That means I always ask myself, would I give him this, or would I let him do that if he did not have diabetes ? If answer is yes, then I proceed with it and follow it with diabetes management tools to assure the best possible glucose control.
That was the case with Fairy Floss too. If Mr T did not have diabetes YES I would allow him to try it at the fete. I would not make it a daily treat even if he did not have diabetes.
deserves a treat now and then.
“Can I ?”, I hear, with my eyes closed almost able to taste the fine fibers of sweet cloud melting in my mouth, almost feeling the unavoidable stickiness around my lips. I opened my eyes, looked at Mr T’s deep yearning eyes, and consulted my husband : “Why not? It is pure sugar, we can bolus, we just need to guess the insulin right. It is not like we are introducing it into his daily menu.”
At the time Mr T was still on pens and was using 1 unit of insulin for a piece of bread or equivalent. Then we did not count carbs / honestly I do not know now how we did it without counting carbs. Later, when we learned how to count carbs, we found out that an average piece of bread has around 15 carbs.
We had no idea how much sugar goes into fairy floss and the cloud certainly looked massive, so we bolused 3 units, to cover the floss only, since his BG was in the range. Mr T had his first experience of eating magical, sticky and sweet FAIRY FLOSS, all by himself !
We knew we needed to be on the alert, since, lets face it we winged it big time, so the first test came an hour after the bolus – 3.3 ! …. and lots more insulin still active. Clearly we over did it. Quick – a box of juice! Check again…. lower … an apple …. check again …..good ….. four hours have passed, bolus used up, BG in range.
Before we left the fete, and after we realized we overestimated the floss, I went back to the stand, actually watched the lady make a new fairy floss cloud and counted the tea spoons of sugar she had put into it. 1…2…3…. only ? That is about 15 carbs, same as one peice of bread. That should have been, for Mr T, about 1 unit of insulin, not three !
Well, you live you learn, carefully, of course and with lots of testing strips in tow.