Seven months ago, Melissa, who is now just two and a half years old, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. During the first 5 months, her mother, Jeanne, followed the doctor’s recommended high-carbohydrate diet very closely but was not aware of Melissa’s BG fluctuations because she was not yet on a CGM. Two months ago, Melissa started using the FreeStyle Libre. That’s when it became apparent to Jeanne that the doctor’s recommendation resulted in very high variability in blood sugar levels. She was on a constant roller coaster! In one instance, the mother could not even get a reading from the CGM because her blood sugar was so high!
In late June this year, Jeanne joined a WhatsApp group of other mothers of type 1 diabetic children. On the first day after joining this group, the mothers were invited to post pictures of their child’s breakfast. Jeanne posted the picture of Melissa’s meal; whole-grain bread, plain yogurt, and cream cheese totaling 23 grams of carbs, thinking it was healthy! Of course, the bagel caused Melissa’s blood sugar to spike to 312 mg/dL, as seen in the picture below. After some discussion, the group of mothers realized that the bread was the culprit of this huge spike in blood sugar.
The next day, Jeanne decided to not give the bread for breakfast to her child, and the BG did not spike this time. Eureka! From that moment on, she realized that the fast-acting carbs were to blame for the high blood sugar levels and decided to make the switch to low-carb. After less than just three weeks, Melissa’s blood sugars had already improved significantly!
What an amazing change! Melissa’s blood sugars are better than ever and all it took was some support and realizing the truth about carbs. Credit for sharing this story goes to Carol Bosco.
