Drunk Diabetics

I am not much of a drinker and being a twenty year old and living in London - you'd be surprised how much I do not drink. I don't know what it is, it's not like I had a bad experience, but overall it is something that I only do on occasion.

However, when it comes to New Years I was feeling good about drinking and having a good time! Of course that would be great if I didn't have diabetes to worry about. Okay, okay so I don't worry too much about my diabetes, but at some point during the night of drinking the diabetic or the diabetic's wonderful boyfriend needs to become aware of this.

So, alcohol will lower blood sugar. Therefore, you can eat! Well, that sounds awesome because when does a diabetic get a "get out of insulin free card" - like never! So, all that pizza, chips and crackers are yours for the taking. The problem occurs when you aren't holding down the food that you had been taking to keep your sugar stable. i.e the late night hangover....

Being on an insulin pump is great because you can play around with your pump in order to help stabilize yourself without having to eat. I personally recommend not trying to adjust your pump while under the influence - not that I did this, but I can only imagine what type of calculations drunk diabetics could come up with.

This comes more so into play the next day when you're feeling, "under the weather." If you aren't eating you are at risk of going low and not only that, but the alcohol you had the previous night can still lower your blood sugar the next day.

It is SO important that you let someone know or a couple people know that you are diabetic. Hopefully you have someone there that already knows this because I couldn't imagine being solo, drunk and diabetic.

Don't assume your pump will take care of things because it will not. It's not replacing your pancreas completely because without you in control it has no one to listen to and therefore will do nothing. It's important to educate the people that are close to you about your pump for times when you cannot even think of what does what.

All in all, my New Years went great. Despite drinking more than usual I had someone (Clinton) to take care of me. Someone who knows me, my diabetes and my pump.

Happy 2011!

Kayla