Never a Normal Breakfast For My Daughter Who Has Type 1 Diabetes

This morning Madison asked me if she could have a Nutrigrain bar for breakfast. Her baby sister wanted one, why not her? I took a deep breath, dreading having to have this conversation and said, "That's a lot of carbs (24 to be exact) that most likely won't fill your belly." She frowned and then said, "Yea, your right." I've found Nutrigrain bars to be a great snack, but not to be very filling for a kid for breakfast, unless you eat two to three of them.

Every day Madison wakes up acting and being a normal kid. But as soon as she walks down the stairs for breakfast everything changes. See, she can't walk down the stairs without her blood glucose meter in hand and also her CGM (continuous glucose monitor). If she does, she can't eat until she gets it.

Before every meal and, every snack, Madison needs to check her blood glucose level. And if it's less than 225, she can have a kid-friendly 75 carb breakfast like pancakes and waffles and cereal. We've found that if she eats more than 75 carbs at a meal, she ends up getting a really bad headache, and even sometimes a stomach ache. If it's between 225 and 250, she can only have 50 carbs. And if it's over 250, she gets about 10 carbs and the rest has to be carb free.

My goal is to help Madison be as healthy as she can be and to live a long and healthy life. When her blood glucose is over 250 and she eats more than 10 carbs, her blood glucose shoots over 300. This to me is very unhealthy.

I'm very open to Madison on why she can't eat certain foods at certain times. She gets it. But not without a depressed face, which breaks my heart.

So this morning, with a blood glucose of 192, instead of a Nutrigrain bar, she had a bowl of cereal with milk and some blueberries added (55 carbs) and a side of strawberries and blueberries (15 carbs) = 70 carb breakfast.

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