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Comment by Billy Williamson on December 9, 2009 at 7:37am

having great friends along with you when you're out and having a couple drinks is always a good thing too... the only problem with that is most of the time they are drinking aswell. I wrote something in one of my blogs about one night when my buddy told me to test and I was a little tipsy and refused so he just punched me out and checked it for me.

Comment by MTendler on December 1, 2008 at 8:39am

I wrote this to DLife real stories:

Although it is often not addressed, I feel the need to discuss a very real problem that diabetics, particularly Type 1 diabetics, often face through the college years of their lives: interaction with alcohol.

Being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was a freshman in college was not exactly easy. Not only did I have to go through pledging a fraternity (a 10 week hell that would be no easy feat for a completely healthy human), there were also lots of nightlife activity that consistently jeopardized my health. Let's face it, binge drinking in college is not a brand new theme and I did my fair share of partying. Typical nights would involve me testing my blood sugar at least ten times over the course of the six hours of night time binging, making sure to go to sleep with a number of 250 or above (my blood sugar would drop severely during the night), setting my alarm to test again at around 8 am (I'd usually get a number of about 70), correcting by drinking a glass of Coca Cola, resetting alarm, and continuing this process of waking, checking, correcting for the next few hours. My endocrinolgist tried to make me understand that the chance of me slipping into a diabetic coma, whether it be hypo or hyper was exponentially higher during these nights. Little did he know "these nights" occurred about three or four times a week. He also told me that all these ups and downs were killing my body. See-sawing through my sleeping hours was awful for my organs, along with the high amount of alcohol intake, I would be sure to feel the aftermath of this later down the road. He reminded me that it's not the blood glucose AVERAGE number but instead its the consistensty of these numbers and the standard deviation.

It took me up until the age of about 23 to recognize that what I had been doing for the last five years was not only dangerous but most of the time could have resulted in my death. The even scarier part is that I knew other diabetics at school that would not even bring their glucose meters out when they went to the bars, and rarely ever set alarms to check in the morning. It's important for young adults to realize that if they do choose to drink, not only are they destroying their insides, and putting themselves in fatal situations, but that the most extreme measures must be taken. Make sure you check your blood sugar constantly, set your alarm in the morning, have lots of sugar tablets and juices next to your bed, let your roommates know how to use glucagon.

This letter is so important because this is real life, and whether we want to talk about it or not, many Type 1 diabetics will be able to associate with my story. We're preached to try and live like "normal", "healthy" young adults and alcohol intake is a very "normal" activity in college.

After a few very scary episodes, including waking up with readings less than 40, I have almost entirely ceased drinking more than 3 or 4 drinks in any given night, and limit the nights of any alcohol consumption to once a week. I still check often and set my alarm. I've started my own company integrating mobile devices and diabetic devices to help make diabetics lives easier and more manageable. Alcohol consumption needs to be discussed more because sweeping it under the mat is extremely counterproductive and education on this issue will be one of the focuses of my company.

Comment by 1HappyDiabetic on October 21, 2008 at 4:17pm

Alex I know of Diabetics that red wine helps control their Diabetes. I'm not kidding, A Doc mentioned it to me that he couldnt figure out what to do with this patients BG patterns... she would have one glass of wine at dinner and for some reason it helped her night BG numbers... if she didnt they were out of wack... not suggesting anyone should do that... but that's what I heard. Funny how the redwine river flows.

Comment by Trista on October 21, 2008 at 3:15pm

Awesome video! and awesome advice.

Comment by Alex on October 20, 2008 at 7:56pm

Great video! As a new diabetic, I was really worried I wouldn't be able to have any of the wine my wife and I bought on our honeymoon in Sonoma, but I feel much better about it now. Hope you kept the sombreros :-)

Comment by Scott Strumello on April 27, 2008 at 9:50am

I think you are doing a great service; many of us learned how to deal with this the hard way because our doctors and CDEs simply weren't honest about how to deal with this topic ... they assumed we weren't going to drink, rather than telling us how to prepare properly!

Comment by 1HappyDiabetic on April 24, 2008 at 3:48pm

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Just Kidding :-) Thanks

Comment by Don Kelly on April 24, 2008 at 1:08pm

Thanks for the video. As well as entertaining it was informative. I showed the video to a friend who just was diag. as a T2 and who also owns a bar. His eyes are opened....

Comment by Andreina Davila on April 18, 2008 at 10:50am

Thank you for the topic, it is such and important one. I wish the audio was better on the beach, but the subtitles were very helpful. I liked the demonstration at the end. It makes the point!