Having diabetes can often lead to an undercurrent of frustration in your day-to-day life, but there are some moments that stand out as being particularly annoying.
5. Having a hypo in bed
After a long day, you look forward to settling down in bed and resting your weary head while Newsnight blares away on a quiet setting.
The dog is asleep, you’re perfectly tucked into the covers and suddenly you feel you’re having a hypo. “No, I must just be tired,” you think, and hope that by checking your blood sugar levels this will be confirmed.
You test and see a reading a 3.5 mmol/l, before realising your nearest sugar supply is downstairs in the kitchen.
Fuming, the covers are ripped off, the dog wakes up confused and you have to stomp downstairs, forgetting to turn the landing light on in the process, to procure sugar and completely ruin your planned passage of slumber.
4. Error messages on your meter
Moments of aggravation are never more brutal than seeing that “Error 1” message appear on your blood glucose meter just as you apply blood to your testing strip.
Panicked, you yank the test strip out, being careful not to touch it with any of the blood clinging to your finger, and replace it with another.
You then go to apply blood once more, painfully realising there is now not enough blood to test with. Hence, another finger prick is necessary, as well as some energetic swearing.
3. Going low before exercise
You’ve been looking forward to a good exercise session, either at the gym, or playing sport, and prior to you even moving a muscle you feel low.
Any desire to hulk up, pump the iron or cut some calories is immediately replaced with a need to test your blood and dose up on sugar appropriately.
A day’s worth of optimism is suddenly drowned in a cascade of energy drink as you watch others casually warm up from the sidelines.
2. Rationing test strips
Ordering a new prescription when your test strips are running low can be compared to driving home with one bar of petrol.
Avoiding all complications such as traffic jams, red lights and slow drivers are essential, as is ensuring your blood sugar is nigh on perfect until those test strips arrive.
As your test strips decrease in volume, feeling low or high can be downright annoying as you know you’ll have to use another strip.
Regardless, this should always be done and prescriptions should always be ordered sooner rather than later.
1. Low blood sugar before intimacy
Having built up to the prospect of relations with your partner, with the groundwork already laid, you suddenly start to feel a nagging symptom of a hypo.
Torn between ruining the mood, and ensuring your blood sugar levels are stable, you debate whether to sneak a quick test in, naturally delaying it in the hope that this symptom will subside.
Eventually, you realise that you simply have to test. You stop what you’re doing, find out you’re low and the day’s activities are forever tainted as you rapidly consume sugar with a glimmer of hope still flickering that your efforts will not have been for nothing.
