There was a time we would give an insulin shot a little bit of time before my daughter ate. The meal would be given and the insulin would impact the body ‘at the perfect time’ to counter the carbs she was about to eat. Ideally.
Sometimes it was a race to the finish line (yes I know my picture used today does not depict the healthiest of foods but you try finding a food, with ‘running feet’ photo).
It also opened the door for mini-disasters. I remember many, many stories about the battles that raged after a child took their insulin and what parents did to get their child to eat so they did not ‘bottom out’ (drop low). Eat, sometimes, just about anything. If the child was a finicky eater, those meals and doses of insulin became a battle ground of anxiety quite often. Which was usually every meal.
In today’s world, I don’t see, or hear of, these battle so much anymore. Modern technology, perhaps; or even the fact that I don’t even have a teen-ager in my house anymore, much less an infant, that I just have not been in ‘that’ circle with that topic of conversation for a long time.
Is it still there? Do you give your child insulin (shots, pump boluses etc) and do you rush to get food inside your child; or with the modern technology now existing, that’s just not a problem anymore?
As I write this, I have this visual in my head of readers saying to themselves, ‘….wow is he really out of touch; what is he EVEN talking about?’ But when it comes to eating and dispensing insulin, please share your experiences with your child. What have you learned? What do you do? When it comes to dispensing insulin and eating, what happens in your house?
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9 replies on “Is Dispensing Insulin, and Your Child’s Meals, Still a Race Anymore?”
We have to give my 8 year old his insulin before the meal. At least 15 minutes. If not he shoots sky high. If he doesn’t eat entire meal we have to figure out what to do. He is on the pump and has the dex. I don’t see how either of these two devices are going to help with this issue. We can cut his basel but this only lessens the high a tad is does not prevent it. Tell me how pump Therapy can allow us to better control his meal time highs. We have been able to control a little bit if we know exactly when he will eat and how much but this is summer and he is running around and swimming and wanting to snack like the other boys. It’s impossible to control.
Thank you for sharing——it is GREATLY appreciated.
I have personally seen this in the field, however not with children but adults. Working as a full time paramedic in a busy urban community. Often when i arrive the patients bg is in the 20’s and iv therapy of dextrose is required.
Our 8 year old son counts each minute until the 15 Min after injection so he can eat. If he gets full and can’t finish we just do juice or something non filling
We used to fill that time by offering vegetables that are ‘free’……got some good veggies in and the time was not watched so much. Thanks for writing.
We were taught to give our daughter her insulin before each meal. She has gotten very good at determining how much she is going to eat and following thru with it. But we still have a lot of crazy numbers!
We all still have “….a lot of crazy numbers….” 22+ years at this. Thanks for writing.
We don’t prebolus. I feel it sets up bad eating habits of eating when your not hungry. I want my child to stop eating when he feels full so he doesn’t have problems later in life. We just do it as soon as he gets thru eating.
When my son was a toddler, we waited until he was done eating before giving insulin. Now that he is older (6) and on a pump, we prebolus and wait 15 minutes, unless his number is really low. If he is still hungry after he finishes his dinner, we can give more insulin for extra carbs, but at least he got the meal bolus ahead of time. It’s hard to gauge eating habits for growing children!