Friday, May 18, 2012

D-Blog Week #5 – What they should know

Today's topic: “What is one thing you would tell someone that doesn’t have diabetes about living with diabetes?”

The first thing I would tell them is to head over to Kerri's blog and read this because she already said what I was thinking. Next I would refer them back to the D-blog link for today because this topic is important.

One thing I would like people to know about diabetes is how much math is involved. Carb counting is only the beginning. For those of us who use insulin to carb ratios, figuring out how much insulin to use becomes a complicated word problem. I always hated word problems.

 “A passenger train leaves the train depot 2 hours after a freight train left the same depot. The freight train is painted blue and carrying 9 hogs, 32 chickens, 11 small engines, 3 rare organic mushrooms, and is traveling 20 mph slower than the passenger train. On the passenger train are 59 members of the St. Matthew’s Children’s Choir, 14 crying babies, 3 apples, 2 oranges, and 1 service dog named Rudy. Find the rate each train is traveling when the passenger train overtakes the freight train in 3 hours.”

I've always felt this way, too. Only, because of diabetes I have to do word problems before every meal and my life depends on getting the answers right.

Marie's blood sugar target is 105. Her current blood sugar is 204. 1 unit of insulin lowers her blood glucose by 50 points. Her insulin to carb ratio is 1 unit covers 15 grams of carbohydrate. She has 1.29 units of insulin already working in her body. If Marie plans on eating 43 grams of carbohydrate, how much insulin does she need?

Answer: she needs a pump to figure this out for her because she sucks at this!

Diabetes is complicated. That's what I want people to know.


  1. beautifully said.

  2. It seems like an awful lot of work just to eat a piece of toast and half a banana doesn't it? Someone should have a class called Math for Diabetics






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