In my early diabetes diagnosis days, I thought that the key to having perfect BGs came from restricting the amount of carbohydrate food I ate and exercising a lot. I kept logs of what I ate, what activity I did and plotted them against my BGs on an excel spreadsheet like a nerd. At the time (pre-insulin injections), none of these really worked on lowering my BGs because we had not worked out that the problem was in fact insulin deficiency, not insulin resistance.
Fast forward to today and I’m still clinging onto the notion of logging my BGs, carbs and exercise on my mySugr app. Then came the day my phone died and I was forced to take a break from logging. My back up phones were incapable of running the app and I didn’t even think about other alternatives (web version, other apps or even manual recording).
The first week of not logging felt great. I loved not needed to take out my phone and plug in all the details of my life before eating. But I noticed that I was eating more than usual, particularly since my pump was running low on insulin earlier than planned. My morning BGs were slightly higher than normal. I missed seeing my daily and weekly averages of BGs and carb intake on my phone.
I was surprised at how feedback like that reassures me that I’m traveling well with my diabetes. Individual numbers become patterns that tell me if changes need to be made. More importantly, it gave me a sense of control over my diabetes. As crazy as it sounds, logging my BGs, carbs eaten and exercise done provided me with a sense of accountability. Most importantly, it doesn’t allow me to neglect my diabetes. Even in bouts of burnout, logging helps me stay in touch with my diabetes.
Now that I have a new working smartphone with my little diaMunchkin making funny noises at me, I feel more settled and at ease. I am reassured and somewhat comforted/alarmed/dismayed by my daily and weekly averages. Except now, I am ready to look at my nerdy trends and see where things need a bit of tweaking.
HangryPancreas 