There is no prescription for managing Type 1 Diabetes.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. There are a lot of prescriptions that need to be filled to help manage diabetes. When T-Bear was first diagnosed, we paid $250 just in co-pays to fill every prescription on the prescription order. It was a lot of stuff.
But, there’s no prescription that says “Take one pill three times a day, preferably with meals.” Or even, “Give 6 u of Insulin A with each meal and 11 u of Insulin B at bedtime.” Its way more complicated than that. There are carb-to-insulin ratios, which can differ from meal to meal, and there are corrections factors than differ depending on the time of day, and these formulas are often adjusted from week to week. Then there's the basal inslin, which can also change from week to week. And then there are the “other” factors that affect blood sugar, like exercise and stress and growth and heat and whether or not it’s raining (I just threw that one in to see if you were paying attention). And how long, exactly, does insulin stay in your system, and do you do an IOB adjustment only for corrections, or for boluses as well? Because if you get the calculations wrong, it could be disastrous.
Meri at Our Diabetic Life spelled it all out for us recently, taking us all through ONE bolus calculation for ONE of her sons with Type 1, with the help of a smart pump. Go check it out and decide for yourself how "close" your bolus calculation would be to what was needed.
Every Type 3 Diabetic wishes for two things. 1) A cure. 2) That managing our loved one’s blood sugar, keeping diabetes under control, and staving off complications were as simple as “Take one pill three times a day, preferably with meals.”
If only it were that simple.
It would be so simple if it were a pill 3 times daily wouldn't it Mo?
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