The DOC has been all abuzz about Halloween coming up this week. “What do you do for your T1 for Halloween?” is a question I have heard over and over the past few weeks.
This will be our first Halloween with D in the picture and, honestly, we’re not planning on doing anything much different than usual. Angelina has never been a huge candy eater and actually has probably eaten more candy in the last 7 months since diagnosis than she has in the 5 years prior to that combined. Cookies, yes. Cake, ice cream, pie, yes. But candy has never been a huge thing around here for her. Sure, she likes it well enough, but it’s just not something we really keep around.
So, for us, things are probably going to look like they always do. We go trick or treating. We let her have a piece or two while out and about (after inspecting it, of course), and then we go home and dump it on the kitchen table to be sorted through. She will unwillingly let me have at least one of her Reese’s peanut butter cups. She’ll eat a handful of pieces before getting into her PJ’s and heading off to bed. Over the next few days, to a week, she’ll come home from school every day and ask if she can have some candy. I’ll let her indulge in a piece or two as a small after school snack, and then maybe another piece or two after dinner and then usually by day 5-7 all of the “good” stuff is gone and she essentially forgets that we even have candy in the house. I usually keep it stored up in the top of my spice cabinet and it promptly gets forgotten about until next year when I decide to pull the bag down to use for that year’s festivities.
For instance, I pulled her bag down last week only to discover that it was filled with fun size packages of whoppers! I still am not sure where they came from as that was what the majority of the candy in the bag. I am thinking that at some point I bought a bag of them and stashed them there so she wouldn’t find them and then *I* forgot about them. Pretty much everything else in the bag was either hard candy (mostly starlight mints – really?! Who gives THAT out for Halloween?) or licorice and was immediately dumped in the garbage.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As far as diabetes goes, candy doesn’t worry me in the slightest. So far, pizza seems to be her biggest “problem” food due to the delayed digestion and blood sugar spikes from the fat content. We handle it pretty well with a dual wave bolus and do an insulin correction later on, if needed. And pizza certainly happens around here more than once a year. It’s usually like at least once a week and we have been branching out. Yesterday we tried a new pizza place that makes nothing but individual pizzas with a lot of options for personalizing. They use a “Roman” crust, which means you’re pretty much eating pizza topping on a cracker. Best of all – no huge blood sugar spike later. Candy tends to be pretty straightforward for her. Normal bolus for carb amount and 2 hours later she’s right where she should be, or pretty close to it. In and out with little to no issue.
Of course, I don’t imagine that her blood sugar levels are super steady the whole time she is processing candy, but until we get her continuous glucose monitor (which will hopefully be very soon!) I am going to say that ignorance is bliss and I will continue to believe that if a high number doesn’t show up on the meter then it never happened.
I hope that everyone has a safe and fun Halloween regardless of how you celebrate it!
Oh! And don’t forget that this coming Friday, November 1st kicks of National Diabetes Month, with World Diabetes Day on November 14th. If you haven’t seen my previous post about T1D4ADay please click here.
Chasing Lows 