- Messages
- 7
- Type of diabetes
- Parent
- Treatment type
- Insulin
Ok so this is about my daughter, who is type 1 and coeliac (coming up for one year since diagnosis) aged 9.
I tried to talk to the dietitian about her eating a lower-carb diet. This was after six months of blood sugars all over the place (I'm not new to carb-counting, I've been doing it for my husband for 10 years). She said my daughter's target should be 230g/day! But that it should be relatively safe to drop to 150g/day... (I don't think I've ever given her more than 150g/day, except on special occasions, maybe). I experimented with a lower carb diet, i.e. around 90-100g/day, thinking that was really quite moderate, not really low at all. And the dietitian analysed what she had eaten and said she was actually getting enough for her nutritional needs, without giving any more specifics about how low they would be happy for her to go. I kind of didn't want to push it so have left things a bit open, and we're now generally giving her 20-30g for breakfast, 30-40g for lunch and 40-50g for dinner, plus the 5-10g snacks that we're not supposed to need to bolus for but actually we do.
So I have a few questions (and I'm aware of the limitations of a forum like this for giving dietary advice about children):
1. It being quite easy for us to do breakfasts that are around 10g carb, would that be considered 'low carb'?
2. Is it worth doing only the one meal a day as low carb? I can't at the moment cope with organising low carb dinners, and her school lunches are compulsory cooked meals (that is a whole other nightmare).
3. At what point does a diet become 'low carb'?
I have no problems with going up against established medical whatnot, what I have a problem with is seeing my daughter struggle with the effects of rapidly changing blood glucose.
Btw, at her last clinic appointment I tentatively suggested that Levemir might be better for her, and lo and behold, within five days of switching her levels were significantly more stable. It's not good enough but it just serves as a reminder how crazy they were on Lantus. I'm not looking forward to telling them that we refused to follow the consultant's instruction to give it as a once-daily injection though...
Thanks for any feedback!
I tried to talk to the dietitian about her eating a lower-carb diet. This was after six months of blood sugars all over the place (I'm not new to carb-counting, I've been doing it for my husband for 10 years). She said my daughter's target should be 230g/day! But that it should be relatively safe to drop to 150g/day... (I don't think I've ever given her more than 150g/day, except on special occasions, maybe). I experimented with a lower carb diet, i.e. around 90-100g/day, thinking that was really quite moderate, not really low at all. And the dietitian analysed what she had eaten and said she was actually getting enough for her nutritional needs, without giving any more specifics about how low they would be happy for her to go. I kind of didn't want to push it so have left things a bit open, and we're now generally giving her 20-30g for breakfast, 30-40g for lunch and 40-50g for dinner, plus the 5-10g snacks that we're not supposed to need to bolus for but actually we do.
So I have a few questions (and I'm aware of the limitations of a forum like this for giving dietary advice about children):
1. It being quite easy for us to do breakfasts that are around 10g carb, would that be considered 'low carb'?
2. Is it worth doing only the one meal a day as low carb? I can't at the moment cope with organising low carb dinners, and her school lunches are compulsory cooked meals (that is a whole other nightmare).
3. At what point does a diet become 'low carb'?
I have no problems with going up against established medical whatnot, what I have a problem with is seeing my daughter struggle with the effects of rapidly changing blood glucose.
Btw, at her last clinic appointment I tentatively suggested that Levemir might be better for her, and lo and behold, within five days of switching her levels were significantly more stable. It's not good enough but it just serves as a reminder how crazy they were on Lantus. I'm not looking forward to telling them that we refused to follow the consultant's instruction to give it as a once-daily injection though...
Thanks for any feedback!