How to Keep Glucose Tabs on You 24/7 (Without Them Turning Into Dust)

What is Your Best T1D Year?

Managing Type 1 Diabetes doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

Each 5-minute episode of Your Best T1D Year is packed with practical strategies, mindset shifts, and a little humor to help you feel more in control and less frustrated by diabetes.

Hosted by Neil Greathouse, this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday podcast delivers quick, relatable episodes that make learning about T1D effortless - so you can build small wins that lead to big changes.

📅 New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

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Neil: 00:05

Hey. Welcome back to your best t one d year ever. I'm gonna add the word ever to the end of that. Your best t one d year ever. My name is Neil Greathouse, and this is episode seven.

Neil: 00:18

Today is February 28. And if you've got five minutes, then you got time for this podcast. Let's just be honest. Right? If you're on a a walk, you're waiting around for that coffee to kick in, or maybe you just realized out of the blue, that yet another streaming service just raised its pricing.

Neil: 00:35

Golly, I could probably do an entire podcast just on this alone. Like, seriously, when when did watching TV become a luxury investment? Like, when what what is what is up with the pricing? I feel like Chandler on Friends when he screamed, like, could this be any more expensive? Alright.

Neil: 00:53

I digress. Anyway, today, we are going to go out into the type one diabetes community a little bit, and I'm gonna tell you some of the stories that people have commented or they've mentioned about this switch over to using some glucose tablets. So, before we get into, like, what changed some of their minds, let's be real. A lot of us have had reasons for not using glucose tablets. Okay?

Neil: 01:20

And the three biggest excuses, I don't know if they're excuses, maybe they are, that people give is, number one, it just tastes like chalk. Like, just no. I get no a lot on this one. Number two is they would prefer juice or snacks, or as I like to call them, snacky snacks. The third the third most popular reason is I just keep forgetting.

Neil: 01:45

Like, I get in that moment and my blood sugar is dropping, and I just forget that I need to go for the glucose tablets, I go for something else. Does any of that sound familiar? Yeah. My hand is raised, right here, Samesies. But here here's the thing.

Neil: 02:00

So many people who have finally switched over say that they'll never go back. And that is very encouraging. A lot of you guys were kind of, dealing with some trepidation on whether or not you wanted to do this. And I'm really, really glad that so many of you have just jumped in. So let's hear why.

Neil: 02:21

What changed their minds? Here are some of the responses that you guys said. This is you guys, not me. On social media. I got tired of feeling awful after treating a low.

Neil: 02:32

That's just super honest. I love it. No more juice box up to two two hundred and fifty roller coaster, right, or no more waking up in a sugar coma because we overtreated at 2AM. It happens. Now, somebody else said I actually like knowing exactly how much I'm taking, which is really, like, that's astute, and I haven't used that word in a sentence in a long time.

Neil: 02:57

But four grams of carbs per glucose tablet or, you know, a little bit of carbs in a in a glucose gel means you're not guessing. You're not panic snacking, which I don't know if that's an actual term, but it is now. No more, I think I had 12 slips of juice, or I think I ate a couple Skittles, but who even knows at this point? Like, we don't have to worry about that. Another one said, like, I finally kept them everywhere for when I need them, which is great.

Neil: 03:26

Some of the most popular places are, like, a car, your, you know, your your center console in the car, a nightstand, your work bag, jacket pockets, because it's sweater weather, or or just basically just knowing when you're low, you just have them pretty much everywhere. So at the end of the day, most people who switched over to using glucose tablets this past month said the same thing. It just made my life a lot easier. So let's dial back here and just see, like, what did we learn this month. Before before we move on, I wanna just take a second and appreciate the progress that we made.

Neil: 04:01

First of all, treating Lowe's, it it doesn't have to feel chaotic. Like, that's huge. That's a huge win. Number two, glucose tablets work. Like, even even if we still don't love them, they just work really, really well.

Neil: 04:14

And then the third one is that small habits add up over time. If this challenge taught us anything, it's that having a plan makes things easier. And if I could just if I could just level with you here, the goal was never about perfection. I had a couple times where I used I I so far, I have not treated a low in the month of February with snacks, but there are a few times where I ate too many glucose tablets. So it just takes time to get used to it.

Neil: 04:42

The goal was never perfection. It was just getting a little bit better at treating lows without overtreating. And and we did that. You did that. Even if it wasn't pretty, even if it wasn't a hundred, you know, 10 out of 10, it's okay.

Neil: 04:54

You did it, and I'm proud of you. So no matter how February went for us, we showed up. Maybe you switched over to glucose tablets long term? Maybe? Or maybe you just thought about switching, but either way, that's just that's progress.

Neil: 05:07

So next month, we're moving on to a next challenge. Oh, my gosh. Drumroll, right? And this one is gonna help us a little bit more than we realize because, remember, we're not doing a bad job. We're doing a difficult job, and anytime we can make one small change that helps us out, that is a huge win.

Neil: 05:25

So, new episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If you haven't yet, hit that subscribe so that you do not miss the very first episode of our March challenge, which is coming up in the next episode. And if you want some free t one d resources, you can go to your best t1dyear.com and grab those jokers. Alright? There, there's no gimmicks, no catch.

Neil: 05:47

It's just stuff that makes type one diabetes easier. I will see you in the next episode. Remember, you got this, you can do this, nobody remembers easy, which is why what you're doing is pretty much incredible. I'm excited to hear about your best T1D year ever.