Food Diaries, Track Keeping, Logging and Blogging :)

I have been listening intently to other diabetics for a while now, and something has come to my ttention that quite a few of us (admittedly, myself included) seem to have issues with.

See, we can wake up, and do god knows how many injections and jabs and blood sugars every day. We can watch where our blood sugars are going. We have learnt how to count carbohydrates like its a well known language to us, and we can instantly work out the insulin accomodations. What we dont like doing, is writing all of this stuff down!

Without dressing it up in any sort of fancy language, its boring. Who wants to spend each and every day writing down- "Blood Sugar before breakfast-6.3. A bowl of coco-pops. 6 units on a 3:1 ratio. Blood sugar an hour after breakfast- 7.1". It's tedious.

I have said before, and I maintain, I'm not writing this to tell anyone what to do or how to live their lives with diabetes. Not even my doctors do that with me, and I arent prepared to be a hypocrite. If I was a perfect diabetic, I'd have room to talk, but I'm not and I never will be. I can tell you now, that I have as much problems with logging as the lot of you. I dont do it half the time, and even when I do do it, I forget to take it. Luckily for me, the last time I was at the hospital the lovely lady had a wonderful machine, that linked up to my blood glucose moniter, and printed off all of my readings. That for me was perfect, though they still didnt have my dosages or anything. The doctors dont get mad, because they understand what this is like, they understand how boring it is to have to write down all of this every day, and they can encourage us to do it, but they cant, nor do I think they ever will or want to, force us into doing it.

I guess the reason that I wrote this seemingly pointless post, is to remind you that we're all the same. We have have issues with the same (or at least similar) things in diabetes. And it isnt the end of the world if you go to the hospital without a food diary (sorry doctors but it isnt).Obviously its helpful, but dont stress yourself majorly over it, just keep checking your blood sugars and taking care of yourself as best you can. Only you can tell you how to live, because its your life.

Keep Smiling
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx

A Few Lows

Hello :)

So, I've had a few lows today and it messed with my emotions quite a bit, I was stressed a lot and upset quite a bit and I think after the third time of dropping low I turned around and declared to nobody in particular that whichever part of evolution had diabetes created had totally and utterly buggered up and just didnt at all think it through.

I wasn't in the best of moods to say the least.

Here's what you have to remember though, you have to remember that if your blood suagars are messing up then your emotions will mess up with it. You have to remember, that when you are thinking with the 'Old brain' instead of the 'new brain' as you are when you are stressed and upset, things seem so much worse, you become irrational and upset and percieve your situation as the worst in the world when it mayb isn't so bad.

I'm okay now though. I'm fine and I'm happier. It's all okay, it always gets better, so if your having a bad day with blood suagrs remember that, remember that things always get better in the end.

Keep Smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx

Diabetes and Alcohol

This may be a tad more of a serious post than what I normally post up. But it's something that I think needs saying.

It's about alcohol and diabetes. There are some people out there who will turn around and say never ever drink alcohol if you're diabetic, it's bad and they'll try and scare you with it. I guess being diabetic you have to be especially careful when drinking alcohol (I'll explain why in a second) but that doesn't mean that you have to toally ignore it-everything in moderation, even when I was on the human mixtard regime I still ate sweets I just didn't eat them all the time.

The reason as diabetics we have to be more cautious is because when consuming alcohol the liver stops the production of glucose in order to help rid the body of the toxins in the drink. Due to this you may find blood sugars drop (this surprised me at first as alcohol is full of suagr and I expected it to rise). But this doesn't in any way shape or form mean that you should never drink, it's ok as long as you keep checking blood sugars, and ensure that if you are drinking to eat something aswell.

I'm not keen on drink. But I have to admit even I had some last night, and I'm fine this morning, my friends who were around me kept telling me to check my sugars, though I would have done it even if they had not told me, but I'm fine now barring a headache and that's my own fault. Diabetes should not make it so that you have to stay away from everything, what sort of a life would that be? No, diabetes just means that while you can have the same things eveyone else is having, you maybe just need to be a litle bit more responsible and keep checking sugars, but don't deny yourself theses things, we cannot live like that.

So if you want a drink with friends- I'd say go for it! But also just remember to keep checking, it's easy enough to control but not if you don't know what's going on with it.

Keep Smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx

There's Somethings I'm Not Sure On At All......

I can tell you all about what it's like living with diabetes. Having had it since I was 4 years old I'm kind of clued up about it. However there is one thing in particular that I am in no way shape or form clued up about.

That is how it feels to be diagnsed with diabetes into your teen years. As I've already said, it's all I really ever knew. I didn't live enough of my life without diabetes to know what it was like to live without. I can imagine that for the person involved, it is much harder to adapt to being diabetic when you already know what life without diabetes is like.

As I'm writing I've gone low, that's a bugger but it's a fact of life and it's not so bad, I'm still able to write which is good :) just means a bit extra lucozade and a biccy :) sorted :D.

All I'm trying to say here, is I kind of consider myself a bit of an ancient diabetic, I've had it for years and years, but what I'm unsure of and I doubt I'll ever get to know is how it affects those who already know what it is like to live life as a non diabetic. I guess we can't all know everything :P

Keep Smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx

Fabulous Evening With The Diabetic Girls :)

We went climbing!!!! If there was a reason for it to be worth having diabetes then I have to say this is it!

I don't mean climbing (though that was fabulous) I meant being with the girls. I find it such a release, It's a night every month where I'm totally relaxed and happy. I really enjoyed last night, I'm in pain today but it's all really worth it. I'd do it again in a second.

Endorphines- like dopamine is a happy drug :) we usually get them during excersize and last night the amount of excersize induced endorphines coupled with fantastic company had me in an amazingly fantasticlly good mood.

Diabetes isn't so bad, and the people we meet are fabulous.

Keep Smiling
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx