Have you ever see the movie A Christmas Story, the one with Ralphy and the BB gun? Well there is a line in that movie that brought me to todays subject. When his mom finds out he cursed, he gets his mouth washed out with soap and he daydreams of a day when he is blind and comes back home to reveal to his parents that it was “soap poisoning”. Well today we are gong to talk about a diabetics worst fear when eating out, something I like to call soda poisoning. Where you waiter or waitress accidentally gives you a regular soda instead of diet soda, and unbeknownst to you, your sugars starts a rapid climb til your CGM is screaming and the whole world is staring you down. And all because someone else made a mistake and now you are paying for it.
Today I stopped at a local restaurant on the way to my son’s basketball game so I could grab some lunch. I got a sandwich and a drink. I asked for a diet Dr. Pepper, my food was prepared and given to me and off I went. I drove to his game sipping on my diet soda and eating a few of the fries. I looked at my sugar and it was 98. Today was a good day. I figured I would eat once I got there. I went into the building and found his court, sat down to eat. As I took another sip, I though snuck into my head, did this taste a little off? Then to my horror, my sensor starts beeping and I look at my CGM only to see a reading that now say 175mg/dl with an arrow pointing straight up. I lean over to my daughter and I say try this does it taste like diet to you? She drinks a sip and says no mommy this tastes different. My sensor keeps going up and now there are 2 arrows. Now it’s 225, then 240 then up and up it goes til a high of 324 within an hour. I am frantically bolusing and correcting and watching it climb and climb and go higher and there was nothing I could do. What was my conclusion? This was not diet soda.
Now for those of you who are not diabetic you are like so who cares, it’s not that big of a deal. Diet verses regular soda won’t kill you right? Well, to be honest with you, it actually could if you have type 1 diabetes. I mean we make no insulin at all. Dumping pure sugar into your body without any insulin is a bad idea. As I saw this afternoon, my sugar went through the roof from about 1/4 of my soda. The annoying part about it is I did nothing wrong, but because someone was careless and because of their mistake, I could have ended up in the hospital. Normally I just get upset and then let it go, but this time I decided to take action. After my son’s game, I decided to go back to Chick-fil-a and explain to them what happened. They were very apologetic but that doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t get my sugar down and it still takes me the 3-4 hours to get it down on my own. I complained not to get free food, or anything but simply to speak up for those of us in the world who have type 1 diabetes and to make sure the staff knows to be careful.
So this is my little rant for today, for those of you who have been where I was today, I feel your pain and it really stinks. Especially those 3-4 hours of misery where you are grumpy and short tempered and thirsty and hungry and have to pee. On a plus note it passes and on another plus it does not happen often. I strongly do recommend whenever possible, try to watch them pour your soda, for your own peace of mind. And yes I get that diet soda tastes different but when it’s from a machine, to me it takes more syrupy then from a can so at times I do question my own taste buds. Thank you for reading and be careful out there!