Many people who live with diabetes avidly avoid eating carbohydrates, as historically speaking, it has been notoriously difficult to cover carbohydrates appropriately with exogenous insulins. But with access to better, faster insulins and the uptick in the use of patient-friendly technology, things are changing, and people’s diets (and their feelings of freedom) have expanded more than ever. Here are the best tech-friendly hacks to tackle the carbohydrate conundrum.
MyNetDiary
This popular app has a searchable database with nearly a million food entries for people to access and look up carbohydrate counts on the go. The company also has a separate Diabetes app that allows users to track blood glucose levels, HbA1c results, and insulin doses, to track their progress over time. If you’re looking to lose weight, MyNetDiary can create a diet plan to meet your needs. You never have to feel restricted when eating meals with family or friends, having all your carbohydrate counting needs right at your fingertips.
Photo credit: GreaterGoods
GreaterGoods Nourish Digital Scale
This food scale is a game changer for those who cook with lots of fresh produce, where carbohydrate counts can vary quite a bit. This scale lets the user view nutrition facts for over 2,000 foods in the scale’s built-in database, and create up to 99 more custom entries. Measure individual ingredients, track full meals, and calculate daily carbohydrate intake much easier with this digital scale.
InPen
This revolutionary device is the only FDA-approved smart pen insulin system that helps prevent users from “stacking” their insulin doses and take the right amount of insulin at the right time. This device works in tandem with a phone app, where users can track insulin on board/active insulin, personalize your doses, sync with continuous glucose monitor (CGM) or glucometer data, and share reports with others. The pen itself is compatible with Humalog, Novolog, and Fiasp, and will even dose in half units. Eating carbohydrates has traditionally been much harder on multiple daily injections, but advancements such as the InPen are making strides to make life much easier for people with diabetes.
Use Alternative Pump Boluses
If you are an insulin pump user, dosing for a high carbohydrate meal can also be difficult, especially if the meal also has a moderate amount of protein and fat (which can delay the absorption of the glucose in the meal). To handle that, try opting for a combination bolus (a.k.a. Combo Bolus or Dual Wave Bolus, for Animas or Medtronic users, respectively; Omnipod, Tandem t:slim users will use “Extended Bolus”). This is a hybrid delivery mode: a specified portion of the total insulin bolus is delivered upfront, as a normal bolus, while the rest is delivered over a specified period of time as an extended/square wave bolus.
For example, given a 12U dose delivered as a 60/40 combination/square wave bolus over 3 hours: 60% of the total dose (7.2U) will be delivered within seconds of pressing the “deliver” button; the remaining 40% (4.8U) will be delivered equally every few minutes over the next three hours. The result is an initial dose to cover faster-digesting foods, plus an extended amount of insulin action to deal with the slower-digesting foods (which tend to be fattier or have more protein), and to prevent postprandial spikes in blood glucose. Utilizing these settings can be extremely helpful when you’re eating foods like pizza, pasta, Chinese food, Mexican food, or ice cream. Always consult with your diabetes healthcare provider before making any changes to your dosing routine.
Photo credit: Dexcom
Dexcom Clarity App
This software can be helpful for patients already using the Dexcom continuous glucose monitoring system, but are wanting to track and change problematic patterns in their blood glucose. This app lets you set target goals for your blood sugars, will track time-in-range, detects patterns of highs and lows and will alert you to them, and will even give the user a predicted HbA1c result. You can also choose to share your data with your health clinic to make changes to your insulin routine or insulin to carbohydrate ratio in real time, and to really find what will work best for you for optimal management.
Living with diabetes is never easy, but thankfully technology has made counting carbohydrates and eating easier than ever before. What apps or tech has helped you to navigate food, eating, and counting carbohydrates? What’s worked best and what hasn’t? Share this post and comment below; we love hearing from our readers!
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