Some people look at life insurance as if it were betting on death, but the truth is that there are good reasons to take out a life insurance policy.  In any case where one person is (even somewhat) dependent on another individual, it’s worth considering insuring the “other individual.”  Take, for example, a household consisting of a working father, a stay-at-home mother, and their kids.  If the father were to pass away, the mother and kids would be well served by an infusion of funds to help out while the family regains their footing.  Of course, the mother could find a job and place the kids in day-care, but setting this up and finding a suitable job takes time, and time probably isn’t plentiful right after there has been such a major loss in the family.  This can go the other way, too.  If the mother were to pass away, I would guess that the father would have trouble coping at first and need to take time away from his job.  The absence of either parent will negatively affect the children and put extra strain on their upbringing.  Life insurance can’t solve this, but it can help to reduce some of the stresses.

Now, what about the kids?  Do they need to be insured?  Well, I mentioned that (in my opinion) people that have dependents would want to consider life insurance.  Under this plan, the children shouldn’t need insurance, right?  Well, what about when one of your sons grows up to be a father?  Then, perhaps he would require life insurance.  Now, consider if, somewhere along the journey from childhood to fatherhood, he was diagnosed with diabetes.  Do you think any life insurance companies would want to issue a reasonably-priced life insurance policy for such a high-risk individual?  It seems doubtful.  What if there were a way to guarantee his insurability no matter if he developed diabetes or any other life-threatening disease?

My grandfather bought whole life insurance from Lutheran Brotherhood for all of his grandchildren when I was about ten years old.  When I was younger, he would tell me that he bought the policies because you never know if you are going to be eligible to buy life insurance when you are older.  This happened to be a few years before I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus.  Sure enough, I would not be able to buy that policy with my current condition.  It turned out to be a wise investment for me and one of my cousins who would also be unisurable for whole life now.  Time will tell if it was a good investment for the other eleven grandchildren.

So, you can get reasonably priced life insurance for a person with diabetes.  The trick is that you just have to get it before they are diabetic.  Now that you’ve heard my story and thoughts on the subject, you’ll have to decide if life insurance is right for you or your kids.  I’m in no way claiming that this is or is not a good deal.  I’m just presenting the topic for you to consider, so go research life insurance on your own, and look further into policies offering guaranteed insurability.

• They are non-perishable.
• They won’t get smashed in your purse, backpack or briefcase.
• If you the bottle that they come in too large, you can fill 35mm film canister with them or put a few in a baggie.
• They are great to pack on trips and an entire bottle should be more than ample for an entire trip.
• They are always 4 grams of fast acting glucose each.

So, what’s so great about 4 grams each? I’ll tell you. Four grams of sugar will generally raise your blood sugar level by 15 points. It makes the math simple and, more importantly, will save your from over-correcting your sugar to only have the opposite problem of hyperglycemia shortly after. There is nothing worse than over-correcting your sugar and having high sugars and weight gain. One of most common symptoms of low sugars that I experience is hunger. It’s hard for me to want to stop eating until my sugar has returned to normal.  Glucose tablets help me not to overeat. If you don’t have to worry about how you are going to treat your reaction, you are likely to make better decisions if you have something ready. One tab is 15 points. Just do the math until you get to over 80 mg/dL. Usually two or three tabs will do it. This is especially great if you wake up in the middle of the night with low sugars. Just keep a bottle by your bed.

Now that I have sung the praises of sugar tabs, you do have other options. Juice, non-diet soda, candy, and fruit snacks are all good options, if you have restraint to not overeat or drink and you take the time to portion out only what you need. For years I carried fruit snacks with me in my purse, however, they generally have 20 grams of carbohydrate each, which would raise your sugar 75 points. Most of us don’t need to do that with one reaction.

Like I have mentioned in some of my other articles, the most important thing is that you are ready to treat a reaction or insulin overdose when it occurs and that you figure out why you are having them and make changes to try and eliminate them.

Hypoglycemia can happen for a few different reasons, and, depending on why it happens, can depend a little bit on how you treat it. For instance, a low blood sugar when you wake up in the morning will be treated differently than an insulin reaction one hour after lunch. If you have an insulin reaction when you wake up in the morning, the easiest thing to do is to eat breakfast and reduce the amount of insulin that you give yourself for your breakfast. For people who are taking shots, you would decrease the amount of units of fast acting insulin in your injection. For pump users, you would decrease your bolus for that meal. Most of the new pumps are “smart” and will reduce this bolus for you. You have to watch out though, I find that my Paradigm pump does not decrease my bolus enough sometimes, so I manually override its decisions. That’s a bit more complicated and something that requires some trial and error, but I mention it because you do need to analyze whether or not your pump is set up to make the best decisions for you.

An insulin reaction that happens one hour after lunch is a different situation. Chances are that if you are having a reaction one hour after lunch, which is normally when you would be having your highest sugars, you are in trouble. Generally sugars are measured one or two hours postprandial (after meals). At that time, your food has been absorbed, and you will have the greatest spike in your sugars. If your sugar is low, it is probably going to trend down from there during the afternoon. You would treat the reaction, but continue to test at least once an hour for a couple of hours, because the likelihood that you will have more low sugars during the afternoon is greatly increased. I’m sure that I could come up with several different examples of treating hypoglycemia, but those two should illustrate my point well enough.

So, what’s the best way to treat a reaction? Fast acting sugar without fat is going to be your best bet. Since fat slows down the absorption of sugar into your system, it’s best to avoid it when trying to quickly raise your blood sugar. After your sugar has reached a normal level, you can resume eating foods that contain fat. Try and stick with simple sugars that can be easily absorbed by your body. My suggestion is to carry glucose tablets with you at all times so that you can eat the right amount when you your sugar tests low. They can be a bit expensive, but in my opinion they are your best option. My next article will cover some more specifics about how you can use these sugar tabs for treating hypoglycemia.

• Shaking (almost like shivering)
• Blurred vision
• Sweating
• Numbness in tongue or lips
• Slower in processing information (almost like intoxication)
• Hunger
• Headache
• Passing out (with extremely low sugars)

People have many different symptoms, so this list is definitely not complete.  Also, symptoms vary based on what your “tolerance” is for low blood sugars.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  So, what is an insulin reaction?  It is simply when you have too much insulin in your bloodstream.  A non-diabetic’s body regulates their blood sugars by producing insulin in their pancreas.  They also have sugars stores available when needed.  A diabetic’s pancreas does not produce inculin as well as it should, or in the case of Type 1 diabetics, the pancreas may not produce any sugar at all.

Most diabetics are taught that 80-120 mg/dL is the desired range for their sugars.  However, there are many diabetics that can have pre-prandial sugars (before meal sugars) as low as 65 mg/dL without having a noticable reaction.  Below that and you need to do something about it, which would normally mean eating some form of glucose to raise your blood sugar level.  There are many forms of glucose that can be used.  Common ones may include glucose tabs, juice, non-diet soda, or honey.  There are hundreds of options, but the best are fast acting carbohydrates, such as those listed above.

Like I said before, there are various tolerance levels for low blood sugar.  I mentioned that some people can have a sugar that is as low as 65 without any of the symptoms listed above, and some people will experience severe reactions at that level.  In general, the tighter your control you have, and the lower your hemoglobin A1C, the more of a tolerance you will have for low blood sugars.  I, myself, have never passed out, had a need for a Glucagon injection, or have ever been to the hospital for low sugars.  I have experienced sugars as low as 19 without needing medical attention.  I only say this to illustrate my point about some people having various tolerance for low blood glucose levels.  Low blood sugars are to be taken seriously and immediately dealt with, even if you have an affinity for handling low sugars well.

There are a few reasons that diabetics have insulin reactions which include taking an insulin overdose for your meal (too much insulin relative to the the food that you ate), not eating at the right time (which mostly applies to people taking shots), having incorrect basal (long acting insulin) rates, or increased insulin sensitivity due to hormone changes or exercise.

The goal is to have as few insulin reactions as possible.  They are potentially dangerous in the short term and have shown to kill brain cells in the long term.  The important part is to try to optimize your regimine and insulin doses.  Learn how to recognize an insulin overdose causing a reaction, and be prepared to treat them quickly.

There are several different organizations dedicated to researching Type 1 diabetes and helping those with Type 1 diabetes. First of all, there is the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. They are a leading researcher that is searching for a worldwide cure to juvenile diabetes. They also fund scientific diabetes-related research internationally. They claim that “More than 85 percent of JDRF’s expenditures directly support research and research-related education.” They have chapters in every state in the US, as well as chapters in several other countries.

The Hong Kong Juvenile Diabetes Association, or HKJDA, is obviously local to the Hong Kong area of China. They have been around since 2001, and their goal is to support Hong Kong children with juvenile diabetes. If you’re in HK, this is the site for you.

If you’re in or around Pennsylvania, you might be interested in the Juvenile Diabetes Association of Harriburg. I don’t really know anything about this place, but I’m guessing that it’s a clinic of some sort. You might find some other information here.

Another country-specific organization is the Associação de Diabetes Juvenil, or the Juvenile Diabetes Association of Brazil. If you live in Brazil and have type 1 diabetes, I think this would be the place to check out.

If you still haven’t found a juvenile diabetes association that works for you, you might want to check out the International Diabetes Federation. According to their website, they are “an umbrella organization of over 200 national diabetes associations in over 160 countries,” so it’s likely that the association you’re looking for may be governed by the IDF.