i have a real hard time with making a schedule for myself, and more importantly sticking to it for longer than a week. just curious to see what works for everyone else?! I've set alarms but feel like they go off so often that i end up ignoring them. I've done a planner type deal, but that gets old. am i just being stubborn? you'd think after almost 15 years with this id have some sort of idea!
HELP PLEASE
:)))
Are you talking about meals? I eat every 3 hours. At this point it's almost second nature so I don't have to think about it much. Sometimes, however, for whatever reason, I eat too much at one meal and that throws everything off. But usually I count calories and macronutrients carefully and end up getting hungry 2-3 hours later.
If you're talking about checking sugar, I always check before eating/injecting and before/during/after excercise so my (checking) schedule is as regular or irregular as my meal schedule.
Elie, have you just got into a routine in doing all this?!?! cuz i can do ANYTHING for about two weeks, then its out the door!
i honestly just think I'm waiting for this whole disease to 'go away'. I've lately just been in a funk about it.
:/
I can totally relate! I would highly recommend reading the 7 habits of highly effective people. I was just talking to my diabetic team about this and they said there has been no formal study about the impact of Diabetes on cognition. I find this fascinating.
I'm relieved to see this... I have different alarms that go off on my phone every day. Sometimes I pay attention to them, but am often neglectful and turn them off and then forget about it. Far too often, I cannot remember later in the day if I took an injection or not. It's frusterating and slightly terrifying! I'm glad I'm not the only one...
Main alarms I have are the typical ones (like getting myself up in the morning) and the ones to try and make sure I take my background insulin doses roughly the same time each day (I'm on split dose Levemir). Taking them late can throw out my control until it finishes working so I want to avoid it when I can.
Other alarms are like at 3am when I'm doing an overnight check to see if my background insulin doing, so I can eliminate all doubt that the dose needs to be put down or up.
Can't say I have alarms for eating... I eat when I want like the next person and aim to inject before eating to make sure I don't forget. Saying that, I use my BG diary to check when I last injected so I know if my last meal's insulin dose has finished to help me understand what my present BG result means.
Some people are schedule oriented and some aren't. It's not a matter of discipline or training, it's personality types (get a book on Myers Briggs personality types and look for a free Myers Briggs test online).
If you're an unscheduled person then you need to either use a pump or do multiple daily injections. It allows you to have a base rate of insulin, then test and count carbs to determine your meal insulin.
You don't really need to be on a set schedule. Like Elie said, just test before meals or after exercising. I also test first thing in the morning and before bed. And because I had hypoglycemia unawareness in the past I usually test before driving.
That whole "Did I remember to do that"? thing was my problem as well. And, yes. It can be terrifieing. When I was training to use my pump, I found the value of keeping a diary. I keep it with my meter and refer to it on a regular basis. Writeing things down can help. It actually helped me lose alot of weight. (Still have some to go) And like Jenna said, having a pump helps me stay on schedule too. I do not have any alarms set for BG checks but it has helped me maintain a schedule. I work everyday so Im always up by 5:30, break at 10, lunch at 12, break at 2, supper at 5, bedtime. Everyday. Its a habit that has been 2 years in the making but its working.
Another thing about a pump is that the pump can always tell you if you took a particular bolus. You don't have to depend on writing it down.