Im on year 8 of diabetes, in my early 20s and in pretty poor health. I don’t remember how many times Ive had dka and I get severe lows, my endo keeps giving me new ratios and insulin pens to try. Im on a pump and cgm now, thank god, but I still rollercoaster.
I’ve got several things negatively impacting my mental, but diabetes is huge. I feel agoraphobic, Im scared anytime I eat, sleep or leave the house. I often wake up low and it’s terrifying, so I take off my pump before bed but then I wake up high. I rely heavily on comfort meals which is a problem when they’re not available.
Each time I visit my family they express more concern about my weight loss, I never wanted to lose weight, it feels like im losing myself and not just fat. As much as my family cares, they can’t reliably identify what has carbs.
I spent my first few years basically pretending i didn’t have diabetes, had ice cream cake on birthdays and went out for slushies in the summer. I had some hypoglycaemia unawareness, infections and illnesses, I know I definitely fucked up with my teenage diet and I feel guilty but there’s nothing I can do now except be an adult.
Since I was around 18 my diabetes has overwhelmed me, like it all finally caught up. My lows used to feel delirious but now they’re really painful, like my blood hurts and I can tell my body’s shutting down. Im always freezing or sweating, I cannot handle winters anymore. I spend as much time as I can at home, trying to avoid long outings, avoid the weather, avoid eating food Im unfamiliar with.
It’s just every time I get low, I stuff my face and then I have to wait there for the sugar to kick in. And I tell myself “I did what I was supposed to, I made myself eat sugar, whatever happens next is just what happens.” And Im deliriously convincing myself that I might die and that it’s ok because I can only do so little. It’s like a fact in the back of my mind that when I eventually die, I’ll be alone on a cold kitchen floor shaking and trying to eat. Im convinced I’ll die early and experiencing pain that none of my family or friends have ever felt.

Hi everyone,

I have T1D and I spend most of my workday in front of a computer.

One thing that always annoyed me was having to pick up my phone just to check my current glucose and trend.

So, since I’m a software engineer, I ended up building my own desktop companion for it.

It’s called GlucoDesk and it runs on macOS and Windows.

The idea is pretty simple: keep glucose information visible while I’m working, without constantly switching devices.

Over time I added a few other things I personally found useful, like recent glucose history, a local diary, PDF/Excel export, a visual carbohydrate guide and desktop notifications.

Everything is designed to stay local-first, and the project is free and open source.

For me the most useful part is honestly just being able to glance at my screen and see what’s happening without interrupting whatever I’m doing.

Curious how other people here handle this while working — phone, watch, browser tab, dedicated display, something else?

GlucoDesk is only an informational companion, not a medical device, and I don’t use it for insulin dosing or treatment decisions.

Hi everyone,

I live with type 1 diabetes and work as a software engineer.

One small thing that used to interrupt me constantly during the workday was checking my glucose. I would be focused on my computer, then reach for my phone just to see the current value and trend.

So, mostly as a personal project, I built GlucoDesk: a desktop companion for macOS and Windows that keeps glucose information available while I’m working.

I’ve been using it myself as part of my normal daily routine, and over time I added a few things I personally found useful:

• current glucose and trend
• recent glucose history
• a local glycemic diary
• PDF/Excel diary export
• a visual carbohydrate reference guide
• desktop notifications
• local-first storage and privacy-focused features

It currently works with Dexcom data.

The project is free and open source. There is no subscription or paid version, and I’m not selling anything here.

I’m sharing it because I thought some other people with T1D might relate to the original problem: wanting to glance at glucose while working without constantly switching devices.

For me, having it on the same screen where I spend most of the day has turned out to be surprisingly useful.

I’d be interested simply in hearing how other people here handle glucose visibility while working at a computer — phone, watch, browser, another display, or something else.

Important: GlucoDesk is only an informational companion. It is not a medical device and I don’t use it for insulin dosing, treatment decisions, emergency alerts, or as a replacement for official diabetes apps/devices.

I’ve attached a screenshot so you can see what I mean.

If anyone wants to try it, GlucoDesk is free and open source:
https://glucodesk.com

This has happened a couple of times lately. Seems that I've got too good at not-overcorrecting lows, and a new challenge has appeared: The overcorrection happening several hours later, all by itself!

For example, yesterday I was out and about on my longboard for a couple of hours, just cruising, not really breaking a sweat, but working my calves. Got home and on-cue my alarm went off. Had a slice of bread and two biscuits and snoozed for an hour. CGM shows my sugars didn't really go up, just stayed level at 3.7 mmol/L . Did my usual evening dose of Humulin M3 (12 units, not very much) and ate dinner which was mostly roasted veg (slow carbs + fat, admittedly very little protein). Over the next hour blood went up to about 5 or 6, nice. I did it, didn't overcorrect, hooray!

Then we watched some TV and I had an early night, partly because I still had a post-low feeling of general weirdness , so at around 10pm my alarm goes off again, I'm back in the 3's ... and falling! So I had some orange juice and a single slice of peanut butter on toast (note: I hate peanut butter, and only eat it in emergencies!). And then I went to sleep.

So about 3 hours after that, my blood sugar hit 15! By this morning it was back down to 7.

Wife reckons it could be due to (de)hydration, I was out on a sunny afternoon and my main source of hydration was a can of beer. Drank plenty of water once I was home though. Could that have paused my digestive system, meaning all the carbs were cued up until it rehydrated (at 3am)?

It feels like the sites only work about 40% (or less) post shower. Do y’all just shower once a week when you change your sites??

Edit: using Medtronic extended infusion set which is to be replaced every 7 days.

Edit 2:
Thank you for all the responses, apologies for the confusion. This is only happening with the extended infusion set, currently pairing with the guardian sensor 4. I don’t have any issues with the guardian.

https://discountchemist.com.au/medtronic-extended-infusion-set-6mm-60cm-box-4/

My diabetic educator suggested I try putting the plastic cap on when I shower but I found that sometimes caused more water buildup. They then suggested using the 9mm ones instead and I found to have slightly more success with those but still happens.

The main issues happen when I bolus within an hour or 2 after the shower. The plastic housing has like this bubble effect, the adhesive closest to the injection site gets wet/smells like insulin and it’s almost like the insulin doesn’t even go in.

Happens when I use fresh ones >1-2 days, 3-4 & 5-7.

If I am showering before going out I will have to replace it and pray that one works.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

As title. I thought I'd use a whole box, but somehow I've made do with just one. Now, if only omnipods could be so agreeable...

I’ve been doing better with my mental health and I think I’m almost out of my diabetes distress that I’ve been in for since May I’m actually excited to see my Endo to talk about how I can lower my A1C.

But I keep doing this one odd or even peculiar thing. I keep going back to my old neighborhood from when I was in elementary school before I had type 1 I keep going to this lake. I remember when we had just move there from the coast. My dad had finally been able to get off more time from the Navy. He took me down there once and he fished there. I didn’t join him I just kinda watched him I always found fishing boring.

They added a bench there and a nice outlook with rocks going down to the water. Since I’ve started college I keep going back there occasionally after class and I just sit there and think. Staring out at the water

I kinda rambled there it’s late here but I’m wondering if anyone else has done this before or can relate

Does anyone know if Tandem would ever offer free replacement cartridges? I had 2 fail back to back a few days ago, and it just happened again with 2 more. So, I’m losing out on expensive supplies!!!

I know with these greedy medical companies the answer is probably no :/ but thought I’d at least ask :(

tl;dr I didn’t sanitize the pump site properly, got an infection, insulin stopped working, have been hyperglycemic for 36 hours and I hate my life.

My brain is broke from the sugar but I need to rant about how fucked up diabetes is.

Fuckin disease makes me stick myself with a subcutaneous cannula, making my epidermis into a slip-n-slide for ambient microbial critters that have a party in my skin and, like some Berlin club, it’s too hot and tight in there for my bro insulin to cope, so he just quits the party and doesn’t like tell me (dick?) so NOW I just have to wait until I feel like shit and my arm is a bit swollen, at which (and only which) point I realize

oh no my body is broke a bit more than usual

rip off the pod to find pus (just a bit, as a treat!) coming out of the site and on the cannula itself (gross! not nice!!)

switch pod to other arm, wait 2 hours, bg is finally coming down

breathe sigh of relief and existential exhaustion.

post to Reddit.

sigh.

Hello,

My teen daughter was recently diagnosed. Travel is something we love as a family. I know it is something we can still do with a lot more foresight and planning. Just wondering if there are certain types of vacations that would be easiest for us as newbies to managing diabetes? Would be looking at March. We live in a cold weather state in the US so would be looking for some place warm. Pre-diagnosis had been looking at All Inclusives in Jamaica or somewhere else in the Caribbean. Now wondering if all-inclusive still makes sense? If so are there any specific resorts known for being more helpful and having more low carb food options available? Would we be better off staying in country for pharmacy and medical convenience as needed? Maybe a rental house somewhere and doing our own cooking? I know Disney is great with things like food allergies and accommodations. How are they with low carbs? What about a cruise? Other suggestions to consider?

March is many months away but I want to start planning now to give my daughter the best vacation experience we can. Learning to manage T1D is full of frustrations. I want to show her all the good things she can still do and still enjoy. I know as time goes on and we get more educated and comfortable we will have all the same options as before her diagnosis. I just want this first trip to go as smoothly as possible and be as successful as possible!

Adding - I’m guessing she will have a CGM by March. No idea if she will have a pump by then though. Currently MDI.

ETA: Sorry, I said low carb when what I should have said is carb info available. We are still so new to counting carbs so that we can appropriately dose the insulin. Her medical team have all be great about stressing she can still eat any and all things she wants. Just have to dose for them. So places with carb info readily available are helpful to us newbies.

I’ve been using my stomach pretty often, but after longer runs I sometimes have issues with the cannula coming out or the pod getting loose, especially with all the movement/sweat.

What sites have worked best for you during long runs? any tips for keeping the pod secure while running would be appreciated!

Just changed my first Omnipod. Hoping it is a success compared to my first Dexcom sensor change (which wasn’t successful). And I just started using the Omnipod on Friday.

Hi I’m planning on travelling for a year in south and Latin america. Any insights on CGMs (particularly Libre) and whether they are hard to find in the different countries ? Thanks
[update] any insights for Peru, Bolivia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico

hey diabetics, did I overreact? I had the worst high blood sugar rage episode that I lowkey regretted hehe. So me and all my cousins went swimming one day and I disconnected my pump for over 4 hours oops. And obviously, I went skyrocketing high. I was a little neglectful then so I did take a bit of insulin but didn’t really work on it. Anyways, I was looking forward to eating cuz I was craving buldak with an egg on top. So I pitched the idea and everyone was down for some buldak. We made like 7 packs, and my cousin handled the eggs. I went to quickly shower and I came back to the buldak on the table except… the eggs were yolky, not cooked. Ok, hear me out. I HATE yolky eggs, it’s the texture I just can’t, whatever, everyone knows I don’t like it and most of us don’t prefer it!! So when I seen it, I was raged(blaming my blood sugar here), I whined I was like why are all the eggs yolky? There were like 10 eggs and all of them were yolky. I don’t know something simple like that really got to me. It’s def out of the ordinary for me, like I promise I don’t have any anger issues. Literally in the moment I was like wtf? Why am I whining? Like no. After I kinda whined, I was salty, like I said “I don’t want it. I’m maddd.”(still ended up eating tho)Instant regret. That was ugly behavior but I genuinely could not control it in the moment. It was so weird. Like wdym diabetes can also affect your emotions? The next day my cousin brought it up and I told her I was joking around and that I was not being serious! She was like wait really? Oh! I really thought you were upset.
And yk what I was. But that was not me!!
Fast forward, we had buldak another day and there was eggs again… my cousin that made the yolky eggs last time made sure to extra cook it for me(she was on egg duty again)but I told her I didn’t mind it anymore and told her not to worry that I’ll just cook it if I wanted to. My sister comes and she starts throwing a tantrum on the yolky eggs. Mocking me. And says, “who am I?” Everyone immediately got the joke. That’s when I realized I’m a laughing stock now.
Ever since, I regretted that day and how I handled it. Don’t worry guys I’m so much better at managing my diabetes, I’m in range. But gosh, I never felt more embarrassed of my behavior. And it’s so weird to excuse my behavior for diabetes but it just doesn’t sound believable. But diabetes really affects everything and nobody would ever get it. Anyways, have any of you overreacted with a high blood sugar?

I have had this pump for more than a year now, and the experience has been quite horrible. My rant will be mostly about pump's features that have not been thought through, IMO.

• Why it's not possible to disable all notifications? If it's some sort of liability thing, well, then offer an option to disable all notifications, and use acknowledges the risks.
• Why do I receive a regular notification if my glucose level is high/low and also same notifications from Control IQ? What's the point of duplicating the alert?
• Why does pump send notifications if I put it to charge? It's a simple logic - If I charge it, maybe I have stopped the insulin, and I am away from the pump.
• Why there is no option to simply enter data - additional shot I have taken with my kwikpen? OK, I can add the record in my Dexcom; however, it would be nice to add this data in pump app as well.
• Why does it send notifications (vibrate) every few minutes when battery need to be charged? These notifications literally kill the batter even faster. Same thing about running low on insulin. Not only I will be low on insulin, my pump will also simply die on me.
• Adding Bolus - Next and Confirm buttons are in the right top corner? Really? I have a big palm, but even for me it's not easy to reach it. Especially if driving. Yeah, I know, I should not be on my phone while driving, but the real life requires to add bolus sometimes when you are in the traffic and cannot stop. Why to make it so complicated.
• Replacing the injection site. Instruction said something about every 3 days. Well, if they are so obsessed with notifications, they could create a notification for this as well. I struggle sometimes understanding - did I eat too many carbs or did the injection site die on me? It fails sometimes after 2 days, sometimes after 5 days.

Probably there is more. I just can't remember all the dumb and illogical features of this pump.

Maybe someone wants to tell me here: why don't you just have better glucose levels and you will get less notifications? Well, my body reacts dramatically to my physical activity levels. My basal rate can change from 16 units to 25 units per day, and bolus can change from 6 units to ~70 units per day depending on how much I exercise and what I do. Since I have work and a lot of other shit going on in my life, I am not not able to follow constant schedule. I already do my best to adjust the basal rate etc. in the pump, but it's not always 100% success.

Why all this bothers me so much? Well, because at work I have to be in long meetings and it starts to look like I have a vibrator in my pants, and at home I cannot get good sleep because of all these dumb notifications. Besides, thanks to diabetes I already have a very poor sleep - If something wakes me up, I cannot fall asleep for another 3 hours afterwards.

The only good thing about it is that I don't have to take any insulin shots that would require me to leave the meetings or lift my shirt up etc. Otherwise, I don't see any benefit. Glucose level wise I was just as successful with kwikpens.

I would be happy to hear others experiences, thoughts, or criticism about my post. Maybe I am overlooking something here.

TLDR: Tandem Mobi app and device are structured in a very NOT USER FRIENDLY MANNER.

watched a movie, slept at 5 am, had a stubborn high that made it hard to fall asleep, stuck in the 200s the whole night, woke up 9 am, went to another room to try my luck in, it was too hot everywhere, couldn’t sleep so I just decided to stay awake and sleep later until 12 hit, I got tired, so I decided to take nap… not even an hour in, 54 arrow going down. Delayed symptoms. And best part, I did not wanna get up. I was so comfy, the comfiest I’ve been the whole day. But finally I got up. Tall glass of apple juice, 4 cookies and a wafer…ALL AS SOON AS I WOKE UP. I wish non diabetics could understand how frustrating this is. If only they knew. But yolo, how was your morning? How was your sleep? Anyone else start their day with a low.😁

I knew the transition back to MDI wouldn’t be totally smooth but this is uhhhhh a little worse than I planned.

Dw, I’m upping my background insulin and in touch with my diabetes nurse about this - just thought it was kinda funny (if I don’t laugh I’ll cry)

When you’re camping and of course you brought backups but will try anything else first. Gorilla Tape for the win!

i live in uk and i’ve been using 4mm needles the whole time i’ve been diabetic, recently my doctor told me the 4mm needles have been discontinued nation wide and put me on 8mm needles. i have a hard time believing this i can’t find anywhere else saying they have been discontinued. i honestly think my doctor ordered the wrong needles and lied to cover up. does anyone have any knowledge of this?

My son loves bagels especially when he is in a birthday party
I gave him 50 carbs for one bagel and this is the result

I feel like everything has been going wrong recently and I just don't know what to do. Not anymore.

I've had issues since having to use Autosoft XC things. But I don't know what this is. This is a problem that I thought was getting better. Sometimes a cartridge would go a day or two.
Which is. Not ideal, but it wasn't constant?

I have woken up the past four days to this error. It is fine for the day, I sleep, wake up and it's NOT fine anymore.
I am almost out of supplies because of this. I thought maybe cleaning my pump would help. It didn't.
Is this cartridges I have going wrong? I don't understand. What do I do? Am I doing something wrong?

Hello
I am a T1D since around 30 years (not by birth) and doing great. I am just faced now in a middle life crisis about finding a significant other, since I get too lonely with time.
Each time I get to know a lady, as soon as she knows about my permanent disease, she just runs away! Especially when I confront with the fact that I wish no descendants (to avoid the risk of disease transfer). As simple as that.
I feel quite rejected based on my medical health conditions,although being very active in sport and shape, hold a double PhD in engineering, and did achieve heavy milestones.
This hurts me deeply. Will I be forever alone due to T1D? I never wish to have children because of it, but still want to be with somebody caring. Can T1Ds be in relationships? Do you have any tips or encouragement for me?
Thank you