I am not a big drinker, but when I go to parties or hang out with friends before we go to parties, I have to admit I do drink sometimes. I am not on a pump so I take insulin when I think I need it after I eat or drink.
Now there have been many articles about drinking and diabetes. Here are my views about it. People say alcohol will take you down, but it depends on what you drink. Don't expect to think that alcohol will always take you down. liquor, rum and mixed drinks will take you up more than down. So I do take insulin, but the way I do it, is that I guess what the drink actually has, and take 1 less unit of insulin for what I think it is. This is to make sure that I do not get low. I would much rather be on the high side and than the low side because I can feel that I am high in my sugar levels. Usually sweaty hands or cracking your bones a lot are signs of being high. (And if you are good at beer pong, missing many shots is a good sign of being high hehe) Feeling low is more dangerous because there are not lot of resources to help you with getting back up (lots of drunk people won't understand you), and drinking more mixed drinks is not a good idea.
Also, if you take lantus at night, be careful with it because alcohol will take your blood sugar down overnight too. Thats when alcohol does take you down the most in my opinion. Take less lantus or take it in the morning instead. That is the way I do it.
Moderate your drinks and never get drunk and you will be fine. That is the number 2 rule. Reason I say rule number 2 because rule number 1 is to not drink at all. That is the best rule for diabetics. But it is hard to follow that for some people.
I hope this helps. This is the way I do it. It is not going to work with every diabetic out there, but thats the best solution I can come up with.
I agree with you 100 percent. I have cut back on my drinking a lot... and with me liquor doesnt have much effect on me, its when there is beer and those carb drinks that are involved.
The thing I love hearing the most at parties though when I say that I need to take a shot, theres always one or two girls that are like... "Well... do you want vodka or tequila?! or what?!"
im on a pump but I'm not gonna lie I prob drink more than I should sometimes. Its def hard being in college and if you wanna go out and hang out with your friends that pretty much means do you want to drink? and..i turned 21 only about 8 months ago haha..i do check my blood sugar regularly though and make sure i check it before i go to bed so far so good :)
I agree, I think it's good to be a bit on the higher side when drinking, and also I think it's a good idea to stay awake until your sober so you don't get a rapid mid night drop in blood sugar. That being said I think it's tough to avoid highs when drinking, so I find it best now just to have a couple social drinks, so you can still be at the party and drinking but keep levels in range.
I made sure to never drink when I was taking multiple daily injections. It was just not worth the risk. My blood sugars would go crazy high, and it seemed to be random.
I only started drinking again once I was on the pump, because you can set a "combo bolus", which means that you can set the pump to deliver a steady amount over a specified period of time. So for example, I can set it to bolus 5 units of insulin over 2 hours. Granted, you could just take 2 shots of 2-3 units each hour, but those will both come as small boluses, whereas 5 U/2hrs will be divided up as a very small dose once every 3 minutes to make up that amount of insulin.
As for shooting your blood sugars up higher while drinking, while I agree is a safer measure than your blood sugar crashing, I find that when my blood sugar is high, it's harder to recover it. As in, the first "corrective dose" I take won't necessarily work. Sometimes I'll have to take a few...if I'm not properly timing my special combo boluses. :P
The only other thing I can suggest is making sure you make your own drinks, or get diet highballs whenever possible. At least then you are only getting the sugar from the alcohol, rather than the alcohol and the sugar in the drink.
Another random thing I noticed, is that rum for some reason doesn't elevate my blood sugar nearly as much as other hard liquors. If I made a rum and diet coke and tested my blood sugar, it would be much lower than if I had a vodka and diet coke. It would still elevate, but not nearly as much. It may not work for you, but give it a try. Take some time to really calculate how much certain alcohols will affect you so that you can be smarter over what you're choosing to drink. :)