Just popped on to say hello, my son was diagnosed 4 weeks ago today after dramatic weight loss, no other symptoms of diabetes so it was a shock to us both! Still trying to find our feet and the honeymoon phase is still going strong with lots of hypo's/lows. Hospital have said to only treat when below 4, but what do people do if you see the figures dropping and know it'll be below 4 before long, do you do anything to stop it carrying on dropping? We were told to wait until it was under 4 and then treat, but this doesn't seem sensible to me, especially as my son works and is losing work time to hypo's! So much to take in, although he seems to have figured it all our better than me! Hospital diabetes team are great and so very patient with our constant 'are his ratio's right' questions. Hopefully I'll pick up more information from you guys, especially the ones further down the line, please be kind if I ask anything stupid!!
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4 weeks post Type 1 diagnosis for my 17 year old
- Thread starter missnic
- Start Date
- Messages
- 10,233
- Location
- New Zealand
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Pump
- Dislikes
- hypos and forum bugs
Hi @missnic and welcome to the forums.
I've got to admit that if my cgm is set to warn me at 4.4 and I treat at that point if my arrow is pointing down. But I can get away with a small amount of carbs to push my levels up.
However, I have been diabetic for 53 years and am 61, so my circumstances are different to a teenage T1 who is probably still producing (possibly varying) amounts of his own insulin.
Your hospital team will be familiar with new T1s in your son's position, so they are really the right ones to ask this question to. (And in your position I would definitely ask how best to minimise these hypos).
The modern tech for diabetics is awesome, so I assume your son already has a libre or dexcom and may (in the future) be able to take advantage of an insulin pump if he wishes to go that route. I've been promised a "cure" in ten or twenty years for my entire diabetic life, and have given up on that for me, but the future for young diabetics such as your son looks very bright, if only because of the new diabetic technology.
Once more welcome.
I've got to admit that if my cgm is set to warn me at 4.4 and I treat at that point if my arrow is pointing down. But I can get away with a small amount of carbs to push my levels up.
However, I have been diabetic for 53 years and am 61, so my circumstances are different to a teenage T1 who is probably still producing (possibly varying) amounts of his own insulin.
Your hospital team will be familiar with new T1s in your son's position, so they are really the right ones to ask this question to. (And in your position I would definitely ask how best to minimise these hypos).
The modern tech for diabetics is awesome, so I assume your son already has a libre or dexcom and may (in the future) be able to take advantage of an insulin pump if he wishes to go that route. I've been promised a "cure" in ten or twenty years for my entire diabetic life, and have given up on that for me, but the future for young diabetics such as your son looks very bright, if only because of the new diabetic technology.
Once more welcome.
@EllieM Thank you for replying, yes he has a Libre which is erm interesting and quite often not at all right compared to a finger prick test (I know it shouldn't be exactly the same but sometimes it says he's down to 3.9 and when we finger prick he's a 7). They don't like you to have a pump until you're a year or more in so that's a future delight to come! We are listening to the team but it just seemed a little like shutting the door after the horse has bolted rather than being proactive but maybe this will be something we develop as we get more experience. We are still adjusting his ratio's, even today we've upped his lunch time one to try and stop his afternoon hypo which usually happens at work so isn't ideal. He's definitely still in the honeymoon phase where his body is still trying to take part in insulin doses which is not at all fun!
His dad has been speaking to someone 'in the know' who says that there are advances due in the future, years not decades so I'm hopeful there will be new things coming up which will help him (and everyone else) manage this, my dad had type 1 back in the day and I can see all the changes from his era and they have been incredible, so long may they continue!
His dad has been speaking to someone 'in the know' who says that there are advances due in the future, years not decades so I'm hopeful there will be new things coming up which will help him (and everyone else) manage this, my dad had type 1 back in the day and I can see all the changes from his era and they have been incredible, so long may they continue!
T4RA
Newbie
- Messages
- 4
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
No such thing as stupid questions! Everything is new and quite drastically different to life before diagnosis, so be kind and compassionate to yourself. I know how you feel with all the changes and uncertainty. I just wanted to remind you that however you feel is valid. Things will get easier and you are not alone in this!
SimonP78
Well-Known Member
My libre(2) often doesn't match my finger prick blood glucose (though it does tend to be reasonably close more often with the newer sensors than back in the days of the libre1.) I use XDrip+ to allow me to calibrate to overcome this issue.
I'd be tempted to head off the downward trend with something like Skittles (funpacks are easy to carry and each Skittle is ~1g CHO which makes the maths easy)
You'll have to experiment to see how many are required - presumably he'll know from how much he had to use to treat the hypos, also be a bit careful as my BG changes it's spikiness (for want of a better word) - i.e. how smoothly or not it changes in response to food/insulin, so just looking at the current gradient isn't as useful a predictor of where it will end up as it was a month or two back.
I'd be tempted to head off the downward trend with something like Skittles (funpacks are easy to carry and each Skittle is ~1g CHO which makes the maths easy)
You'll have to experiment to see how many are required - presumably he'll know from how much he had to use to treat the hypos, also be a bit careful as my BG changes it's spikiness (for want of a better word) - i.e. how smoothly or not it changes in response to food/insulin, so just looking at the current gradient isn't as useful a predictor of where it will end up as it was a month or two back.
