Diabetes and Standardized/AP testing

This post will apply mostly to those of you in high school(sorry to those of you who no longer fall into this category!) If you're in high school, you know how annoying standardized testing like the ACT and SAT can be, not to mention stressful, without adding diabetes into the mix. But, since you can't just stop being diabetic on the days that you have to take these so it's important to be prepared. Sadly, I didn't know that diabetics could get "special treatment" I guess you would say when taking the ACT and SAT, but now that I know, I want to makes sure everyone else who might need this knows. I'm not exactly sure what special privileges you get, but I believe it's just extra time to complete the test and the right to have your testing material, food to treat lows, water, etc. To get this extra time and rights, you must send in the request 7 weeks in advance, as it can take a while for your request to be approved. You can find the information about this at https://sat.collegeboard.org/register/for-students-with-disabilities for the SAT and at http://www.actstudent.org/regist/disab/ for the ACT. In addition to being able to do this for standardized testing, you can also do this for AP testing. The extra time/rights are the same as the ones for the SAT since both the SAT and AP testing are through college board, and you also must send the request in seven weeks in advance so that there is time for your request to be approved. You can find the information about this at https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/takingtheexam/testing-accommodations. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer them! I hope this helps those of you who will have to take theses tests!

Bad Diabetic Habits

Today's going to be a honest blog post. Every diabetic has their bad habits when it comes to diabetes, and I definitely have several of my own. So, I thought that since I'm snowed in and have another day off of school I'd share some of my bad diabetic habits with you guys. Here they are:

1. Never changing my lancet.

I feel like this is a habit that almost every diabetic has. You're diagnosed, they tell you to be careful to only use lancets once to avoid infections, and you follow that ruler religiously... for a while. Then you get lazy about it. "Reusing it won't hurt me," you tell yourself. So you reuse your lancet twice, which turns into ten times, which turns into using the same lancet for three months... it's a downward spiral. I'm so guilty of this it's not even funny. But, I changed my lancet today, so that counts for something, right?

2. Being lazy about counting carbs.

This is another thing that when you're first diagnosed you do to the t. You look at labels, and if there's not a label, you look it up online... then you start having to guess carbs because there's no label or information about carbs online. And, at least for me, you just start guessing almost all the time. You tell yourself, "This has about this many carbs and this has this many..." and it just turns into a bad habit that you struggle to break. But, never fear, you can indeed break it! 

3. Never logging anything.

When I was first diagnosed (I feel like that's how all of my sentences have started...) I kept logs of EVERYTHING. I wrote down when I checked my blood sugar, what my blood sugar was, what ate, how many carbs were in it, how much insulin I gave myself... you get the point. I logged a lot of things. Then I got lazy. I was diagnosed when I was eight, and as a kid, writing all that stuff was never fun and I definitely didn't like it. As I got older, I got lazier and lazier about it and eventually quit doing it altogether. There's nothing wrong with not logging blood sugars and carb intakes, but it definitely helps. If you have a high or low blood sugar, you can look back at your log and figure out what might have caused it a lot easier than if you don't log anything. 

4. Poking the same finger every time I check. 

This isn't a horrible habit, but it definitely leads to some nasty looking fingers and probably some scar tissue. It's just so easy to do! For me at least, I tend to really like poking my middle and ring fingers because they don't hurt as badly as my index finger and I've never been a fan of poking my pinky and I'm honestly not sure I've ever poked my thumb. Along with these preferences, I tend to like to poke these fingers on my right hand, although I'm not sure why. 

5. Wiping blood on everything. 

This one sounds really gross, but lets be honest, we all have gross diabetic habits. After I check, I'll wipe my finger off on my meter case, on my pants(oops), on my shirts if it's black or I don't care about it. It's gross, but who actually carries alcohol wipes around with them? And it's just a meter case or my pants or a shirt. It's not the end of the world. :)

Well, there you have it. Now you've heard about a few of my bad diabetic habits and maybe you even have some of the same ones yourself! 

Multiple Daily Injections vs. Insulin Pump Therapy

As a Type One Diabetic, because your immune system attacked your pancreas and destroyed the insulin making cells, you have no option but to take insulin to treat and manage your diabetes, and no matter how many scam websites try to tell you different ways to cure or treat it, this will always be the case. Although you may not have an option to choose to take or not take insulin, you do have a few different options to choose from when it comes to how you take the insulin your body needs. Most likely, when you're first diagnosed with diabetes, you will start out taking insulin via Multiple Daily Injections.

Multiple Daily Injections

 Basically, Multiple Daily Injections is just a bigger way to say shots. When using multiple daily injection as a way to take the insulin you need, you'll probably be on anywhere from 3 to 6 shots a day. Younger children tend to be on more shots than adults, simply because they may need snacks throughout the day to help stabilize their blood sugars, which results in the need for more insulin(which results in more shots) to cover their food intake. Adults, however, usually can get by with 3-4 shots a day, depending on the severity of their diabetes. During my about 9 years using Multiple Daily Injections to treat my diabetes, I was on everywhere from 4 to 6 shots a day. With Multiple Daily Injections, you'll be on two different types of insulin: a short acting insulin(I was on Novolog) and a long acting insulin(I was on Lantus). You'll take the short acting insulin to cover the carbs you eat at meal and snack times, as well as to correct any high blood sugars you have. Short acting insulin generally stays in your system for about two to three hours and takes about fifteen minutes to start working. In addition to using short acting insulin to cover food and correct hyperglycemia, you'll use a long acting insulin to help stabilize your blood sugar throughout the day. You'll take long acting insulin once a day, usually at nighttime, and you'll usually take a larger dose of long acting insulin than you will of short acting insulin since it will be in your system all day long. The long acting insulin will act as background insulin, always in your system to help regulate your blood glucose. Long acting insulin stays in your system for twenty-four hours and usually takes about an hour or two to start working.

Insulin Pump Therapy

With insulin pump therapy, unlike Multiple Daily Injections, you will only be on one type of insulin: short acting insulin(I'm still using Novolog for this.) Rather than injecting short acting insulin multiple times a day to cover food and high blood sugars and injecting long acting insulin once a day, you will be hooked up to a small, beeper like machine that will give you short acting insulin continuously throughout the day(this is called your basal insulin) in the place of a long acting insulin and you will simply test your blood sugar, enter the amount of carbs, and give yourself insulin for food or correcting your blood sugar with the press of a few buttons.
I know being hooked up to a machine might sound scary or unpleasant, but it really isn't. This is what my insulin pump looks like:

And this is what goes inside me:

Unlike many people think, there's no needle that stays inside you all the time. Using an insertion device, you'll use a needle to insert a tiny rubber tube(shown above) into your body, then you will remove the needle, leaving only the rubber tube(called a cannula). The cannula will be connected by a tube thinner than a piece of spaghetti to your pump, and the pump will send insulin through the tube, into the cannula, and into your body. You will leave each cannula in your body for about two to three days, and then you will put a new one in, which is super easy to do and takes about ten minutes or so.

There are several different brands of pumps. The pump I use is called the Animas One Touch Ping, but other popular and well known pumps include the Medtronic  Minimed Revel(Here's a picture:

)

and the Omnipod(Here's a picture of this pump as well:

)

There is no one pump that is right for every diabetic, so when choosing a pump, talk to your doctor about which pump might be best for you, and in the long run, don't worry too much about it! Most pumps do the same thing and they're kinda like cars: you choose the one that has the most feature that you like or feel will be beneficial to you.

Pros and Cons

Multiple Daily Injections and insulin pump therapy both have their pros and cons. These will be different for each individual person, but I'll share some of my personal pros and cons for each of these treatment methods.

Multiple Daily Injections

Pros:

• No tubing to get tangled on doorknobs and rip off(not that that's ever happened to me... just kidding, it totally has.)
• No pump to have to have pockets to put in or to ruin outifts(however, if all else fails, stick it in your bra, ladies. Sorry guys, I can't really help y'all out.)
• Less chance of developing ketones with high blood sugars because of long acting insulin always being present

Cons:

• Lots of needles(Multiple shots a day isn't fun, not going to lie)
• Lots of bruises(needles are sharp and human skin is tender and delicate)
• Takes more time at meal time(Having to take the time to draw up a shot before eating a meal can get a little annoying)

Insulin Pump Therapy

Pros:

• Fewer needles(Changing your cannula and infusion set every three days is so much better than taking 3-4 shots everyday)
• More freedom(It's easier to adjust your meal times and have a more flexible schedule with a pump than it is on shots)
• Less math(Your pump will do a lot of the math for you. If you're like me and math isn't exactly your forte, this is a big plus)

Cons:

• You always have something connected to you(With the exception of when you're showering, your pump is always going to be connected to you. To me, this isn't a big deal, but some people don't enjoy the feeling of always having a machine and cannula inside them. It's different for everyone, and you're the only one who can decide if this is a drawback to using an insulin pump for you or not.)
• Higher risk of developing ketones(Since you won't have a long acting insulin in your system at all times, ketones can develop easier than when you do have that long acting insulin to act as a back up net. However, don't let this scare you. Ketones can definitely still be avoided with proper management.

In the end, the decision is yours. Multiple Daily Injections and insulin pump therapy both treat Type One Diabetes the same way if used with proper care and management. If you have questions about either type of treatment, ask a doctor, a nurse, or ask me! I'm always happy to answer any questions you may have and I hope this blog helps you in making your decision.

 

 

How Diabetes Works

For my first official diabetes related post, I decided to explain what causes diabetes. Although the exact cause behind diabetes is still unknown, it is known that Type One Diabetes is an autoimmune disease. This means that the immune system gets confused and thinks that the beta cells, the insulin producing cells in the pancreas, are a harmful invader and destroys them. Although we known that diabetes results from the immune system becoming confused, we still don't know what triggers the body to attack itself like this. We do, however, know that there are genetic and environmental triggers. I'll do my best to explain these triggers, but science isn't my strong suit, so I apologize if this is super confusing and unhelpful. While  Type One Diabetes isn't as genetic as Type Two Diabetes, it is still genetic to an extent. There are many different genes associated with diabetes, the strongest being  IDDM1, which is located in  MHC Class II region on chromosome 6. The chances of a child developing Type One Diabetes is about 10% if the father has it, about 10% if a sibling has it, about 4% if the mother has type 1 diabetes and was aged 25 or younger when the child was born, and about 1% if the mother was over 25 years old when the child was born.
Along with genetic factors, environmental factors also play a part in the development of Type One Diabetes. In studies, when one identical twin had Type One Diabetes, only about 30-50% of the time did the other twin develop the disease. Despite sharing the same genetic makeup, only one twin developed diabetes the majority of the time, which led to the discovery that the environment can trigger the body to develop Type One Diabetes. Although scientists know that the environment plays a part in the development of Type One Diabetes, they have yet to pinpoint how exactly the environment triggers the disease, so sorry that I can't explain that.
Once the immune system has attacked and destroyed the insulin making beta cells in the pancreas, the body no longer produces insulin, which leads to hyperglycemia, or elevated blood sugar. Without insulin, the body cannot break down the food you eat to use for energy, which is why excessive hunger is often one of the early signs of Type One Diabetes. The body cannot use the food you've already given it, so it tells you you're still hungry, probably thinking that more food will help solve the problem. Other signs and symptoms of Type One Diabetes include excessive thirst, excessive urinating, nausea, vomiting, dry mouth, fatigue, and weight loss.
If you or someone you love are showing these signs and think that Type One Diabetes may be the cause, please ask your doctor about it and get checked for diabetes. The early you catch diabetes, the less chance you have of finding out after it's caused adverse side affects. Knowing the symptoms and causes of Type One Diabetes can help you watch out for it and catch it if you ever should develop it, so educate yourself, because education is the key to a healthy life.

Welcome to My Life with Type One Diabetes

I decided that for my first post on this blog I would just give you guys a little bit of an introduction to me and to this blog. My name is Megan, and I've been a Type One Diabetic for almost ten years now. So although I don't know everything there is to know about diabetes, I do know quite a bit and that's why I decided to start this blog. But we'll come back to that in a minute. For now, I'm going to give you a little bit more information about myself. I'm currently a senior in high school and am excited about majoring in Music Education with a concentration on choral music in the fall at college. I have wonderful friends and family who support me and are always there for me, and I'm incredibly thankful for them. Now back to diabetes, you've heard enough about me. As I said, I've been a Type One Diabetic for almost ten years now. I was diagnosed at the age of eight, and was on multiple daily injections for eight- almost nine- years, and am now on an Animas One Touch Ping insulin pump. I decided that I wanted to do something to help other diabetics out, but I didn't know exactly how to do that. I tried a couple different things, such as pen pal programs through JDRF (none of my pen pals ever responded, fyi) and online communities for diabetics, such as TuDiabetes, but, while both of those are wonderful options, neither of them really worked for me. So, fast forward in time several months, and here I am writing this blog. :D I am super excited about this and about being able to share what I've learned in my nine years of being a diabetic as well as learn from my fellow diabetics! I look forward to talking to you guys (and gals!) and if there's ever a certain topic you'd like me to blog about just let me know either at megandianej12@gmail.com or via my twitter for this blog @DarlingBetic12 (https://twitter.com/DarlingBetic12)