When our daughter was first diagnosed, we started on insulin pens. This is also how I started giving insulin injections when I was diagnosed in 2004. The pens are good for training and learning the basics of diabetes and forcing yourself to do math and think about sliding scales and correction doses.
In the long-run, for our family at least, we knew we wanted our daughter to be on an insulin pump.
Discussing with Our Daughter
This is something that we discussed with our daughter also so that she didn’t feel like it was being forced on her, but it was a simple conversation with her.
4 shots a day or one “shot” once every 3 days.
Her answer was pretty quick.
Giving her insulin early on after her diagnosis was difficult at times. We didn’t want to make too many changes to our life. We wanted her to continue to do the same things she was doing before she was diagnosed.
Eating Out
One of those things was eating out. We ate out usually 2-3 times a week. Usually one night for dinner, and 1-2 times a week for lunch. We did this because we were always out on the weekends and then we try to enjoy one night out a week together as a family.
Eating at a restaurant was tough because we never knew exactly how many carbs she was going to eat. We would look at the menu beforehand, and by before I mean, my wife would be looking on her phone in the car about 5 minutes before we pulled into a restaurant because it took us 30 minutes debating on what restaurant we were going to go to.
We also could never tell when the food would come out, so pre-bolusing was tough, but that is the same no matter if you are doing MDI or using an insulin pump. The difference is that we could just give her insulin at the table and not have to go to the bathroom and leave the table.
If she wanted to be able to eat a little bit more than what we initially bolused for or if we decided to all share a dessert, we could do it much easier with an insulin pump. It wasn’t going to require the trauma or getting another shot, but a simple few button pushes on the insulin pump.
Corrections
Another reason we wanted to use an insulin pump was for corrections. We found ourselves waiting until the next meal time in order to give a correction. If it was a large correction, we would do it, but we avoided giving extra shots as much as possible.
Waiting until the next meal to correct a blood sugar that was not too high, but something that we would correct now with an insulin pump, was not good management. Her A1C was higher and we knew we couldn’t continue on that path for the long run.
Snacking
Luckily, even before diabetes, our daughter was not much of a snacker. She didn’t just randomly eat throughout the day. She ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and sometimes would have a little snack somewhere throughout the day. But, she never just randomly was given food to eat all throughout the day.
That was a big plus for being on MDI, because we didn’t need to bolus any additional shots.
On her insulin pump, if she wants a snack, it’s easier to give a snack. Now, we don’t just give a snack because we can quickly bolus for it, we still follow our same rules. But, it is easier to go for ice cream after the park or having some cracker and cheese between lunch and dinner.
Check back for future blog posts on how living with an insulin pump has been for her.
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