The Great Sugar Confusion

Are you as tired as I am of hearing about sugar and all its evils?

**** I am not a health care professional nor do I have anything that looks remotely like a medical degree. So take anything I say with a pinch of salt.

The Great Sugar Confusion was originally posted on the 9th October 2013. I have taken a different spin on it this time.

Everyday, it seems like there’s another “sugar scare” story!

• -  March Call for voluntarily ban on sale of energy drinks; too much sugar
• - February High-sugar diet is as 'damaging to your brain as extreme stress or ABUSE
• - January  Sugar Crash
• - November 2015 Be Sugar Smart Campaign

And yes, I know that too much sugar is not good for us, any of us but I get so confused when I try to understand what these articles are trying to tell us and how to explain it to someone else.

I know that these pieces are written by well intentioned people, even qualified medical professionals,  who are trying to educate the masses but everytime I see one of these articles I get “irked” because I feel that the healthier foods are being branded as “bad” too.

People with diabetes, despite the truth, are taught that sugar = poison. I feel this is changing in the diabetes community but the rest of the world will continue to be stuck in this time warp for a long time to come.

So, if someone shows you an image like this ;  

and you have diabetes and are not very carb-aware, you might assume that you can’t eat any of these three items.

For me, I get confused because I don’t know if it's representative of the sugar that is added when the food is being created or if that’s what the carbohydrate becomes when digested into glucose. I don’t know if my reaction should be “Gosh, I didn’t know that!” Or “Yes, I knew that”. What, just what are you trying to tell me????

Educating the masses about the complexities of our food and how it affects us is a huge challenge. So many different approaches have been tried but haven’t really succeeded.

However, I do think that people with diabetes, especially those of us who count carbs to match insulin, have a leg up on this one. Learning to read a food label has been the best tool for me to know exactly what I’m eating, it’s even better if there are very few ingredients in it or if my food is cooked from scratch. The closer the food is to the farm the better it is. But it’s also a tool I HAVE to rely on to stay healthy and not let diabetes take me down.

It’s probably not very realistic to expect all others to scrutinise their food labels as I do. But it might be realistic to teach this in our primary or secondary schools along with how our digestive systems work? I mean that stuff has stayed with me.

This is what I remember from my 2nd year biology class.

• - starch + sugar = Carb
• - bite, chew-chew-swallow, swish-swoosh in the stomach
• - presto = glucose.
• -  Glucose floats around in the blood, gets absorbed by cells = energy.
• -  Leftover glucose get stored for a while then gets turned into fat.
• -  Done! A+ for me…. surely?

For those of you who would like a bit more science, have a look at this really good website; basic biology of digesting carbohydrates.

The Clare branch of Diabetes Ireland is hosting a Diabetes Education event will feature a dietitian who will talk about "being sugar smart”, on Tuesday, May 17th in The Temple Gate Hotel at 8pm. It's going to make for a very interesting evening and hopefully be enlightening.

A Day of Diabetes - A Not-So-Good Day!

As promised, the Not-So-Good Day of Diabetes.  When I was trying to decide which "Not-So-Good Day" experience to post about, I had too many to choose from. On this occasion I choose this one because it's not all to do with diabetes. It's the other stuff that affects diabetes or vice versa.

When I wrote this post I hadn’t had an uninterrupted night's sleep in about 4 nights. It’s my diabetes but it’s not just that. It’s the decisions I make too. Like to have 2 squares of chocolate with insulin just before bed. It’s my son having very loud dreams and it’s words in my head that need to go in a blog post that I’m compelled to record in the middle of the night.

The other night, for example, I attended our local diabetes support group meetup. I’m always wound up when I come home from those because I get to hang out with some members of my tribe. So, I have a cup of herbal tea and chat it out with hubby. I got to bed a bit later than usual. And then, I realised that I had to do an insulin pump set change. Ahhh!

About an hour later, I could hear noises, always freaky but at least I wasn’t the only adult in the house and it didn’t lead to a panic attack. After a couple of minutes of intent listening, I figured out that it was my son in the next room who talks in his dreams… very loudly. I listened for a couple more minutes to make sure he wasn’t in a terrifying battle with a velociraptor or something. He wasn’t and I tried to get back to sleep.

Another short time later, I woke up with words in my head that related to a blog post I had been working on earlier that day (not this one) and I had to come downstairs to my laptop to get them out of my head so that I could fall asleep.

So far a series of un-diabetes calamities. That is until 3am. My Continuous Glucose Monitor alarm went off to let me know I was below the low limit. Up, test, take glucose. Thankfully it was just 4.8 mmols/l (86 mg/dl) so not a hypo but a warning of a hypo.

Next up 4am, low blood sugar alarm goes off again. This time I just took glucose tabs without testing and went back to sleep.

While technically, this is a not so good night but I don’t hold out much hope for the rest of the day.

Later in the afternoon it was hypo time again. My blood sugars just would rise above 3 & 4 mmols. The result is a very queasy tummy at almost dinner time.

Being tired does not help diabetes at all.

23 year Diaversary

Today is the my diaversary of 23 years living with type 1 diabetes. 23 years and I'm still here!!! Diabetes, you still didn't get me. You can keep trying but I will keep fighting. I like watching that number get bigger. How am I going to celebrate?

Today is also my first born's 12th birthday. That's how I'm going to celebrate! :-)

There could be no better way.

Exercise is Changing Diabetes

I can take or leave cycling.... Actually, if you take one look at me you can tell that I just about tick that box for exercise. ▖✓ However, this video came up several times in my twitter and facebook feed and on the 3rd time seeing it I thought maybe there is something in that that I should see and hear.

The answer is YES there was! It’s a 7 minute video filmed by the BBC and I feel, that it is a must see for all people with diabetes. Believe it or not there are still health care professionals in Ireland telling newly diagnosed people to give up exercise, especially competitive sports with their diabetes! 

These amazing people are changing the public’s perception of diabetes all over the world. It’s so powerful to hear about how much time and effort they put into their diabetes management and still make strides competitively. Team Novo Nordisk is the only all diabetes pro cycling team on the planet.

Phil Southerland, founding member of the professional cycling Team Type 1 speaks about how in a time where children with type 1 were not encouraged to exercise his mother saw something positive in his numbers when he did.

Our very own Stephen Clancy from Limerick is a member of this diabetes cycling team that is planning to compete in the 2021 Tour de France. His voice is featured in the introduction to the NovoNordisk promotional video. Stephen was aged 19, and on the path to a successfully career in pro-cycling , when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He was told to give it up!

Thankfully, sometimes it pays off to not listen to your medical team. Please share this video and encourage our children with diabetes to not give up on their dreams because of diabetes and to inspire others.

The Luck of the Irish

As we celebrated St. Patrick's Day last week, I began to reflect of what it’s like to be a person with diabetes living in Ireland.

The luck o’ the Irish is often referred to in movies, etc, but in actual fact, when it come to diabetes, I think we should called it lucky to be born in Ireland.

We have socialised medicine here, we called it public healthcare. It gives us free test strips, blood glucose meters, insulin and lots of other diabetes medicine without any stipulations.

Private healthcare is an option here too but it usually only covers hospital treatments, although the insurers are starting to cover primary care visits a little.  With private health insurance you could get a private scheduled appointment with an endocrinologist but you don't, in most cases, get the backup of a diabetes nurse specialist or a dietitian.

When I hear stories from my friends in America, especially when I read Riva Greenberg’s piece in the Huffington Post about battling with health insurance companies for diabetes supplies I'm truly thankful that the reason Diabetes Ireland was formed in 1967 was to ensure that diabetes was included on the Health Service’s list of long term illnesses and therefore providing us with free medication and supplies.

We also have excellent health care professionals working in our clinics, just not enough of them.

Sure, there are lots of other things that we don’t have but we are advocating strongly for, such as national access to structured diabetes education, access to psychology, unlimited access to insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring.

And dealing with the health care professionals outside of the diabetes setting is frustrating. And yes, I did have to haggle with my diabetes team to make sure I got my insulin pump 6 years ago and my CGM last November. And yes, sometimes I don’t feel listened to at my clinic. But these are problems that are global.

But we don’t have to beg, wrestle or finance our basic diabetes needs.

A Day of Diabetes - A Good Day!

I wrote this post on Saturday 10th January because it was such a good day and worth recording. Don't worry though I will balance it with A Day of Diabetes - A Not-So-Good Day! And be assured that I do have many of those too:-D It's also written before I got hooked up to my continuous glucose monitoring system.

The alarm went off at 8:28am, I feel well rested but still want another snooze. My husband's alarm went off at 8:30am and I was afraid that I would actually fall back to sleep so I rolled out of bed. I use the term rolled because that is actually what I do. I roll over and off the edge of the bed - it's very effective!

I went downstairs, said good morning to my already fed and dressed daughter on her laptop. I filled the kettle to make tea and she had already made it! How lucky am I? ;-D I popped two slices of wholemeal slice pan into the toaster. While waiting for the toast I did my first blood glucose test of the day. 7.3mmol/l (131.4 mg/dl), what a nice way to start the day. I gave myself insulin to cover the toast and 3 mugs of tea with skimmed milk.

 After breakfast, it's time to drop the family off to Coderdojo and for me to get the weeks grocery shopping done.

What seemed like a short time later, my insulin pump vibrates to remind me that it's been 2 hours since I took my breakfast bolus and that it's time to check my blood sugars again. 4.4 mmol/l (79.2 mg/dl), a bit on the low side because there is still active insulin in my body so I ate half a granola bar to keep my levels up until lunch and went about collecting the family from Coderdojo and home.

After all the groceries have been put away and both children had been fed, it was time for my own lunch. I decided to have a two egg omelette with smoked salmon and cheese, one slice of wholemeal slice pan again and two perfectly ripe kiwis. While my omelette was cooking I tested my blood glucose and it was 5.2 mmols/l (93.6 mg/dl).

I'm having such a good day. It feels so nice to have good numbers and no crisis hypos getting in the way.

By mid afternoon, I decided that all major household tasks were done for the day and I was going to have about three cups of coffee, read the newspaper and some internet articles. My insulin pump had perfect timing; it vibrated to remind me to test again before I made it to the comfy chair. My blood glucose test revealed 6.0 mmols/l (108 mg/dl). You should have seen my happy face!

Roll on the coffee and two small McVities chocolate biscuits. I know I shouldn't have them. So I've estimated that they work out to be 15 grams and I bolus 1.15 units of insulin. I wonder to myself if the biscuits are more like 20 grams but I decide that the next blood glucose test will reveal it.

Dinner at 7pm and my blood glucose is 7.8 mmols/l (140.4 mg/dl). It's sooooo nice for the things to go right for a change.

The two hour post meal check revealed a 5.8 mmols (104.4 mg/dl) - this is a normal reading for someone without diabetes but for me it's a bit too low for an after meal and with active insulin still in my body I give it a snack to work on. What can I have for a snack? Ohh I haven't had a packet of crisps in months, double ohhh, Salt and vinegar. Sold! So 14g of carbs and a lot of fat later my blood glucose dream comes back to reality with an 11.2 mmols (201.6 mg/dl) result.

Well, it wasn't going to last forever, was it? But when the good days come they should be celebrated.