11/03/2010

geek out diabetes

How do you geek out your or your child's T1 diabetes?

In other words, what techie tools or gadgets do you use on a daily basis that assist in the management of the disease?

When Ellie was first diagnosed and we were told we would need to log her blood sugars, I immediately searched the Apple App store for something to help me out.

First of all, the endocrinologist's office requested we use a particular log so they could spot trends and know at a glance what was going on.  

I was disappointed I wouldn't be able to create a color-coded, multi-layer table with cool equations built into the cells.  

What?  No graphs or pie charts?  

Anyway, here is an example of the chart we fax to the office on Monday mornings, or as needed when too many lows or highs happen:

 I scribbled out Ellie's last name and birth date.  Oh, and don't freak out about the readings.  This was our first full month of diabetes and she is 'honeymooning.'


If I couldn't make a pretty spreadsheet, at least I was going to find an app for my iTouch to enter the data. 


I think I paid $2.99 for this app.


Track3 - Diabetes Planner and Carb Counter.  I love how simple it is to enter a glucose reading, and an added bonus was the included nutritional guide. 

Sure, I use the Calorie King book (we actually have 3), but the Track3 app is more fun to use and I can alter the serving sizes to match what I weigh (grams or ounces) on my food scale.

The last geek product I searched for was a program where I could input the ingredients from a recipe and, based on serving size, it would spit out the nutritional information.

I found:




SPARKPEOPLE Recipe Calculator!!!!!  The best part about this recipe calculator is it's F-R-E-E!  You can set up a profile and register with the site so you can save the recipes.  What worked for me was to input the recipe and then write down the carbs / serving size right on my hard copy recipe page! 

These tools have helped me try to get back on my feet after Ellie's diagnosis.

Now, what are YOUR favorite was to geek out diabetes?

p.s. if the comment section fills with some great resources, I will create a new reference page with links and information for everyone to see and utilize!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Seriously you are scaring me! LOL. I am old school on the logging for sure. I love to write it out...and then highlight the highs in orange and the lows in blue...so I can easily spot trends.

I like the Spark People recipe calculator idea. My running buddy is a big Spark People Person...I'll have to scope that out.

I love the Salter Scale...do you have one. I have it on my side bar at Beta Buddies...it is part of "Joe's Pancreatic Pit Crew". It will just give me the carb count on foods based on weight. I find it particularly handy for fruits, some pizzas, and you can customize it with recipes as well.

Great post!!

Amy said...

Love the updated pic, Reyna!

I read about the Salter Scale when I was stalking, er I mean, visiting your website. It does look waaaaaay cool. It also looks expensive ;)

Maybe I can put it on my Christmas list?!

Board certified Doc said...

Salter scale is really cool, Gives a clear cut idea about carb on the food which we consume particularly with respect to fruits and other Outside foods.

Lora said...

I have been looking for a site that will spit out the nutritional value of a recipe... THANKS!

I don't have any great geek gadgets to tell you about. We just use the uploads from the pump and the cgm to take to the Endo.

If I am logging by hand to see a weeks worth of trends... I will enlarge a copy of a log book page so that I have more room to write :)

Meri said...

Thanks for the heads up! We have been using the Lenny the Lion Ap to teach the boys about carb counting. It is awesome!