Today’s topic: Let’s round out the week by sharing our best diabetes tips and diabetes tricks. From how you organize supplies to how you manage gear on the go/vacation (beach, or skiing, or whatever). From how you keep track of prescription numbers to how you remember to get your orders refilled. How about any “unconventional” diabetes practices, or ways to make diabetes work for YOU (not necessarily how the doctors say to do it!). There’s always something we can learn from each other.

For me, diabetes “tricks” are really just more safeguards that I’ve created for myself to cover for the fact that I’m actually not very organized when it comes to my diabetes. But you know what, it works for me and that’s what’s important.

So here are my diabetes tricks, which are essentially tricks that I play on myself so that I don’t find myself in hot water with no supplies left. Or ways to make the supplies I do have last longer.

Hide things from yourself. I don’t have an organized system to remind myself to reorder supplies. And while I know many companies offer automatic refills, it never matches up to when I actually need supplies so I end up stopping it. Basically, when my supplies look like they’re running low, I order more. But sometimes things don’t go smoothly. I forget to order. Or there’s a hold up with the pharmacy and they need my doctor to write a refill which takes longer. Or they mess up the prescription. And then days and sometimes even weeks pass and I start to freak out because I’m running out of insulin and I need it to live! But then I remember my trick, I hide an extra bottle of insulin from myself so even when I think I’m out, I really have one left! Genius! And I do this for all my supplies, I keep an extra bottle of test strips, a sensor, and a couple infusion sets separate from the rest of my supplies just for emergencies (or moments of forgetfulness)

Buy bulk. I’ve used many things to treat lows over the years, but my food of choice are packets of fruit snacks. They’re small and portable, they’re the right amount of carbs for most of my lows, you can eat part of a pack, they don’t raise my blood sugar too high and they work quickly, and they’re cheaper than glucose tabs and other snacks. So I go to Costco and I buy the box of 80 fruit snacks (which are usually only like $10-$12 in store for the box). But I don’t just buy one giant box, I buy 2 and sometimes 3. I keep one in my apartment, I keep one in my car, and I use one to refill all my stashes of fruit snacks in every coat pocket, purse, and bag. This way I can guarantee that I am never without a way to treat a low.

Find good tape. When it comes to my CGM, I wear that thing as long as I am getting accurate numbers, which I beyond the approved 7 days. But I never would be able to wear it as long as I do without the comfortable, sticky tape that I place over it. I currently use Hypafix, the 4 x 10 roll, and am a huge fan. Having strong, reliable tape is a must when you continuously have tubes and sensors stuck in/to your body.