PS. Type 2 diabetics may also take insulin, and not everyone who has it ate too much sugar. I’m a Type 2 who takes insulin, and my mother was a Type 2 who never weighed over 100 pounds in her entire 78 years.

i wipe the top of my pen with alcohol, put the pen needle on rub the injection site with alcohol and inject

before meals i can be anywhere from 70 to 150 after, my sugar spikes a little bit before the insulin starts working and my sugar before i go too sleep is usually 70 to 150

i usually go to a restroom

i usually try to stay around 60 – 75 carbs per meal

I have between 6 – 12 Novorapid, depending on how I eat. [2]

I never use swabs or cotton wool, never had a problem or been told i should lol.
I inject in my thigh, top of arms or stomach depending on what is most convenient at the time.

It varies, like every ones, but not so much nowadays, usually i;ve miscalculated.
It drops like a stone when i get a tattoo or piercing, i always take cherry coke with me.

I inject wherever I am. I refuse to be herded into a bathroom or somewhere else equally unclean for doing something that i have no control over.
There is nothing wrong with it, and i take great offense at people who insist i shouldn’t do it in public, like there’s something wrong with it, and therefore me.

My diet is kind of regulated, in the sense that there are no sugary soda’s, ice-creams or fried goods in the house.
There is a plentiful supply of frozen yoghurt, especially skinny cow and B&Jerries cherry garcia yumyum.

I never eat wholemeal rice, honey, or blueberries, cause i don’t like them.
I do not forbid myself anything at all, because not eating something you love, for the rest of your life!!
It’s just unworkable, and it will make you miserable.
I spent a lot of time plotting and recording exactly what all my favourite foods did to my blood sugars.
It was hard work, but boy it’s worth it.

I refuse to let diabetes ruin my life.

I love pizza, so i eat it, and keep my sugars under control.
As well as tiramisu, pasta salad, and my personal favourite, mash with sour cream and chives.

I eat a very healthy diet, and eat when i’m hungry.

Any other way will eventually frustrate and depress you.

I’ve used mostly B-D glass and disposable syringes. There was a period when my dad was buying monoject disposable syringes for me. I still have a box of monoject syringes marked for both U-40 and U-30 concentrations. My mother refused to let me use them, although I did use some of them, because I certainly know how to muse the appropriate scale for the insulin concentration I was using. The needles that my mother used when I was three years old were BD 1/4 inch needles, I don’t remember the gauge right now. I currently use either 1/3 cc or !/2 cc BD disposable syringes. The needle length and and gauge doesn’t matter. I think varying needle length makes sense.

I usually use a cotton ball and ethyl (preferred) or 93% bottled alcohol. My dad was a faculty member of the Tulane Medical School parasitology department for many years, even though three departments split off to form the School public Health and Tropical medicine in the 1960’s. He usually brought home ethyl alcohol from work, because reagents were available. I started buying bottled alcohol when I spent a year in Tucson at the University of Arizona. I use BD swabs when I go mobile.

My mom injected me in the buttocks. I injected myself in the legs and hips in any reachable spot with either hand for decades, then I started injecting myself in the buttocks standing up. I don’t remember now exactly what year that was, but it was after I moved into my current apartment in November 2000. It probably was in 2003.

My blood sugars can range all over the place before meals. I’ve had readings as low as 18 to as high as 440 mg/dcl. I still have brittle periods, but being post-menopausal is almost pleasant, except for the long term memory farts (like over a year, when I couldn’t remember the mineral name for KCl, sylvite). I remember my mother boiling stuff doing Benedict’s tests every night before Clinitest and Acetest tablets were available.

I usually go to the rest room to take my insulin when I’m on the road or going out to dinner with a friend, although I have taken insulin in my car as well.

It’s been years since I’ve had ice cream or sherbet, I rarely eat cookies except when I need to raise my blood sugar, and I’m more likely to drink orange juice. Since I have no memory of NOT being diabetic, I don’t eat a strictly regulated diet. before the refrigerator in my apartment stopped working last November, I dinner was often a Stouffer’s entree. I still have a freezer stuffed with thawed frozen food. Now that I’m living out of an ice box, I do drive by for dinner, or make hot-dogs or Pasta-roni or Rice-a-roni for dinner and add canned chicken and herbs.

Lunch is usually tuna or chicken salad on Pepperidge Farm Deli Mix bread. Before the refrigerator died, lunch was often peanut butter and butter on white. Then I found out I had gained over 30 pounds because I went through over a year of regarding potato salad as a staple. I haven’t opened a jar of peanut butter much at all since then.

Did I leave anything out? Now that it has stopped raining, I’m going to Wal-Mart in the eternal quest for ice.

The needle question:
http://www.medtronic-diabetes.com.au/infusion-main.html
(mid page somewhere is a pic).

The process question:
shower – dry skin – insert cannula – change every 2 or 3 days.

Varying BGL question:
pre prandial normal level, post prandial up to 3 mmol/l higher – 2 hrs post prandial back to normal. sleep also normal levels as my pump keeps my BGL within normal range (4-6 mmol/l) providing i do my 8 BGLs a day.
VERY elevated BGLs with any steroid drug use (inflammation reducer for tendonitis etc), have to run at 200% for quite a few days.
Elevated BGL pre period. And during illness (flu etc). I run at a higher percentage of my basal rate to keep up with the Jones’s.

The public place question:
I always used to inject anywhere, anytime, anyplace. (arm and abdomen) I figured If anyone doesn’t like needles, they should not look. Also, the needles are so small, you hardly see them if you are not right up in someones personal space.

The diet question:
I never eat meat as i am a vegetarian.
I rarely eat ice cream as it tends to elevate my BGL way too much too quickly (despite enough pre-taken fast working analogue insulin) and i plummet down an hour later. Not worth it.

Hope this helps.