It started out as I left my test strips at home so I didn’t have any on me, and frankly couldn’t be bothered riding home in monsoon type weather to get them. Anyhooo decided that why not do something “useful” with it, and my daft mind thought why do I need the things anyhow?! Back in the old days I never had them, they weren’t invented for the first 6 years after my diagnosis so pfft, I’ll make do!
My thought was that it might give me a bit of a reminder that basically we can deal with all this without any tech at all if necessary and things like CGM, smart watches and the like are just fluff which in many places around the world people will never have access too. In many places they have a hard enough time getting insulin let alone test strips and a meter!
Throughout the day everything ran fine really. Felt a little low a couple of times but nothing major (I think) and it was close enough to a meal time not to worry about. Haven’t felt high but who knows how that’s been till I have a looksee again in about 4 hours time and my 24hrs are up. I haven’t been running as flexibly as I normally am and keeping diet to set portions like it used to be back in the old days to keep dosing easier (but I have skipped the old school 20g mid morning, mid afternoon, before bed snacks though). It really does make me remember how rigid things used to be back in the old days with inflexibility of meals and fixed doses every day, day in day out. I decided to skip proper training today also so only about 10 miles on a bike so not to drain anything or set off anything I might not be able to judge.
Am really trying to think of why I’m even telling people all this though. Guess more that it’s a case of it’s interesting to live it for a short period of time in the shoes of those who don’t have access to the things we take for granted and the freedoms the access too. The tech we have gives us choice of diet and exercise and a huge amount of freedom. It has been an interesting experiment though.
The end result of a 24 hour period was a BG of 5.7 (that’s 103 in American money). Yes no idea what it’s done from then till now but this was one of those things to see if I could manage. Yes this was voluntary and highly not recommended to anyone (normally I’m a strong advocate for testing for everything going, and 10 tests a day is my usual norm).
What was interesting was I began to pay much close attention to me. Was I tired due to being tired or being low. What was that yawn caused by. Why am I drinking, am I high now?! I guess it did make me a little paranoid about the slightest little thing. It was quiet interesting also how I instinctively went for my BG meter throughout the day, it became must test, why aren’t I testing, it was so ingrained into everything I do to test before and after that not testing didn’t feel right (but I’m betting my fingers are happier about it).
It was good for me to brush up on things I haven’t had to do for the last 30 years, and something I hopefully won’t need to do again. But also something that could prove handy should I get stuck somewhere when travelling or in a circumstance out of my control. It was nice to test it in a safe environment and learn again before possibly needing it. Back to putting the fingers through the mill again though now!