Diabetes Life Hacks - #DBlogWeek Day 5

Welcome to Day Five of Diabetes Blog Week!  Before we get started today I want to take a minute to make sure you know about a great event happening next week.  The 2nd annual Diabetes Hope Conference is a free, virtual event in which we can all gather for “frank and honest discussions about diabetes”.  The three panels will be held on Tuesday, May 20th from noon to 3 p.m. EST.  There are some great topics scheduled for discussion and I’m grateful to have been invited to participate on a panel again this year.  If you are interested in tuning in for part or all of the conference be sure to register today.

Our Friday #DBlogWeek topic is one I find really fun - Diabetes Life Hacks.  Share the (non-medical) tips and tricks that help you in the day-to-day management of diabetes, everything from clothing modifications, serving size/carb counting tricks to the tried and true Dexcom-in-a-glass trick or the “secret” to turning on a Medtronic pump’s backlight when not on the home-screen (scroll to the bottom of this post). Please remember to give non-medical advice only! (Thank you Rachel of Probably Rachel and Kelley of Below Seven for this topic suggestion.) 

Most of my diabetes hacks have been blogged about before.  I like trading those boring meter cases for something a little more fun - here a while ago and here more recently.  I like to dress up my pumps with skins (all you can really see here is a cat rump but the full pump skin is really cute).  I’ve also been known to bling out my meters with stickers.  I’ve blogged about keeping a diabetes travel pouch prepped and ready to go and about wearing a pump with a dress.

But lately my Diabetes Life Hacks have been focused around food.  More specifically, on making it so easy to carb count that I won’t just swag a bolus.  For example, in March when packing train snacks for my trip to Government Day, I wrote the carbs on the bag and packed a measuring cup right in with the trail mix.  No excuse not to bolus correctly.


My new favorite after-dinner treat is a single serve Marie Callender’s cake.  They are the perfect mix of sweet treat and built in portion control, but the box they come in hogs up too much space in the freezer.  My solution?  Ditch the box and note the carbs right on the cake lid with a Sharpie.  Problem solved.


And, of course, a couple of years ago at Christmas time I worked out the carb counts on the Christmas cookies I bake every year and tucked the spreadsheet in my recipe book.


My hacks won’t change your life.  But if they make diabetes even just a little bit easier, they are definitely worth sharing!!

You’ll find more Diabetes Life Hacks - Friday 5/16 on the Link List.

What is Diabetes Blog Week? Click here for an explanation.  You can also check out a list of participants over here.