Help me understand why someone who's had Type 1 Diabetes for decades still struggles to manage it on a daily basis. I want to be more supportive.
Type 1 diabetes never becomes “set it and forget it” because insulin needs change every day with food, activity, stress, sleep, illness, hormones, and even weather. After decades the person still has to make dozens of calculations and corrections with incomplete information, CGMs lag, carb counts are estimates, and a pump or injection can’t perfectly match a living body. That constant mental load plus fear of lows or highs is why even experienced people still struggle, and the most supportive thing you can do is treat the effort as real work rather than assume they should have it figured out by now.
Thank you. I'm really trying to be supportive but it seems like it's at least 5 out of 7 days of the week. To be honest, it's starting to cause me significant mental stress from not just worry for them, but also the expectation they have of me to care for them when it's bad. It feels somewhat manipulative at this point.. I know it's not fair to compare, but it's hard not to when I've met several others with Type 1 who seem to have it more "dialed in".