I stick to a fairly standard regime where I have my breakfast, my lunch, my evening meal and a little snack at night before I go to bed. And my, the way I use my insulin that suits me perfectly, I go up and down a bit. But other people who are leading active lives and they want to keep their life as normal as possible, do things when they want to do them, rather than when their regime tells them they've got to do it. I think it is a much better, DAFNE, Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating. And I think it is a much better system for people with active lives.
So is your insulin, I mean the level that you take is that sort of fixed, you don't change it that much?
I don't change it that much at all. I have 26 of a morning, 18 of an evening before my evening meal and that seems to suit my lifestyle. If I am more active, if I'm going to be active, I tend to may take a little Mars Bar or something, have a chew at that. And that will raise my blood sugars to counteract the effect of the exercise that I am doing. So once again it's coming back to this self-management. To be able to look ahead and say [to yourself] 'Well… I'm going to be doing that, I'm doing this, I'll have that before I do it, and that'll balance me out while I'm doing it'.
These are suggestions that people have made you know over the years, and it suits me.
And I think everybody is an individual as far as that goes. And each person has got to adjust their regime to themselves, not to what other people are doing. They've got to adjust it for themselves I think. Trying to tell people, “Well you should do this and you should do that, and you should do that, like I do” - that's wrong. I think there's only one person who should tell you what to do and that is the doctor, or the clinic staff.
I think you should recognise your symptoms, be able to recognise when you are going low - particularly when you are going low - look at what you are doing if you are driving and things like that; what precautions should you take if you are driving any distance. I think all these things come under your self-management. You've got to plot it ahead. You've got to look ahead at what you are going to do, how you are going to do it. You've got to be able to analyse I think your feelings to a certain degree, what's happening to you. And carry on with your normal life. |
