Totally! Even an hour Zoom session messes me up! Sometimes when hanging out with my granddaughter I pick up the iPad and just start walking! And honestly I have NOT missed fundraising dinners with all the uncertainties about meals, timing, etc. But at home just working at my desk paying bills or answering emails, I do move around: simple stretching, feeding old cat (endlessly 
), making coffee, answering phone or doorbell, throwing in laundry, etc. etc. and that really seems to help.
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Definitely.
I’m an introvert by nature, so its a lot easier for me, in that I’m just generally not meeting new people.
While I’m not shy about the D, it often becomes a focal point for new people, if they see my dexcom or alarms go off. And I’d rather not have attention drawn to me (unless its to my charming, sunny disposition 
).
My know-it-all 6 yr old niece always asks how my sugar is before we play tag or soccer, secretly hoping that I’ll need treats. She’s fascinated that I’m allowed to have sugar right from the packet! While everyone else looks away, she watches closely while I prime and “shoot up”. (I’ve tried to get her to stop saying that, but she doesn’t realize what it means). Sorry, sidetracked.
So, yeah, in social situations when I’m not sure what the plan is for activity, eating time, etc, I often get stuck with sticky lows or highs. I much prefer the lows, as highs make me babble.
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I’m 15 years in.
BUT, I had shots under control and a rockin’ A1C for the first seven years. And then I went off of birth control and all effing hell broke loose and the medical community continues to deny that that’s a thing for diabetic women.
And then I went on the pod. And then I developed a potential allergy to Humalog and switched to Novolog.
And then I was parenting kiddos solo while adjusting to the pod, Novolog, and regular hormonal cycling and its impact on insulin resistance.
So, my last 8 years of Diabetes has HEAVILY resembled the scene from “Forrest Gump” in which Lieutenant Dan in Vietnam is constantly getting his spidey sense up suspecting that Charlie (Viet Cong) is around every corner. Because for several years, nothing made a lick of sense and I was in the hospital all the dang time.
So…coming through the other side of that…I’ve got to unpack some residual stuff about feeling unsafe in my own body…bc that is exactly how it felt for many, many, many years. And honestly, FUD saved me. It’s everyone on here, but especially @Eric and the female community here who have helped me with the tactical nuts and bolts solutions to problems that doctors refused to acknowledge even existed.
Yay for my super comprehensive sharing on here!
@bostrav59, I agree with your assessment regarding the interplay between diabetes, my feelings, and my goals and the importance of addressing those. Good call.
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No, it isn’t just you! Everything you describe, I, too, experience. You articulate it so well, much better than I can. I don’t have any advice because I go through the same chaos! I’m very glad you opened this post and am really hoping for good suggestions.
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We’ll all put our heads together and try to make it better. 
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I wanted to chime in here, although I’m coming from a different perspective. As a parent of. T1D, I’m not embarassed so much about treating the low, as I am about how much I’m preoccupied about his BGs in my social interactions. I find it difficult socially with neighbors, say, because when he’s running around my mind is on what his BGs are doing, if he’s going low, when should I treat, etc, rather than on the actual conversation. Or I need to stop a conversation bc I need to treat the low. Or I’m constantly glacing at my phone or watch just to see what is going on, all the while nodding along as they talk.
So, for me, its like I’m only every partially engaged in whatever social situation I am in. And I realize those other parents don’t have these worries so they can just sit back and relax and let their kids just run around.
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I hear you, all of us parents were there at one time. The good news is this becomes routine, eventually, but it does take a long time.
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From the parental perspective, I agree with this sentiment for the most part. All my friends and family that we hang with already know Liam has diabetes and they know my mind is always first and foremost thinking and looking at his BGs…ESPECIALLY if there are kids his age visiting and he’s running around playing with them. They already know so in my circle of family and friends, they actually help me watch out for Liam and if they see something suspicious (like maybe he gets really tired and lies down), they would all rush to me and say something.
When we’ve been with family before and we’ve changed out the POD, or checked BGs, they all watched with awe like I was a neurosurgeon or something. lol. They all are very interested in finding out what they can do to help my wife and I monitor Liam when they are over for visits.
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Your whole post just totally nails it for me. But especially this part.
Right now I’ve been working on tweaking my meal routines so that when I go to after-school activities, I know that my number of variables is curtailed so that I can be more engaged and less worried. That’s been helping me ride out dips longer because I’m not as concerned about a bottomless drop. Me trying to just “not worry about it” really wasn’t a solution. I have ended up with better blood sugar at events when I tweak my hours leading up to it. I don’t know if that is a solution that is applicable for kids with T1D but it is helping me, fortunately.
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Not that it matters, but many of my friends say the exact same thing when I use a syringe just for a shock value with the casual onlooker. It appears that I am their muse in public.
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If it’s any consolation, eventually he’ll be old enough to be able to read the symptoms and treat himself, and you’ll be able to relax more. He’ll know when it’s time to quit running around and grab something sweet, without having to be told. My own parents pretty much left me alone after the first year or so (I was diagnosed at 9) and really, it’s the best thing they ever did for me, D-wise, and in retrospect healthy for them too. (Except for the time I fell asleep in a lawn chair after helping to plant a row of cedar hedges and couldn’t be woken up and my dad had to throw me in the car and race me to hospital. He was a little more attentive after that.)
Well, that’s the thing. You don’t know that. Most people in the world have some health concern or other. And like diabetes, they’re often invisible. One kid might be allergic to bee stings, so their parent is watching they don’t get too close to the flowerbeds. Another kid might have peanut or other food allergies, so the parent is always checking out what’s on the food table. Another might have asthma, so their parent is half-watching them, puffer at the ready. A kid might have mental health issues, like anxiety, and the parent is half-watching to make sure they don’t get over-excited or scared by a game. And even without health issues, parents might be watching that their weaker or less confident kid isn’t mocked or bullied or left out. I’d bet that the majority of those other parents are, just like you, distracted by their worries. You are not alone.
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Oh this is so very true @Beacher and I have to stop myself to remind me of that. I think to other people it ma look easy on the outside, (whether or not you are trying to make it look easy) as if everything is simple to control (be it diabetes, mental health issues, other medical conditions) but it doesn’t necessarily mean it always is, or is even in that moment. You do never know what anyone’s personal struggles are. You are so absolutely right.
And yes I do very much want to encourage my son to be proactive in his own treatments and management. I’m hoping a pump will help that to a certain degree when it comes at least to the food end of things. But I think in some ways CGMs are a bit of a detriment to this progress, in that I imagine we catch lows, for instance, before he even has a chance to actually feel that he maybe low. I’ve said it before, that the CGM really increased my anxiety. Our first 4 months we did not have it (I know so many of you T1D veterans are laughing at that), and relied on finger sticks. Did we have lows? You bet. 48, 56. And it is funny because I didn’t nearly have the sort of anxious reaction to those then as I do now. I just responded to the number “Oh, wow! 48! Here’s juice box and I’ll test ya again in 15 min.” Moving on. Did we have highs? Sure did. Corrected it with the next meal. Now I don’t doubt we have much better control now being able to see what is happening as it is happening, but I never worried about a meal bolus or correction or anything before, I just followed the numbers and went with it. I need to somehow find that relationship with the dexcom!
Anyway, this got very off topic, sorry! But, in relation to social interactions, I do hope to find a happy medium, eventually, where I know he’s paying more attention to things, as well as me. Hes defnintely not there yet, and may not be for a while, and I don’t want to push it as he’ll have his whole life to deal with this, but I do continue to encourage him in even small ways.
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Yeah, I biggest problem is after dinner when he goes running right out to play. I want to try to figure something out to help at least aleviate some of the worry, but it’s a hit and a miss. It’s hard with kids because, I’m sure you know having your own, their activity can be all over the place! For instance, I might premptively give him some fast carbs because I know hes at the trampoline, but then everyone has to go in and the trampoline doesn’t happen afterall. 
Gotta figure something out otherwise it’ll be a looooooong summer!
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Great reminder for all of us!
Same for me. My husband often remarks on how much more stressed out I am now than I was pre-Dexcom. I did an entire T1D pregnancy and first year of motherhood without Dexcom. And I look back now and think I was nuts.
My relationship with Dexcom is weird. And by weird, I mean that I’m addicted to it but it does make me preemptively anxious. I’ve tried to tweak my perspective but haven’t found the solution to it yet.
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One thing I do on days with erratic activity…but more activity than not…is that I run a higher basal and graze all day feeding the basal. Then I’m not taking boluses for meals which could work great, not be enough or get way too efficient due to my activity after eating/bolusing.
I don’t do this all the time but it is a helpful strategy for me during the summer with my kids.
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It’s hard with kids?! I just turned 60, and my activity is all over the place.
You can plan in the way of general guidelines, but since activity is always different in degree and time and duration, it’s not – as you know by now – a science. Do your best, celebrate when your plan works out perfectly, but be kind to yourself when it doesn’t.
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Yeah…thinking about it more, it’s totally this.
Pre-Dexcom, I was like, “I’m gonna live my life and check my blood sugar along the way and just make it work.”
Now it’s more like I look to my Dexcom for permission to do different things.
I’ve definitely gotten it more backward where the tail is wagging the dog. #workingonit
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Yup. We had a sensor//transmitter failure a while back, all happening in the evening. I didn’t want to bother with the warm up etc at bed time so I said “You know, lets take a break from dexcom. Maybe just a week or two- go back to the way it was”. Well, I slapped that thing back on him the next morning so fast his head spun.
Once Dexcom made me aware of how things can change, and how FAST they can change in certain scenarios, I can’t be without. Not to mention the convenience of not have to finger test every time you turn around. But yet I can’t seem to accept the fact that we did that for several months, and some people a lifetime!, just fine. Not perfect, no doubt, but fine. I was definitely far more relaxed pre-Dexcom, believe it or not.
So yea, I’m brainstorming some ways I can use the cgm in a less neurotic way. I’m not there yet, and I’m hopeful it may be a bit easier once my son starts to get a bit older.
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I was thinking about this a little more and in some ways it isn’t so much “the other” as it is “my former self”. Just a summer ago we didn’t have these specific worries. During his whole diagnosis we were in the process of moving. Now we find ourselves in a new neighborhood trying to make new friends, and I see my former way of life in my neighbors, if that makes any sense. Just this past weekend all the kids were out playing and us adults gathered on one of the neighbors deck. On family got pizza, another burgers- kids running around eating what they want, when they want, how much they want without a care in the world (at least as far as that goes). And that used to be us!! My husband and daughter are celiac, so we never get to order food once that happened, and now my son’s diabetes piles on top of that. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I definitely “feel it” in those situations- bad for my kids, my husband, and really just want to go back to life pre-all these autoimmunities.
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Yikes, you do have a full plate to manage. I do have one suggestion you might want to try with the Dexcom. First, during the day turn off all the alarms except the emergency low alarm that can’t be turned off, for a week or two. Two, try to use the data more as a grade of how well you dosed after the event, not during. This will make you better at managing a situation without the stress.
The thing that is happening is that many of the lows and highs that you are catching would have resolved themselves without your intervention, i.e. insulin was still onboard to bring that 250 down, or the 70 would hover there and wander up after some period of time when digestion caught up etc. Do of course intervene when they are 50 or 350 though. The goal is to learn but also try and de-stress the process.
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