[quote user="Joe"]
... I went over ten years without checking my blood sugar... at all.
[/quote]Wow! Why? I'm just curious you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. It's just me and my nosey self! lol.
Hey Tanner and Happy Vegan
That actually is exactly what I have come up with. She was only diagnosed last December and in the beginning was very open to treating her diabetes as a "family affair". She was scared after getting so sick and wanted all the support she could get. 3 months into her treatment, her A1C was 5.3, having been 12% at diagnosis. She goes back to endo next week and I hope that her labs are still reasonable but I figure if they are not, it will send a clear message that she can't be so casual about her care. I know that a "redirection" from her doctor will be more respected than my opinion. I'm okay with that as long as she is as healthy as being responsible will allow. I figure this is a long ride, a learning curve is expected, but it is still hard to watch. Thanks for your feedback.
Michelle
[quote user="Joe"]
... I went over ten years without checking my blood sugar... at all.
[/quote]
I went NINETEEN YEARS without checking my blood sugar. Then I was diagnosed diabetic, so that had to change. ;)
Anyway, I'm glad you're back on the right track Joe? That had to have been a pretty bad time in your life.
My longest was this past summer down in Ecuador. I lost my meter on the airplane and went about 2 weeks without checking. I had WAAAAAY too many lows, since I was doing everything I could to avoid having really high levels. Ugh, the taste in my mouth thinking about all those lows is awful.
Mad Evans and Brittany,
okay for the majority of the time, there was no way for me to check my "blood" sugar. in the day (1977) we boiled our pee in a test tube with benedicts solution. it would turn color to indicate sugar in urine. we did this to see if our blood sugar was either very high or ridiculously high, maybe 30 minutes ago. I went renegade after a few years and decided it was absurd, too gross, and I was too ashamed to continue. Improvements were made (Clinitest, and then Clinistix) but I was underground and not going to subscribe to urine testing.
I took a big shot of NPH pork insulin every day, and when I felt low I ate something... 3+ times a day every single day. To this day I can tell if I am dropping better than my meter, tho my guesses on my actual blood sugar can be quite "off" from reality - I ALWAYS know when I am dropping. I am also a big cynic regarding our current bs meters... PLUS OR MINUS 20% you have got to be kidding me, I laugh a little that people argue on forum discussions about a reading of 233 and/or 186... guess what it's the same number. And I could rant for hours on how inaccurate an inconsistent a CGM is, but still, they are good tools in the stark absence of something better.
I am "above board" today (and for the last 11 years BTW) between my pump and my CGM and the dozen meters I own I can keep my a1c below 6.7% but to tell you the truth, if I forget one of my meters at home... I know what to do, and I am not gong to die.... or I would have .... over 31 years ago.
That's how my aunt had to check too. Her diabetes caused her kidneys to fail and she had a transplant. When they did the transplant she had a blood clot and it eventually went to her heart and killed her. She was 21 and I never got to meet her. My mom said that she would ride a bike or something and she would come back pushing it because her sugar was low. Back then though she couldn't have anything that had sugar in it. It's truly amazing how far they've come. I'm afraid that something is gonna happen to me. I try so hard to keep my sugars regulated but of course they never are. lol. Thanks for telling me all about how you used to check your sugar! :)
The longest I've ever gone was probably 7 or 8 hours at most, maybe as little as 5 or 6 hours. I check anywhere from 6-12 times a day, on average 8 times just because I can stand not knowing what my bs is. Mad Evans, Joe, and everyone else, I'm sorry for your struggles but it's great that you're back on track with today's meters.
[quote user="Brittany "]
That's how my aunt had to check too. Her diabetes caused her kidneys to fail and she had a transplant. When they did the transplant she had a blood clot and it eventually went to her heart and killed her. She was 21 and I never got to meet her. My mom said that she would ride a bike or something and she would come back pushing it because her sugar was low. Back then though she couldn't have anything that had sugar in it. It's truly amazing how far they've come. I'm afraid that something is gonna happen to me. I try so hard to keep my sugars regulated but of course they never are. lol. Thanks for telling me all about how you used to check your sugar! :)
[/quote]
Brittany, I am really sorry to hear about your aunt. I know there are a lot of people who aren't as lucky as me regarding the old methods of diabetes control. it's not really true - we ate sugar to correct for lows too, we just had really bad fast acting insulin - so you couldn't have a piece of candy and bolus for it. The insulin we used was slow and so you generally ate the same amount of carbs for each meal... I was on a exchange plan for carbs (1 exchange = 15 grams of carbs) and for main meals I had 2 exchanges and for snacks I had 1 exchange but it made me feel bad (too high). I changed to breakfast 1 exchange, no snack. lunch 3 exchanges, I would snack at around 3PM if I was low - twinkie, yodel, or devil dogs would raise my bs pretty quickly and then if i felt funny I would eat peanut butter on crackers for after dinner snack. it always depended on how hard I was working during the day. The insulin was so hard to work with you shot the same every day and then ate as necessary to stay alive.
Yes, joe, I remember those good ol' days too... Thanks goodness they've gone to the wayside! My three siblings still laugh, to this day, about when I was 4 or 5 years old and they would have to wake me up at 10pm to give me a snack consisting of a glass of juice. Of course, at that age, I wasn't actually awake, so getting me to drink the juice properly was a challenge in itself! For you "younguns", remember that there was no such thing a juice boxes back in 1973, so this whole process involved putting a glass of juice to the lips of a child who was still technically sleeping... Imagine! ;P
Brittany,I am sorry to hear about your Aunt.It is good to know things have changed for the better,much improvement for d care today.
the longest i have gone without checking was i think maybe 24hrs or less. i tend to check about 4 times a day. sometimes it is higher/ lower/ depends but i have been getting stricter about my diabetes because i want to use my pump.
MEDTRONIC MINI-MED 722 BABY!!!!!!! BLUE OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my doc freaked cx i didnt test for like a whole week straight. nothing really happend tho because i ate so little that week lol :)
The longest I went was two days. It wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but I was 14 and I never went really high or really low. I liked knowing that if I ever lost or forgot my meter, I could get by for a couple days until I got another one.
Normally I can test anywhere from 3-10 times a day, depending on what I'm doing. If I have a lot of sports, I test before during and after, and more later on to make sure I'm not going low a couple hours later. On a day with no sports or strange foods, 3 or 4 times is fine for me.
Once...about two and ahalf years ago...i didn't check it for almost a month....I almost died! i got rushed to ER! heheheh....my a1c was like ....14 or something mmaybe 15....BAD DIABETIC! I'm doing better now though! I test about 5-6 time a day!!
When I was younger about a year. But now usually 6 - 8 times a day.
<-- embarrassed.
I've gone about a year and a half... several times...
I was one of those dumb rebelious preteens that decided I was "too good" for testing...
good thing I realized it wasn't a good idea! now the longest I'll go is 24 hours, which still isn't great, but a lot better!
man, i don't think i have gone any longer than, oh, i don't know, 8 hours ABSOLUTE max?
i test minimum 10 times a day so i don't really have time to skip haha
Definitely a couple of days. I would test like 18-25 times a day, but then would feel bad I used so many strips and then not test for like 2 days ;)
Now, I test probably 4-8 times.
Normally I go within 10 hrs of testing, but sometimes i've gone an entire day. on several occasions Ive forgotten my tester home when we go on an hour long car ride somewhere for the day. when this happens i try to keep it secret, and when we get home I test and pretended nothing happened.
i am a horrible tester. testing is a pain in the bum to me and makes me feel so much different then my friends and idk why that bothers me so but at age 16 i can't get over what people think of me. and i don't like the looks and questions that come with it. i have a pump and bolus regularly in public but the whole preparing the meter and the testing process always seems to take so long that i just don't like to do it and my mom and grandma (both nurses) always get mad at me and tell me i'm not going to be able to have kids and will die young which doesn't help any. all they do is tell me the bad. well where's the good? or the reminders? i'm almost 17 and have had diabetes for 5 years almost and i now realize i need my family's help. no matter how rude i am or stubborn i still need it.