Happy Halloween diabetics! Hope you all have an amazing ans safe Halloween!
Any recommendations on how to deal with all the candy and treats during the Holiday? I have a newly diagnosed 5 year old who is dressing up as a pirate.
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@ToeKnee
I’m in the same boat. This is our first Halloween with T1D. We tried giving our daughter a piece of candy she got at our churches Trunk or Treat with dinner and bloused appropriately as a test. It pretty much smoked her and we were testing for Keytones a couple of hours later. I came across a JDRF sheet that gave cab counts for common candy. I’ll try and figure out how to message it on here. Let me know if you figure it out. Time is running short to plan.
I have a link from JDFR with all the candy carb amounts and serving sizes
if that doesn’t work try this
carbs like “starburst” and “skittles” will cause blood sugar to spike up faster than insulin can deal with it… you bolus for carbs by counting them and then do the math (carbs eaten / carb ratio = number of units insulin) expect a spike but don’t correct (add more insulin) until 4 hours after the first shot unless they eat more carbs. yes really fast carbs will cause high blood sugar, it’s isn’t deadly or I’d be dead by now.
slower carbs… such as a “snickers” some cupcakes, etc. are slow because the sugar is mixed with fat. you may find that if there is enough fat, a bolus will cause them to go low at 2 hours after the treat and insulin bolus. correct with a bit of fast sugar… that’s a good use for a starburst for example, but they will go high again at 4 hours (this is lovingly referred to as “the rollercoaster”).
as long as there is some insulin, a high blood sugar won’t cause ketones. ketones are normal for people losing weight. ketones are present with high blood sugar when there is no (zero) or very little insulin because the cells need to convert glucose to “cell fuel” in order to metabolize it… so with no insulin… the body burns fats to make the “cell fuel” and when you burn fat - the byproduct is the ketones. this is a problem with no insulin because of a potential buildup of acid but again , it’s a problem when there isn’t insulin.
the key thing is to test a lot, to understand that “fast” insulin needs 20+ minutes to start working and 4 hours to stop working. if you’ve bolused for carbs don’t bolus again for a high blood sugar (called “stacking” insulin) because at the 3-4 hour mark they will have a very bad low.
walking around is helpful it will cause insulin to work faster and harder.
for the experts out there, I bolus ahead of time in order to eat candy. I have to watch the mixed carbs, but a little fat helps the sugar from peaking all at once. and I don’t lose my mind if I get to the high 290’s if I know I have insulin in me.
for the new members… just don’t eat a ton of candy. the law of small numbers is this: small numbers = small mistakes, big numbers = big mistakes… it helps if you can stop at one.
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@joe
Thank you so much for your input.
Im sure a lot of parents (or adults with t1d) will appreciate it today and in the upcoming days 
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@joe
@ToeKnee
@Racheltoner
OK, so I figured I’d give a debrief of last nights events if only for learning purposes. I got home yesterday at 1430 from work. Lici was a little high at 278 so we gave her a .5 unit correction. The plan was to go get dinner from Boston market at around 1600 and eat at home before trick or treating . Instead of bringing it back home I decided it would be easier to eat it at the restaurant. The drive is about 15 minutes and I didn’t want to let the food get cold. Her food included Mac-n-Cheese 
and was about 56 carbs. A little high for her but not ridiculous and she was at a 211 BG which means her correction was still working. Since we had corrected only 2 hours earlier I was worried about stacking insulin and only gave her 1 of the 1.5 units she was supposed to get. My wife checked her as we were about to leave to trick or treat about 1745. 440 
great now my daughter is a walking Macys day float and I’m gonna have to pull her down before she blows away. After talking with another T1 parent I decided to give her the rest of the .5 units from her dinner but not correct due to fear of stacking. We also tested for ketones and she was negative. A revision to my plan was to walk her around the neighborhood and force water down her every 10 minutes. You see where this is going? It worked. She started dropping. She also started peeing. A lot. Thankfully I knew enough people scattered throughout the neighborhood that we could use their bathrooms. 1845 300 BG. Ok is she going down too fast? 1900 270 BG. 1930 211 BG plus one starburst and she wet the bed. She ended up being around 140 all night long but I checked her every 2 hours. I feel like the NBC commercials “The More You Know!” Happy Halloween!
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@Restless_Daddy hi Chad, nice move not getting crazy at the 440, from that moment on including the overnight 140 I’d say nice job.
macaroni products are very slow to absorb, adding cheese makes it a wildcard due to extra fat. This is a difficult decision and can be very difficult to predict until you have a bit of experience. the walking did do a bit of good in my opinion.
my 8 year old completely overdid the candy… as did I. but I started eating candy with a bs of 80 and dropping (a trick for the experienced). and except for the 180 at 10 PM, had a pretty good run, considering chocolate is slow and the skittles and swedish fish are fast.
this is a bit like Friedrich Nietzsche, the German author, who famously said: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger .” to which I feel is not quite true… but if it didn’t kill you and you learned a lesson, you are a bit better off. thanks for the follow-up!