noticed having lows due to barametric preasure changes? I have noticed that their are times in the year I become insulin sensitive so much that I have to be disconnected from the pump all day. I have to eat almost all day from having lows but when it ends I usually have to take 3 times the amount of insulin or a 2 mile walk with insulin on board.
I have had T1 for 55yrs. I started out with glass and metal syringes, one injection a day and testing my pee in a test tube. That was in the late 60s. Things have changed so much over the years that I could not in my wildest dreams, envisage what I am doing now, which is looping. Looking back at those days, the methods of dealing with T1 were very basic indeed and it seems, the understand of how it works. I remember the days when I graduated from glass and metal syringes to disposable syringes in the 70s which I thought was fabulous! But I also remember those days of being in restaurant bathrooms and trying to draw up insulin in dim lighting or dropping the vial on the floor and it rolling out under the toilet cubicle door. Or dropping the syringe and it sliding out under the door. If you only had the one syringe with you, you still had to use it. Those were awful days. I have always taken very little insulin compared to a lot of people. I take around 45 units over a 3 day period including basal, using the Omnipod. I was using MDIs for 45 years starting in the 80s and over the last 10yrs of that, it wasn't working for me. I started using the Omnipod 10 yrs ago in 2014 and everything changed for me then. Fast acting insulin like Novorapid works very quickly for me. Ten minutes is all I have, usually. I've been in restaurants and prebolused and then ended up having hypos.I learned not to prebolus because first, you don't know how long it's going to take to get the food, and second you cannot estimate how many carbs are going to be on your plate if you eat out or order in; I don't see how you ever can. If I ate out, I would wait until the food arrived. Also, I often don't eat everything that I serve up for myself at home, or that is served up for me in a restaurant. OR sometimes, what arrives on my plate in a restaurant is not what I assumed it would be. For those reasons, I would bolus right after I ate. Now, I often let the looping app work it out for me. Sometimes, I don't give myself a bolus at all. Yesterday, I ate lunch and dinner, and the looping app dealt with my insulin requirements without me having to bolus at all. I am very lucky that after all this time, I have no major issues that are caused by having diabetes for all these years. My Endo says "you must have really good genes!"
I think for when you order from a delivery service to bolus when the driver pulls up to your door. It may sound counterintuitive but think about it you can incorporate the 15-20 bolus time from the time between the food being handed to you and when you put the first bite into your mouth.
I know I am older and old fashioned but as a diabetic, I see no reason to order food for delivery. You are paying more, you are depending on someone else to provide your food. I cook large meals so I dont have to cook daily and just heat food up. Also restaurant food sometimes has twice the carbs as if you look at what food you ordered and calculate carbs as if you were cooking it yourself. You are compounding the chance of error or miscalculations when you order food for delivery from a restaurant.
Hi ......everything you do is very helpful !!!! but....trim that mustache .....omg all I could notice through the whole video was if he just took a little off there it would even the whole thing off......lol
Going on vacation, I load my supplies and insulin in a lunch box the night before, add a good ice pack or bag of frozen veggies to it to keep it cool, then hang it on the door. I have ADHD and forgetting critical items is basically a hobby for me.
have i been diagnosed since i was 4 and been living with T1D for 22 years? yes. did i still stay and listen because everyone always has something informative? yes. also stayed because justin’s great?? also yes 🥰🥰
also love this type of content!
I am an active outdoor adventurer who has had Type 1 insulin dependent diabetes for 52 years. For most of those years I have averaged around 300 bGs of 70 mg/dl per year. Needless to say I have experienced some worrisome lows during my outdoor adventures. Once while ice climbing on Mount Washington (15F 30 mph wind and snowing) I experienced a really bad reaction. Hanging from an ice screw about 80' up a nearly vertical ice curtain I was belaying my partner who was out of sight about 60' above me. For some reason he'd stopped climbing and the rope hadn't moved upwards for 10'. Losing consciousness or even the ability to think clearly in a situation like that could prove deadly. Happily I carried a pocketful of lumps of sugar and I choked down a handful. Fifteen minutes later when my partner started to move upwards again I was almost back to normal. A few years after that I was sea kayaking near my home in Maine and after getting a late start I wound up faced with a 6 mile open water crossing just as it was growing dark. Having already paddled 15 miles I was tired but although I would have preferred to stay put I had no sleeping bag and, worse yet, no food for dinner. So somewhat reluctantly I started the difficult crossing. When I got about one mile from shore the wind began picking up and waves began to wash over the deck of my kayak. The symptoms of fear are very similar to those of low blood sugar so when I started to shake I wasn't sure if it was low blood glucose or just plain fear. Figuring better safe than sorry I managed to access several small boxes of raisins from my deck pouch but in the darkness and rough seas I couldn't get the boxes open...so I just ate the cardboard boxes along with the raisins.
We need to build up a "stash" of supplies and insulin! This past week, my brother ran out of fast acting and he won't have a new supply until tomorrow! I was able to take care of it from my supply ( I was looking into donating but I guess the donation stayed in the family this time!)
I've had T1D for 47 years. I've learned more than I ever wanted to know. I've probably spent more time experimenting with each of the forms of insulin and administration than Diabetech has had diabetes.
By importance:
- Hypo can quickly incapacitate, uncontrolled hyper is eventually dangerous. (Should be the first thing every person with T1D is taught)
- Always be over-prepared to handle hypo and do it early. If you know your carb to BG ratio, early correcting hypo should be a precision exercise not a panicked reason. Orange juice is a poor choice for treating ambulatory hypo - it's too easy to over-treat. I don't have fruit juice in my house because it sopikes my BG. Glucose tabs work as well and are more easily controlled. (They can be dissolved in water by someone else if you can drink but niot chew.) Vanilla wafers are even more precise, better for early intervention, and if taken with sips of whole milk are a gentler response.
- Never bolus for food unless you KNOW the time you will start eating it.
- Having a way of measuring blood glucose is more important than having a specific delivery system or a faster or slower product.
- Knowing blood glucose level and how to calculate insulin dosage is wasted without effective application. Unless the measurement is accurate AND the information is applied dynamically, accurate food measurement and appropriate timing of dosing is necessary to get predictable results.
- There is no difference between the overall effects of different variations of insulin other than convenience. Convenience is the inverse measure of how much effort is required to achieve a goal. Increased convenience has a cost. Unless that convenience improves outcome it is a luxury.
- There is no difference in outcome or manufacturing cost to justify any variation of insulin having a price that is several times the price of the least expensive one.
- Very few accessories marketed for insulin administration are worth the difference in cost compared to more commonly available products. Functional protective equipment covers are very high profit margin products that are frequently available from makers or distributors for substantially lower prices.
For going out to eat I prebolus for about half the carbs that I roughly estimate I'll be eating. I typically prebolus 15 or 20 minutes prior. Then I order whatever I order and bolus for the rest when the food arrives. That way if the food doesn't come in a timely way, I'm not committed to a full meal of bolus and just need bread or a juice to stave off the low. This technique seems to work pretty well.
I do this sometimes too!! It’s all about the “vibe” I’m getting from the restaurant haha
Great video would love you do do a video all about insulin sensitivity.
Great idea
One more tip for what to be sure to have with you when you're away from home for any length of time....batteries (if you use a pump - or a CGM that may require batteries). I once went to a conference for a weekend and I had an extra battery with me, but when I put it into my pump, it failed. I know that some of the pumps have a rechargeable battery, so you at least need whatever items you have to have for charging, but if you got an additional battery - for any reason, be sure to have it with you (and maybe an extra in case that one fails).
I love the insulin silicone case! I had a horrible experience about 10 years ago. I had just picked up my Novolog from the pharmacy. I had it on a table, I was preparing to give myself an injection, my cat jumped on the table, the vial was near the edge and yep you guessed it, the vial fell off the table and fell on to my tile floor completely shattering. I began to cry. Once I had calmed down enough, my mom suggested I talk to my doctor. I called my doctor’s office and she was able to give me a physicians sample. After that I looked up if there were ways to protect insulin vials and kept my vials in a padded case in the fridge until I learned about Sugar Medical and saw they had cases for the vials too! I was happy and excited! To this day I have about 20 of them in the house, at my work and in my car. I never want to experience breaking another vial like that again.
There are better ones than the ones shown. VialSafe covers the body and neck. These last for a lifetime. There is no reason to have more than one at each location of each size.
As the wife of a diabetic, we have gotten used to using glucose tablets over the years to help manage lows. They’re really convenient to keep in the car or in your pocket. You don’t have to refrigerate them and normally they get used before they expire so they have been a very useful tool to use for a long time and come in a lot of different flavors. The taste is sort of like a sweet tart candy. They sell them at drugstores and we also buy them on Amazon.
Agreed - so easy to carry, doesn't melt or get affected by heat, etc. AND you can test them while your blood sugar is normal/stable and learn how much effect a single tablet has on your blood sugar so that you can take a measured dose to arrive at the blood sugar level that you want - for example sometimes I just need a single tablet, other times 1 1/2, etc.
All true. And much better than any other low snacks because they are made from dextrose, the fastest acting form of sugar. Some gets directly into your blood from your tongue and you recover from lows within 5-10 minutes.
Glucose tabs are expensive. I switched to Rockets, (Americans call them smarties). They are cheaper and do the exact same thing.
Great reminder on your tips sometimes we forget about it thank you
While some of your was more about handling lows than about insulin, I was surprised how many of your talk was about pre-bolusing. Honestly. I never pre-bolus. Never have in 42 years of being diabetic. I find it makes very little difference with modern insulins, and not work the risk of mis-judging carbs.
Something you didn't talk about, but I discovered recently, is that with the usage of pumps and having the insulin essentially directly against your skin for most of the day (and at night, probably under blankets) the temperature of the insulin is high enough to cause degradation. I found that after 2 days, the insulin in the pump stops being as effective...so I now only fill the reservoir enough to cover 2 days, then refill the reservoir. It has made a big difference.
And also...in 42 years of diabetes, you know how many vials of insulin have broken? Zero. I'm wondering what people are doing with their vials that you need to have a silicon wrap for it!!!
Maybe you don't live in an area with tile floors?? T1d here for almost 40 years. I've broken 2 vials - dropped one in a bathroom at a restaurant and dropped the other in a bathroom at a hotel when I worked for a company that forced us to have roommates at conferences, etc.
I've been a type 1 diabetic for 22 years now an I never had ever broken an Insulin bottle.. Until this past year .I had moved into my new to me home about 1-1/2 ago .An I was
Keeping my insulin in my fridge butter shelf .An since I have lived in my new to me house
House I have now broken 4bottles! Reason being is b/ci would open up the butter door an the bottles would f
Roll off of the shelf an fall on my kitchen tiled floor an Instantly break! ( NOT FUN ) by any means what so ever !especially on 2 occasions my bottle just happened to be the last of
My script that I had left! Ahh man ..an 1of those times was on a Friday. So instant extreme anxiety of a 12 on a scale of 1-10 .just awful Tk say the least. I was very lucky at the time because a good friend that lives on the next street over just Happened to had just filledhis script (same insulin) that day. So I borrowed abottlwan have him back a bottle From my new
Script! Close call for sure. With that said I heard Justin talk about Pre bolus before he had his food!! Whatttt that is absolutely nuts /crazy I tell ya man!!!. Ani am definitely it judging by any means whatsoever! All I'm saying is that I am absolutely having anxiety To the max just thinking about pre-bolusing before putting anything on my mouth !! Reason being is because so many things coumdgi wrong. 1 time I was in a rush to get home an I had food in front of me in my truck driving my phone rang and at that point, I became distracted and answered my phone on speaker Bluetooth, of course through my radio. Then after I had been through talking, I totally forgot I had taken my insulin bolus, and my sugar level went extremely low and I was on the highway an I had passed out due to low sugar and then I Re-ended someone at about 40 mph!! Luckily the occupants of the other vehicle we’re OK as I was OK as well. Lesson learned I will never Ever pre-bolus again, unless the food I’m about to eat is in front of me and ready to be eaten. too many things could possibly go wrong when you have a habit of pre-Bolussing.
its amazing how different your life is at 3 years in compared to mine at 28 years in. we dont do anything the same, but I do remember having your issues when younger
I’m been type 1 since 1986. I’m 48 now. For most of my life it was manual shots using Regular and NPH. Now everything is done so different. lol back than Accue-check glucometee took 3 minutes to give you a blood sugar.
wow, incredible!
When I was in college I was going to Mexico for the summer to visit family and I somehow forgot my omnipod transmitter (back when you couldn’t control it on your phone). Luckily I had just set up a new pod so I had my basal going for a few days. I had to get syringes and a basal prescription to be covered for the two weeks. I definitely had a panic when I found out. I will triple check I have all my supplies even for short day trips.
Great content u never disappoint
😉
These were so helpful! I recently had a wild experience when going to my local Renaissance fair where my infusion site was causing me issues and raising my BG by the minute. My best friend drove me to the nearest CVS, hoping we could score a new infusion set to replace the malfunctioning one. When they didn’t have the supplies specific to my pump, I had the idea to use a syringe instead. I asked for a ten-pack, which is much more affordable than a box of pump supplies. I grabbed a box of alcohol prep pads and in my friend’s car drew up insulin from my pump cartridge and administered my correction subcutaneously. It was only fast-acting insulin. I knew it would only be a temp solution for the day, but it brought my blood sugar back down and I was able to enjoy all the fair treats 😋
The lesson I learned was that if you’re changing your infusion set, carry a spare on you for the first 24 hours in the case of a malfunction, like a bent cannula (in my case that day). Or keep one on you at all times. A malfunction or a sudden removal can happen at ANY time.
Thanks for sharing this! Good to know about needles. Good to have a backup one.
Hi I love your channel and thank for the hard work you put in to them I just want to let you know you should should have sugar tablets from Walgreen or CVS so you can put it in your pocket or in your jacket anytime you feel low. I do that all the time I get the big ones for Home and then I get the travel ones and then I if I’m done with that, I refill it with the ones that I have at home they help for lows and can’t fine anything to eat they have them in liquids too.
Great video! More please. I always forget to bring my insulin when I go out to eat or when I go to someone’s home.
Sounds good!
The feature in the watch - put glucose / sugar together with insulin under medicine.
I lol’d when you said nuclear war. I love my frio!! Great tips Justin!
The Medical Id is also on the iPhone too!
yep yep! should have mentioned that!!
I literally never thought to check my galaxy watch for the medical info but yes it's there. I just filled everything out. Thanks for the tip.
first thing I do when I change watches. I've got a Galaxy 5 watch. I love it
@ForceFreeTrainergirl06 now that I know i will do that too
Just flew to St Kitts. Always take 2 juices for lows and used them on the way there and the way back as I was chasing highs. When the insulin finally caught up I was challenged as I overdosed. I think liquid juice is absorbed faster than anything as it doesn’t have be broken down. In other words, straight to your blood for the fastest recovery
T1 62 years. I use glucose gummies for treating lows. I use 1 gummy for every ten mg/dl need to raise my BS then wait 15 minutes and check BS again and follow up with 10-15 grams of protein. Eating your way out of hypoglycemia is a recipe for disaster. Candy, such as Snickers or other chocolate has too much fat and that slows the metabolism of the sucrose delaying your blood sugar response. I have never pre-bolused for a meal, to easy to misjudge when you are out to eat.
I weigh everything I eat at home. I don't prebolus for meals outside my home with the exception of when I'm forced to pickup at McD or BK when traveling. I have their compositions listed on my phone. For those I pickup, bolus, and eat later. For regular restaurants I estimate the carbs when they arrive, underbolus for them and expect to make a correction later. Precision corrections are easier than precision guesses. I have noticed that whenever I travel, my BG rises, probably from stress hormones.
There are ways to precision-eat to make a negative glucose correction other than using sugar candy. There are packaged foods that are very precisely measured like vanilla wafers or saltine crackers that are easily assimilated carbohydrates. Although they can be literally crummy, I prefer using these instead of candies simply because I DON'T prefer to eat them. Dark chocolate bars that have portion segments can be useful for intentionally making negative corrections that you WANT to occur over an extended time. The biggest danger is growing to enjoy them.
Some of things I have is have back up battery and extra supplies and always have a silicone protector I've dropped so many vials or they have fell off the table
Bless u 4 all u do.
he mentioned about prebolus, i do only when i see the food, excatly what i need. My time in range is 90%. Do i have to do it 10-15 minutes before and maybe i dont need preboulus becuase i still have production as i was diagnosed 5 months ago
Great video I tend to inject when my food is in front of me so while I'm waiting for the insulin to kick in my food will be cooling down then eat pretty good with my insulin take it everywhere with me and my emergency supplies
I have certainly learned my lesson here. Years ago i had two bottle of insulin - short and long insulins. I picked up my quick acting one first instead of the long and ended up putting 40 units in instead of 4. A trip to hospital for a few days followed.
Oh my gosh
Does Medtronic have those very helpful blue "safety guards" to put around the vials of insulin to protect it when traveling?
Mixing up your insulin…long acting and quick acting…..I switched to using refillable pens earlier this year and one morning managed to inject the amount of the long acting dose with the pen filled with short acting insulin! So about 3 times the amount of quick acting insulin I ever inject for even the most carbs meal I eat.
Luckily soon realised what I had done, and felt sick. Told my husband what I had done and asked him to check on me every quarter of an hour for the rest of the morning and chugged all the fruit yoghurt in the fridge and several small boxes of apple juice!
I now strictly separate my insulins and have a little woolly marker on the quick acting insulin pen wallet.
I now try and remember to check to read the type of insulin in the pen before I inject.
One thing I’m not sure about is leaving insulin in hotel rooms. I used to work in a school and would always carry my insulin around with me, in a little silk dolly bag. As much to stop anyone picking it up as to ‘keep it with me’.
OMG, pre-bolus...yes at a restaurant when you think the food will be out within 15 min, and then they have a delay..."Ok can you get me more soda please, NO the real stuff, no more diet"
Very interesting, building up to flying soon hopefully !
You’ll be great :)
It’s been one year since my son found me unconscious in my bedroom I woke up in ICU after 3 days in a coma. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I just eat a Keto diet and don’t need to bolus makes it easy.
very helpful tips
glad they helped!
With a CGM, set your FALLING alarm so that you don't get a low alert when you're actually LOW. If I were driving, I'd know I was going low before I actually got low and I would pop a glucose tablet in my mouth and keep on driving.....
when ordering delivery food DO NOT BOLUS until your food arrives to your door. IT is better to be safe than sorry.
💯💯💯
Almost ever restaurant has sugar packets on the table, so if you don't actually have glucose tablets handy, just eat a packet of the sugar on the table.
Ty so much
Could you freeze the frio to get a cooler effect for the insulin? or would that destroy them or be too cold for the insulin?
Not on label, no idea
don't forget an extra battery for your pump...
This may sound like the weirdest thing to wish for or to have Christmas money to spend on.
“I want a Dexcom Stelo for Christmas”
I’m not a diagnosed diabetic but I know I’ve had my a1c at 6 both in 2023 and 2024 which is borderline normal number but in the last 6 months I’ve had Nocturia (getting up at night) more than twice.
Although my desire to drink water has not changed that much just may get thirst at 7pm but not throughout the day like I’ve heard of from other diabetics.
I am overweight by ~40lbs (not embarrassed to say) so I know I’d be classified as a Type 2 but I know in life things are not always what they seem.
I use Frio too :)
The best!
I just don't pre-bolus. I'd rather be briefly high than risk going low. High kills you slowly over the years, but low can kill you right now. I guess I'm too risk-averse to risk a low, which I read somewhere (no idea if it's scientific or not) that 4% of diabetics die from low blood sugar. That's too high of a risk for me to be complacent about the possibility.
Oh, also, I feel like my brain really doesn't fully recover from a low, that I don't get all my acuity and intelligence back, which could build up over time with multiple lows. I'd be curious if other diabetics feel the same as I do about this. I feel a little bit fuzzy, a little brain fog, after recovering from a low, that I'm not sure ever is completely cleared. Also, I've noticed with several diabetics I know that they're a bit ditzy or spacey after many years as a diabetic. This is not a scientific observation, it's just something I've noticed. I wonder if frequent lows could contribute to this over time. Please reply to this comment and let me know your experience.
If I pick up food and driving home I do not bolus. Why, what if I was in a car accident on the way home? Imagine being in a bad car accident after you bolus and unable to eat. I always play it safe.
T1 > 30 years . Love your channel ! Always great information! I fell in a diabetic coma 3 times in my lifetime due to (very very) low bs. Each time was different but all were very scary. I dont want to go into much detail but if you live alone have glucose in every room. Have it easily accessable bc you will not be able to remove packaging etc in these situations. You will be glad if your hand finds your mouth due to full body cramping for hours. You will not be able to walk. Use baqsimi or glucose pens = no chance. You will not be able to handle it. Be careful with insulin.
thanks for sharing 💕
Yes, the medical info is on Android watches, I have a Samsung watch 4. It pulls the info from your phone. On the watch, you pull down under setting scroll down to safety and emergency. Medical info and emergency contacts.
Thanks for this!!
Great video! I have been sharing these with my wife which gives us both hope and another voice explaining things in a different way or better way.
If you are driving while having a blood sugar low and get into an accident, you will be charged with a DWI (Driving While Impaired) which is as serious as a DUI. Your license will remain suspended until you receive a doctors authorization which can remain suspended if your a repeat offender.
Have you ever noticed having lows due to barametric preasure changes? I have noticed that their are times in the year I become insulin sensitive so much that I have to be disconnected from the pump all day. I have to eat almost all day from having lows but when it ends I usually have to take 3 times the amount of insulin or a 2 mile walk with insulin on board.
I have had T1 for 55yrs. I started out with glass and metal syringes, one injection a day and testing my pee in a test tube. That was in the late 60s. Things have changed so much over the years that I could not in my wildest dreams, envisage what I am doing now, which is looping. Looking back at those days, the methods of dealing with T1 were very basic indeed and it seems, the understand of how it works. I remember the days when I graduated from glass and metal syringes to disposable syringes in the 70s which I thought was fabulous! But I also remember those days of being in restaurant bathrooms and trying to draw up insulin in dim lighting or dropping the vial on the floor and it rolling out under the toilet cubicle door. Or dropping the syringe and it sliding out under the door. If you only had the one syringe with you, you still had to use it. Those were awful days.
I have always taken very little insulin compared to a lot of people. I take around 45 units over a 3 day period including basal, using the Omnipod. I was using MDIs for 45 years starting in the 80s and over the last 10yrs of that, it wasn't working for me. I started using the Omnipod 10 yrs ago in 2014 and everything changed for me then.
Fast acting insulin like Novorapid works very quickly for me. Ten minutes is all I have, usually. I've been in restaurants and prebolused and then ended up having hypos.I learned not to prebolus because first, you don't know how long it's going to take to get the food, and second you cannot estimate how many carbs are going to be on your plate if you eat out or order in; I don't see how you ever can. If I ate out, I would wait until the food arrived. Also, I often don't eat everything that I serve up for myself at home, or that is served up for me in a restaurant. OR sometimes, what arrives on my plate in a restaurant is not what I assumed it would be. For those reasons, I would bolus right after I ate. Now, I often let the looping app work it out for me. Sometimes, I don't give myself a bolus at all. Yesterday, I ate lunch and dinner, and the looping app dealt with my insulin requirements without me having to bolus at all. I am very lucky that after all this time, I have no major issues that are caused by having diabetes for all these years. My Endo says "you must have really good genes!"
I think for when you order from a delivery service to bolus when the driver pulls up to your door. It may sound counterintuitive but think about it you can incorporate the 15-20 bolus time from the time between the food being handed to you and when you put the first bite into your mouth.
Yea this is sometimes what I do!
I know I am older and old fashioned but as a diabetic, I see no reason to order food for delivery. You are paying more, you are depending on someone else to provide your food. I cook large meals so I dont have to cook daily and just heat food up. Also restaurant food sometimes has twice the carbs as if you look at what food you ordered and calculate carbs as if you were cooking it yourself. You are compounding the chance of error or miscalculations when you order food for delivery from a restaurant.
Hi ......everything you do is very helpful !!!! but....trim that mustache .....omg all I could notice through the whole video was if he just took a little off there it would even the whole thing off......lol