i'm embarrassed to say that i have went over a month before. i really slacked off with my care once i entered college. the amazing thing is that i kept my A1C under 7 WITHOUT checking my blood sugar every day! i would regularly go a week or two without checking it.
i have checked my sugar 70 times over the last 30 days. that's not really close to what it should be, but it is a pretty big improvement over the last couple of years. i was an "at least 4 times a day" checker before i started college. i need to get back to those days :(
My endo freaked because I was only testing like 4 times a day at one point. I admit I felt bad when they asked, "Have you been doing this on purpose??" It's like, duh it didn't happen by accident! But I know what they meant, asking if I was purposefully slacking or limiting checks... which the answer is no. I just don't see the need to test outside of meal times (so 3 meals, then a bedtime check, sometimes overnight) if I'm not feeling the need to...
Camp habit, I guess. But they gave me a lecture on finding a "happy meduim" for number of checks a day. Um, sure. OK.
It depends on the circumstances. You know what kills me? I had this "nurse" 'friend' who had the gall to ask me if I should be checking so often. What a hag. I have had one other person ask me that as well.
Nowadays, well...I'll tell you, I struggle some days. 4x a day is better than some days for me. I think I get off with checking because of sleep or something. I've been at this disease for a while, and I am making strides in my own way.
Do you group your checks? I just realized that I do that...major checks are the automatic timed/schedules ones, like after I get up, etc. Minor checks seem to be quicker somehow and include before driving, which can also be a major check, as well as the I-feel-lousy checks. Anyway. I don't know how often I check...I think I am extremely disorganized and my memory is partitioned mostly for work, so I tend to not even know. I'll think I haven't checked at all and look at the BG screen on my pump and see that I did, which is weird.
I would like to try out a CGM, desperately...it seems like such as blessing (ignorance is bliss, I guess). It would be nice, I imagine, to know. I had this wrist version of one, but it never seemed to function properly.
The year before I graduated college I received some bad news. For three weeks I barely ate or slept, and I did not check my sugar. I haven't done anything like this since then. My A1c didn't really suffer. Back then most of the time I was at an 8. It wasn't until after college that I got better control. I am now a frequent sugar checker. I test at least 12 times a day.
on average i check 2x a day (i do realize this is terrible and am actively working on slowly improving it). i too struggled when i first entered college and had a good 5 years where i didn't take care of myself. i went a month without checking and then would only check about once a week. i'm getting better, but blood testing (for me) is the biggest pain in the ass associated with diabetes. my a1cs are decent (7.1), but i want to do more blood tests to get them lower.
trust me, i feel really guilty about how long i go between checks. i always check if i feel low. for some reason, this is something i really struggle with, so i have to make tiny steps towards improvement. i am ridiculously proud of myself every time i test :o) i just have to show myself it's not that bad and i'm capable of better control.
I think the longest I have ever gone without checking (not counting overnight when I sleep for 10 or 12 hours....) would be 8 hours? I forgot my meter once when I went out and I just was careful about what I dosed for and gave a lot of leeway cuz i was walking around and stuff.
I too can't stand no checking. I admit I'll slack off but I think the lowest I've ever checked in 3 times a day... lunch, dinner, bed. (i would have slept in so no breakfast).
My endo likes to see 5-6 times a day. I could never check 12 times a day. It just seems a lot of them would be pointless checks because i never check until at least 2.5 hours after eating and i don't think theres enough hours to check after substracting those.
I also go crazy if I don't check ... it's a control thing. (:
I guess the longest I've gone is from being diagnosed to getting a home meter a couple of years later when they became available in the early 80's. Now, my minimum is checking 5x a day, but its usually more. I guess the longest I go is overnight because now that our baby sleeps through the night, there's no way I'm waking up for something else!! I never check in the night anymore. I've just been recently feeling a bit guilty about that ... I ate ice cream before bed last night and woke up at 220. Yikes!
Easily at least two months. When I first entered college I didn't care about myself too much and just stopped checking. I was on a set insulin schedule then so was like, screw it. Thankfully I have learned from that stupidity.
i think that the check right before you go to sleep is the most important one in terms of lowering your A1C. think about it -- you're generally asleep for almost 1/3 of the day. making sure you go to sleep at a normal level (and stay at a normal level) can account for 33% of your A1C. it would be even more than that if you got more sleep per day.
it's something i thought about while reading your posts. i could be totally wrong.
Alyssa, i think i would lose my mind if i checked 25 times a day. did you check twice an hour or something?
I went to the coast for a day trip a couple weeks ago and accidently forgot to throw my meter in my purse. So, I checked at about 9:30 that morning and didn't check again until about 9 that night. I was going crazy all day not knowing what my blood sugar was! Especially because I wasn't able to check before eating at the restaurants, and while I was running around on the beach. I hate not knowing what my BS is. Especially if I feel low, but don't have my meter with me, I'm really hesitant to treat because I don't know for sure if I'm really low or if I'm just feeling like it from something like walking up and down the stairs to the beach. That's the longest I've gone without checking. I remember that as soon as I got home I made a beeline for the counter and checked right away. Surprisingly, my blood sugar was in the 150s or something, so I was fine, but I still hated that day.
I went to the coast for a day trip a couple weeks ago and accidently forgot to throw my meter in my purse. So, I checked at about 9:30 that morning and didn't check again until about 9 that night. I was going crazy all day not knowing what my blood sugar was! Especially because I wasn't able to check before eating at the restaurants, and while I was running around on the beach. I hate not knowing what my BS is. Especially if I feel low, but don't have my meter with me, I'm really hesitant to treat because I don't know for sure if I'm really low or if I'm just feeling like it from something like walking up and down the stairs to the beach. That's the longest I've gone without checking. I remember that as soon as I got home I made a beeline for the counter and checked right away. Surprisingly, my blood sugar was in the 150s or something, so I was fine, but I still hated that day.
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CVS and probably all pharmacies sell very cheap meters that come w/ a pack of strips for next time you have a day like that! (14.99 or something like that...)
So what advice would you "reformed" infrequent BS checkers, give to a parent who knows that her child is not checking their blood sugar frequently enough? Said child is teetering on adulthood (17yo) and adamantly proclaims her ability to manage her illness independently. From my perspective, not a diabetic, merely an RN and the one sitting with child through Endo appointments and CDE appointments, hearing how the knowledgeable ones instruct diabetic management, if you are checking your sugar once a day or every other day, you are managing your illness with guess work. Doesn't feel right to sit by and be an observer of your child endangering themself. Also doesn't feel right to micro manage an almost-pseudo adult. Thoughts?
So what advice would you "reformed" infrequent BS checkers, give to a parent who knows that her child is not checking their blood sugar frequently enough? Said child is teetering on adulthood (17yo) and adamantly proclaims her ability to manage her illness independently. From my perspective, not a diabetic, merely an RN and the one sitting with child through Endo appointments and CDE appointments, hearing how the knowledgeable ones instruct diabetic management, if you are checking your sugar once a day or every other day, you are managing your illness with guess work. Doesn't feel right to sit by and be an observer of your child endangering themself. Also doesn't feel right to micro manage an almost-pseudo adult. Thoughts?
Michelle
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I think that it is very admirable of you not wanting to evade your daughters space, and that you refer to her as "almost" an adult. Could it be that a lot of T1's go through this in their early adult years?. Other people have said the same, that during college it wasn't their first concern. Even when I wasn't in my three week slump, I was nowhere as frequent with checking as I am now
I do not know what advise I can offer. When your are younger every suggestion tends to sound like a personal attack. I know that is how I felt towards most "older" people at the time.
i went 12 hours without checking because of the cgm. but without it, right now i check 4 times a day. at the most 6 because i check in the morning usualy in the afternoon around 4 then before i eat supper then again before bed
So what advice would you "reformed" infrequent BS checkers, give to a parent who knows that her child is not checking their blood sugar frequently enough? Said child is teetering on adulthood (17yo) and adamantly proclaims her ability to manage her illness independently. From my perspective, not a diabetic, merely an RN and the one sitting with child through Endo appointments and CDE appointments, hearing how the knowledgeable ones instruct diabetic management, if you are checking your sugar once a day or every other day, you are managing your illness with guess work. Doesn't feel right to sit by and be an observer of your child endangering themself. Also doesn't feel right to micro manage an almost-pseudo adult. Thoughts?
Michelle
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you are in the very same shoes that my mother was in a couple of years ago. honestly, i would talk to your daughter's endo and see if he can't give her a good talk. once my A1C starting rising into the upper 7 range, my endo essentially balled me out for checking so infrequently. he even threatened to take my pump away. whether or not that is possible, he almost had me in tears. i do know that i was more open to his advice/rules. it might be a situation where your daughter feels that she knows herself and how to treat her disease much better than you do. like Happy Vegan said about herself, i basically took any question my mother asked about my blood sugar and whether i was checking it or not as a direct attack. yes, it was immature, but that's just how i felt at the time. your daughter might respond better to her endo, as she might feel that he knows more than she does about diabetes and how she should treat it. i would think that it's worth a shot.