All the essential kit for managing type 1 diabetes.
A diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in a child (or adult) is tough to accept, but within hours of that diagnosis you begin a whirlwind of training, information and advice on essential kit and management that has your head reeling. All whilst you’re in a state of serious sleep deprivation. As I now realise, there’s tired and then there’s diabetic family tired.
10 hours after our son’s diagnosis we found ourselves sat in a small family room with nurses from the children’s diabetes team taking us though the essential kit and how to use it. My head swam, my eyes kept filling with tears and I couldn’t keep focused on the new language I was learning: Bolus, basal, carb counting, ketones, insulin. It was another world of which I was not ready to be a part.
What is Type 1 Diabetes?
In a very small nutshell, Type 1 diabetes is caused when a person is insulin deficient. This means they don’t make insulin themselves, in their pnacreas. There are a number of reasons why this can happen and that’s a whole other blog in itself, but to manage sugar levels and get it into their body cells, they need to inject insulin. Type 1 diabetes is irreversible and currently incurable, so managing it with regular insulin injections is essential to staying alive.
Essential kit
Before the end of the first training session we had all the gear and no idea what we were doing! We were given two insulin pens (one long acting- blue and one short acting- red) and more needles than I’d ever seen in my entire life. A blood glucose monitor and strips, and a ketone monitor and strips. Fundamentally that is the essential kit that you use every day to keep blood sugars under control (or at least attempt to keep them in some kind of order).
Essential Hypo kit
As well as the essential insulin and monitors, a hypo kit is a must have. Prepare yourself to be judged as you make your way through the shopping aisle with a basket full of Haribo, apple juice, biscuits and chocolate buttons.
As well as sugary treats and drinks that will lift falling blood sugar levels quickly, you will be given a GlucaGen injection kit in a terrifying orange box. Just looking at it is enough to induce a panic attack. This essential kit is for emergency use only, if a hypoglycaemic attack becomes life threatening. Although the chances of using it are slim, it needs to be close at hand.
You quickly become a master of tupperwear boxes and organisation. We have developed a three tiered tupperwear system. Tier 1 is a box of banana, fruit smoothy pouch and rice cakes. Tier 2 is a small box of biscuits and chocolate buttons and tier 3 is a glucose lift shot and calpol syringe (top tip for getting glucose in to toddlers), glucogel bottle and the scary GlucaGen pen in its orange box.
If you are navigating a new diagnosis in a child the kit listed above will become your daily essentials. We quickly found some additional kit was really helpful. Here are our top 3 essential kit items we couldn’t live without.
Kit, top tips
Tip 1: Invest in a tickleflex
This ingenious little device is amazing. It fits over the head of the insulin pen so your child can’t see the needle and when pressed on the skin, excites the nerves around the injection site so they cannot feel the injection. It made all the difference when our son decided injections just weren’t for him.
Tip 2: Ice packs
Most young people will quickly be offered a blood glucose sensor. This device sits under the skin for a length of time and shows blood glucose readings on an app on your phone. The downside is that attaching the sensor can be painful and on occasion may bleed. We find tucking an icepack into our son’s nappy to hold it to his skin before attaching the sensor, numbs his skin and reduces bleeding by constricting the capillaries on the surface of his skin.
Tip 3: Medical adhesive remover spray
When is comes time to remove a sensor, you need to pull the medical adhesive off around it. Sometimes that’s easy, and sometimes it’s really not. You can avoid painful pulling of adhesives by spraying around the sensor to dissolve the glue. Baby oil can also be helpful in loosening the adhesive.
There are lots of great websites that offer cooling bags, device belts and medical supplies we found diabetic supply uk particuarly useful.
Do you have other top tips for managing diabetes in children or recommendations for great kit? Put your ideas in the comments below or consider blogging with us.
