Another repost - I’m seriously chuckling at what sounds like enthusiasm for house cleaning (???) in this old post from 4th October 2011 because nowadays I’ll come up with any excuse to avoid cleaning my house.

I wrote this post when I had been using an insulin pump for almost a year but I didn’t have my continuous glucose monitor yet. Times have definitely changed and I really do feel less of a slave to my insulin these days.

Do you ever feel like you’re a Slave to your Insulin?

I needed to clean my house, so I jumped right into hovering. Low (pun intended) and behold about 15 minutes into the project I was sweating and I’ve got the shakes. I’m annoyed because I have to get the job done before I have to get to my children's school and now I have to take time out to treat a hypo.

I have never let my diabetes stop me from doing anything; I’ve travelled, worked, got married, had children. I did not climb any mountains but I didn’t want to. But, when it comes to the blasted house cleaning, diabetes gets in the way almost every time!

In the end, I would try to synchronise the vigorous house cleaning with blood glucose testing time, which would also coincide with two hours after a meal and thus lessen the risk of a hypo. But, that just resulted in needing to sit down and have a snack before I started.

I don’t know about others but if my mind is geared up for a bit of cleaning I would just as soon get into it, than to sit around thinking about it (cos then I run the risk of putting it off altogether). I felt I would never have the upper hand in blood glucose control.

However, that all changed when I got an insulin pump. An insulin pump is kind of like the intravenous drip you see hospital patients with. The pump is programmed to deliver insulin at different speeds throughout the day (known as a basal programme) and the speed can be as little as .025 of a unit of insulin per hour. if you need to have more insulin you can dial up the required dose and make the pump give you that insulin all at once, for example like with an injection to cover the carbohydrate in a meal.

I feel I have more of the control with my insulin pump. I know I will never be able to predict what stress and hormones do to my blood sugars but the problem of how the insulin is behaving in my body has been simplified.

So now when it’s time for a bit of cleaning I have the option to either suspend my pump (stop insulin delivery temporarily) or reduce my basal rate by a percentage. No need for snacks unless I’m in the mood for one.

Sometimes, I still feel like I’m a slave to my insulin especially when I get the estimates wrong but it’s not as often and not as frustrating because I use that information to make the next estimate more accurate ☺