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Any Advice For A Newbie?

Julie.t

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Family member
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
Our 10 year old daughter diagnosed type 1 two weeks ago. She is on a set dose of 5 units before breakfast dinner and tea plus a correction if needed of 1 unit for every 3 over 10 on her blood test. We are really struggling on a Sunday , as she has a lie in and today she had a bacon muffin about 10.30am , and we had a roast dinner about half 5. she just wasn't hungry at dinner time so she had a banana and peanut butter smoothie around 1.30pm. She had her lunchtime insulin with this. then she was really low (3.3) at about 3.30pm. how do I fit 3 insulin doses in on a Sunday when she doesn't really want any lunch? We aren't carb counting yet.
 
julie.t said:
how do I fit 3 insulin doses in on a Sunday when she doesn't really want any lunch? We aren't carb counting yet.
Click to expand...

You need to learn about carb counting. This will allow flexibility - carb counting allows you to match your insulin to what you are eating (or more importantly what you actually want to be eating) so if you don't want to eat lunch, you don't take insulin and that's fine.

In the meantime, your daughter is on 5 units per meal. So if she's not having a meal, don't do the 5 units. There's no reason she has to eat lunch.

Ask your DSN about carb counting. If she is obviously eating a smaller, less carby meal, think about knocking a unit or two off the dose, otherwise she will hypo.
 
Thanks for that, we are looking at carbs in food now, and hopefully we can do that after her first consultant appointment in two weeks time. I was thinking she has to eat 3 meals a day and have 3 insulin doses. All new to this at the moment ! fine during the week but Sundays are a bit different . so having just the 2 meals on a Sunday (with maybe low carb snack in between with no insulin is fine do you think?
 
Yep that sounds sensible.

I'm concious it's all very new to you. Unfortunately, you are going to have to manually do the work of your daughters pancreas now. And pancreases are much cleverer little things that we might initially give them credit for. There is a great book called "think like a pancreas" which would be well worth a read as an introduction to the basics of type 1 management.
 
Think like a Pancreas is a great book, but there's also another that gets great reviews called Type 1 Diabetes in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults by Ragnar Hanas.

Agree with @catapillar, it's hard to fit in 3 meals and injections if your daughter likes a lie-in on a Sunday, injecting the insulin doses close together can lead to the incident of more hypo's, run it by her DSN first but she should be able to have a breakfast on waking then skip lunch and then have her dinner later, but checking her bg levels regularly in between is advisable to catch any impending hypo's.

Best wishes @julie.t
 
Thanks so much, it's good to know there is help on this forum, it's all a bit too daunting at the moment
 
Hi, I have type1 diabetes and I'm also 10.
I was diagnosed when I was 4, is your daughter on a insulin pump?
 
Hi @Lily06 no she's not but I think think she wants to have a pump, have you got one?
 
Hi @Julie.t
just came across this thread this morning
It has been 3 weeks since any posts......................... how have you and your daughter got on with sundays ??

hopefully bloods have behaved
 
I was diagnosed when I was 4 and I'm 54 now. The key to my success so far is physical activity. The best thing my parents did was make sure I didn't feel sorry for myself and got me involved in competitive sports. I think the physical activity was key to my success.
 
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