Hi ashwin24,
That's a huge question.
Do you mean social life or daily life?
What part(s) of our social lives?
I think you'll need to write much more than an essay if you look at how T1 affects daily life, and it could be a very long essay if it's about our social lives.
Other people will have their own take on it - expect a variety of things to be said. To put it bluntly, I find it can be a pain, especially if the people I'm with don't understand how T1 works. Carting everything around and making sure vital supplies are ok can be onerous but it's just what we do. The effects of T1 are a constant, whether we like it or not, so we just have to get on with it!
I'll outline a few things that affect social life. Just a few things we need to do and think about. I don't want to write an essay myself. There may be a few things you'll need to look up on.
Successful treatment of T1 demands maintaining a blood sugar of 4 - 7 mmol. Lower that this and hypoglycaemia occurs, higher and hyperglycaemia happens. The effects of hypoglycaemia are immediate, progressing through cognitive and physical decline to unconsciousness.
We need to avoid this and know what's likely to make us 'go low'.
Carrying what we need to treat T1 with us:
Insulin: this will be affected by the time of day, the ambient temperature (insulin doesn't withstand excessive heat and it hates being frozen), the kind of insulin we each use, the mode of delivery - some inject it, some use a pump. There are also a variety of insulins available and people will have been prescribed these for their needs.
Test equipment. There are different ways that blood sugar can be ascertained. These days people tend either to use a cgm such as Freestyle Libre or Dexcom, or a portable device.
Emergency hypo treatment such as glucose, jelly babies.
For me this means that if I have a handbag it needs to be big enough to take it all and ideally have a section I can put the diabetes stuff in separately.
Activities. Balance and blood sugars rule, so the effects of physical exercise need to be anticipated. Ever seen what happens to glucose tablets if you take them swimming, or scuba diving? Try putting one in salty water and then assess how much glucose is left - then try eating it. You'll probably think it's easier to upload it before the exercise and hope it's the right amount - you might have to inject a bit of insulin after the exercise to bring your blood sugars back to optimum, you might have to stop what you're doing early if you begin to feel hypoglycaemic and find some carbohydrate to eat - quickly! This goes for all social activities that use more energy than usual. Again, it can be a right pain. However, for me, exercise makes T1 easier to manage overall as it affects the way insulin's used and carbohydrates are absorbed and stored. It makes me feel good too.
Eating:
We need to know the carbohydrate value of foods so that we can self-administer the right dose of insulin to cover them. We also need to know the ways that different foods affect the speed at which carbohydrate is absorbed so as to maintain a decent blood sugar level.
There are some books and apps that provide information on this, although it's limited. Another thing to carry around when eating out or at friends, but it's all part of T1.
It's hard to know how much carbohydrate's in food that's cooked by other people, and that can make things difficult. Other people don't always understand why we need to know what's in the food we're going to eat or what a carbohydrate is. Lots of explaining for us all to do. They might get offended too if they've spent hours making a beautiful glacé fruit and sugar covered meringue pavlova and we say we only want the tiniest taste of it (just to try and be polite) then test blood sugars every half hour fearing the effect that taste has had.
Getting there and back again or staying overnight:
Driving. Blood sugars should, we're told, be at least 5.5 (there's more than one way to express that value) to drive safely. But are they going to stick at 5.5? Are they rising? Are they falling? This is where knowing yourself, what you've eaten, what exercise you've taken and the effects it's likely to have are important. It's always important, for every bit of life. The dangerous one is becoming hypoglycaemic. Most of us are aware when this happens and can stop what we're doing and treat it. There are warning signs. Some unfortunate people lose the warning signs, and here in the UK they're not allowed to drive legally if that happens. It can affect life really badly, and not just socially. On the other hand, causing an accident and hurting self and others would be even more terrible.
There. I've written more than enough now. I could go on and on so I've just looked at a few things. Like I said I to start with, you've chosen a huge area to write about. I suggest you narrow it down to a smaller one - maybe just eating away from home or some kinds of activities. Then you can include more of the science in too.
!
