It is the most surreal thing to be looking at marshmallows as medicine. I mean they literally have life-saving status in our house.
When our son was first diagnosed at 9 years old, we listened carefully as the dietitian nurse shared ideas for fast acting glucose treats to help lift him out of the ‘danger zone’ - a HYPO.
As a parent, the idea of a ‘danger zone’ just fills you with dread and when I see my son’s levels are below 4 – my adrenaline levels reach 100.
The phrase that they said would help us understand the severity was “Below 4, you are on the floor!” – Nice little triggering aid memoire there.
There aren’t many bonus’s that come with a Type one diagnosis, but for our son – initially the potential access to sweets regularly was one of them…(it does wares off).
Motivated by the new access to sweets without it being a ‘treat’, he was excited as he loved his boiled strawberry and creams. But that got vetoed by the nurse, as they would take too long to impact his glucose levels. The nutrition team recommended 4 x fruit pastilles, but he was not a fan of the texture (thanks sensory processing disorder!)
Haribo were also not recommended and chocolate was dismissed as ‘would not work fast enough’.
So after careful consideration, the sweet that was picked for our first “Hypo Kit” was Love Hearts. They were quick for him to chew and he liked the taste.
We hit a hypo most days, but during the first few months whilst trying to get his insulin ratios right, we were hitting hypos several times a day. I found that I would give him his hypo treatment and then give myself the same for the stress...we went through a lot of tubes of love hearts!
As he got older, there then seemed to be a bit of a stigma that went with Love Hearts, from boys at school! I mean, surely a sweet is a sweet, but no…he wanted to look for another option. It just so happened, that one day he needed a hypo treatment when he had forgotten his box (!!!) in the classroom and a quick thinking teacher had a stash of marshmallows for forest school. And that was it, his 4 x marshmallow rescue is still in place today, some 2 years later.
This does come with a bit of a caveat mind, he loves a marshmallow, and will sometimes snack on them when not in a hypo and without injecting…it's hard for a pre-teen to compute the danger of ‘just eating’ a sweet like his friends. We are actually getting to a point where we need to think about another treatment, so the ‘Sweet Temptation’ is eased.
One thing that remains challenging regarding the hypo treatments, is when his peers and people in general comment on “How lucky to be able to eat sweets and biscuits in class!” I know that he would give up that in a heartbeat if it meant he didn’t have T1D anymore. But sometimes his access to sugar is met with jealousy by his classmates. He has navigated this as best as he can and has even given a couple of presentations to his year group, educating them on all that is involved with managing this demanding condition. It is also reinforced when they see him finger pricking and injecting, they soon understand the pay off.
Any parent who has a child diagnosed with T1D, goes through an absolutely intense learning curve. I often describe it as being hit by a train and the being taught a degree level in biology, nutrition and maths.
We are two and a half years into the diagnosis, but initially I was scared of every calculation, every injection – always second guessing, what if we get it wrong? What if he doesn’t eat what we have calculated? What if we inject the incorrect dose of insulin?
Caring for a child with T1D is 24/7 – it’s intense, consuming and confusing.
If you are on this journey as a parent or indeed are a type one diabetic, you are amazing, resilient and brave.
We will keep trying new hypo treats, avoiding ones that are too tempting…please comment below with your tried and tested treats.
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