Welcome back to our Friday “life with diabetes” video short series from filmmaker Jenny MacKenzie, who created the documentary film Sugar Babies. This week’s snippet looks at a teenager with diabetes who’s trying to do better in his D-management, but is facing that common sense of burnout that we PWDs (people with diabetes) know all too well.
In this boy’s words, diabetes burnout is when “you don’t care about diabetes — period,” and your D seems like “a little dirty little secret you keep in the closet or something… you just tuck it away.”
Episode 11: Conquering Diabetes When You Don’t Want To
So… how have YOU managed diabetes in the face of burnout?
I am on the complete other side of that, because I’m doing a study for a new insulin (I’m in the control group
). Someone said to me, “doesn’t it need to be blind?”
That really had me laughing – can you imagine getting a placebo insulin for a Type 1 diabetic? I wonder how I’d tell?
Because they’re paying for all my strips and insulin (but strangely, not my needles or alcohol pads) I test anytime I feel like it (in addition to before and after meals).
My diabetes is SO variable from day to day but one thing is clear. My best control days are the days when I do a lot of walking AND I really need to eat when I’m supposed to (every 2 hours, approximately). When I don’t, I’m much more susceptible to lows.
Having to report at least three days a week has brought my testing compliance to about 6 days a week of at least 7-point testing. Now I just need to figure out how to get enough strips once I’m off this study.