Birthday bash

Jc3131 said:

Hello all, i've been asked out next month to a birthday night out. This previously involved a meal (full pizza and potato skins) with quite a few pints of lager.

But now what do I do? Not go would be the easiest answer but in the 3 and a half months that I have been diagnosed a type one I have not gone anywhere as I'm unsure with eating out etc.

This is a couples night out and I want to enjoy myself with few pints etc but I feel that these nights out are finished.

Honeymooning and eating out/drinking scares the life out of me. I don't want to be a recluse and need a night out.

Any tips on a way around this? Or just take my novorapid before I eat and hope for the best?

Cheers John

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Don't let diabetes get in the way of your life John; that's most important.

There's nothing stopping you going out and having a good feed and a good few pints, in fact - I do it fairly regularly myself. When I do go out, I abandon the concept of tight control, it's not really possible. But because I know it's only short term, any high-ish readings will not have much of an impact on the grand scheme.

Given you're very recently diagnosed, and if I were you, I probably wouldn't take bolus insulin to cover any alcohol - that's my opinion and I think it's a sensible one. You're aware of the increased risks of hypos when drinking aren't you? I'd also have a fatty/carby snack before bed: cheese on toast, chips and cheese, something like that - to prevent your BG's from dropping overnight.

You should go out and enjoy yourself, put diabetes to the back of your mind but not completely out of it. I'd also test your BG more frequently and apply reserved corrections if necessary, but only if your BG is really high. You don't want to be hyperglycaemic and develop ketones, but you also don't want to be permanently bolusing and then collapse in a hypo.

I don't mean to scaremonger you or anything; just go out and have fun - I'm sure everyone will want you there and most importantly to enjoy yourself

hi john ive been diagnosed 5 months now and i felt exactly the same as you but fed up of being the killjoy i took the plunge went out had a meal then on for a few drinks what i did was bolus for my meal but not the alcohol checked my bg periodically they went a bit high but nothing to bad then when i got home i had a couple of crumpets b4 bed and was bk to normal the next day so go out enjoy your meal and have a drink and enjoy yourself xx let us know how it went !!!

Ooo vodka my choice of drink think il go pour myself one or 3 haha hope you enjoyed the pizza an chips ..not forgetting the salad have a good night

@Jc3131 . The single most important thing to remember is that you are the boss in life. Respect the power of your diabetes but ensure it has total respect for you and the decisions you make, diabetes has to live along side you and do what you want to do.
It'll try everything possible to get the better of you, the obvious things like high / low sugars, the annoyance of testing and injecting, restrictions on diet. It also has another weapon. It has an ability to fester in dark recesses of our minds and souls, it lingers there waiting for any opportunity to disrupt. You missed out on your birthday last week , for no actual physical reason i understand other than the fact you have diabetes. It got you, it manipulated you, it took away YOUR fun, YOUR life.
Take a leaf out of @GrantGam 's book ( the guy sounds a bit of a party animal ). A bit of forward planning and you'll be fine.
Back in my day, I liked a drink. All my drinking companions knew my condition and strangely enough, on more than one occasion someone would be keeping an eye on me and it wasn't until later I realised this. I think as human beings a lot of us get a sense of purpose helping and watching out for each other. Let people now the challenges you have eating and partying, you maybe surprised what you get back.
Enjoy the night.

I unfortuantly can't give any advice on how to handle going out and drinking, but I thought I'd give you some emotional support as I have only been diagnosed just over a month and I totally understand the fear around going out and drinking!
I haven't been able to force myself to go out and enjoy a few pints yet, just too scared, but I am working on it, have been going out and having a meal at restaurants but with just a diet coke at the moment, maybe one day I'll feel confident to order a pint.

When I'm out eating what helps me is going to resturants a bit earlier than the main rush of people so, most often the table I get is fairly secluded from everyone else which allows me to do my injection at the table rather than going into, some fairly unpleasant toliets to do it. It also helps that I am out with people that know my diabetes and don't mind me injecting in front of them at all. (Weirdest place so far is a picnic bench outside of a pub to have some sandwiches as I was out at lunch!)

Don't be scared off by the looks or people commenting if you do decide not to hide in the toilets when you take your Novorapid. Remember that insulin we have to do is to keep us healthy and out of hospital, brush them off your shoulder and some times give them the same dirty look back for staring! I'd love to think what we should do when out and about, or what they would do in our shoes.

Jc3131 said:

I was at a football match the other week and I had to inject in the toilets. As you can imagine the state of the toilets, it was quite degrading and it made me feel quite down, this was on top of me supporting Sunderland.

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The way you constructed this sentence made me laugh aloud! The latter bit, obviously.

You will soon get used to injecting in public; and as time goes on, your technique will get so dialled that people won't even notice. I've taken a bolus in front of friends at the opposite side of the table, mid conversation, and they haven't clocked it. It will soon become a game for you, if you've a touch of the weirdo streak like myself.

So relax a little and remember, as @therower said - we're all human, after all. You should remain anxious and uptight about Sunderland though, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for them

Jc3131 said:

I was at a football match the other week and I had to inject in the toilets. As you can imagine the state of the toilets, it was quite degrading and it made me feel quite down, this was on top of me supporting Sunderland.

It's a huge learning curve and people don't know what we have to go through each day. I was one of those people three months ago so I will probs give people the benefit of the doubt when they are trying to give me advice. I am expecting the strange looks when I'm out and injecting but it's something we need to do. I'm not sure how i will feel as normally I don't care what people think.

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Hey @Jc3131
I don't have loads and loads of wiggle room on this( cuz I did it ) -- but PLEASE do not inject in toilets -- I used to do it 35 years ago and was so ashamed ---- but times have changed -- we are in a proper caring society and all people are allowed to be them selves in public -- so us D's should not be excluded - and if they're not give em the dirty stare !!!!!!!!!!!

I wear My D on my sleeve ( literally when wearing a cannula on my arm )
be proud to be D !!!!!!!!!!!

@Jc3131 . My earlier post about diabetes lurking in places we don't often realise, dark recesses. Count dirty toilets into that. Again a small success for diabetes.
Inject in the open, it'll make you stronger and more positive.
Diabetes has little power when you're positive, strong, proud and in control.
It's a lot to take in and change but you'll get there.
If you can support Sunderland then anything is possible

Jc3131 said:

Well next weekend is my night out. All booked and sorted. Im very wary about it all.

I had pizza tonight and tried a different way of taking my insulin. Normally I inject 3 units and bloods ok until about 3 hours, then it spikes.

The same happened tonight. I started at 7.9mmol and took 3 units. After 2 hrs I planned to take another unit, but my blood was 5.2 so I waited. After 3 hrs its 10.4 so I took a unit of novorapid to see if it helps bring it back down or to even stop it rising.

Also had a few vodka and cokes along with a lager. It would be rude not to.

Tonight's a training night for next week. I'm possibly thinking of ditching the pizza and having some sort of chicken as it's easier to figure out.

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One thing that helps me with pizza is injecting before eating. For me, if I give my first injection 45 mins before eating, the peak of the carbs from the pizza matches my insulin peak. However, this is massively down to trial and error so maybe not useful info for this weekend! I second everything people have said about not bolusing for alcohol, and making sure you eat a snack before bed. Cheesy chips work a dream, as does toast with some butter/ham/protein and fat combo. Don't be worried about it, the most useful thing (if you are comfortable) is letting the people you are with know that you are diabetic, so if you start acting strangely, they know it may be due to hypo rather than just being drunk! Whenever I go out, I always err on the side of caution correcting before bed as depending on what I have been drinking, my blood sugar can drop quite dramatically overnight. For me, 10.4 would be fine to go to sleep (but ofc I understand that everyone has different targets).

Hope you have a fantastic time!!! Let us know how it goes.

Jc3131 said:

Well next weekend is my night out. All booked and sorted. Im very wary about it all.

I had pizza tonight and tried a different way of taking my insulin. Normally I inject 3 units and bloods ok until about 3 hours, then it spikes.

The same happened tonight. I started at 7.9mmol and took 3 units. After 2 hrs I planned to take another unit, but my blood was 5.2 so I waited. After 3 hrs its 10.4 so I took a unit of novorapid to see if it helps bring it back down or to even stop it rising.

Also had a few vodka and cokes along with a lager. It would be rude not to.

Tonight's a training night for next week. I'm possibly thinking of ditching the pizza and having some sort of chicken as it's easier to figure out.

Click to expand...

if your going to have a few drinks as obviously you are i would eat something carby b4 i went out and i wouldnt bolus for the alcohol (i would for the food )then when you get home eat some toast or maybe crumpets b4 bed as after alcohol your bloods tend to drop quite dramatically .hope you have a fantastic time on your night out enjoy yourself eat drink an be merry

Hi jc3131 your readings were probably higher b4 you went out due to you beeing anxious as it was your first night out my first night out was very stressful for me although i injected in the toilets i done my fingers discreetly at the table (its a pain )things will get easier as mentioned b4 alcohol raises bgs quite dramatically then drops them very quickly thats why its best to eat b4 bed a piece of toast or a crumpet works for me it will get easier dont let the diabetes control your movements you control it

To be honest, @Jc3131 , I don't think you did too bad at all!

Sure, it's always nice to be in the 4 to 7 range as much as possible but a brief excursion to 10 to 12 every now and then doesn't matter that much in the wider scheme of things, so don't be too hard on yourself about it.

Heck, a lot of non-Ts will end up there or thereabouts after a few lagers!

Don't have the reference to hand but I recently read an article by an endo who isn't T1 but frequently wears cgm for research purposes. His conclusion was that T1s are often setting artificially tight standards which even a healthy pancreas would struggle to meet, and he reached that conclusion by analysing cgm traces of non-T1s which showed that there can be a surprising number of excursions out of range. But they don't matter that much because it's the bigger picture over time which matters, not the brief snapshot. It's the people who sail along for days at a time at 10 to 15 who are much more likely to get complications than the guys who pay attention and just get the occasional flyer now and then.

I suspect your anxiety about it played a part - anxiety can bring on release of "fight or flight" hormones like adrenalin, cortisol, which will raise blood sugar (depending on which pub you're drinking in, having some spare glucose to fight or fly might actually be a good idea!).

There's also the question of whether to bolus for alcohol. That's always a personal matter and it can vary widely between individuals. Personally, I find that if I don't bolus, I'll end up sky high after a few pints, so I will bolus to temper that, but try to arrange the timings so I'll have next to no or very little active insulin on board before bed and some food to take care of any after drop. Admittedly, I've also got cgm which will wake me up if I've still got it wrong!

You're right to be cautious in what are still early days for you, but you'll pick up experience as time goes by. None of us ever get it right all the time - none of us.

Meals out plus alcohol can still be a challenge but no-one has ever said T1 is easy! I remember our last departmental xmas lunch - started about noon, finished about midnight, got through the full three course meal, plus a bottle of wine (well, maybe two, hmm, perhaps pushing three!) , glass or two of port, off to the pub for a few pints after that, careful checking of libre, a correction or two, highest I got all night was 8.6, was quite chuffed with that, only to then have a colleague's husband who has a T2 relative, so is, therefore an expert on all matters T1, say to me, ooh, isn't that too high!