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Originally Posted by my2boyz  That's what I've always heard but my DIL swears that since he's only 14 and has childhood diabetes that it's different. We've always had our doubts about his diagnosis though but, we're only the 'grandparents' and what do we know  |
She's right! I'm also a type 1 diabetic, and I get so tired of people asking me "ARE YOU ALLOWED TO BE EATING THAT???"
With Type 1 diabetes, your body attacks itself so you either already have no insulin production or you will eventually have no insulin production (depending on how early they catch it). Of course eating cake is not good for him, the same way it is not good for someone without diabetes, but if he is able to eat cake and match his insulin to carbohydrates without having spikes it is not a big deal.
Typically pumpers use an insulin to carb ratio, for instance, 1 unit of insulin for every 10 carbs. That can very greatly based on many factors, but you see if the 40 carbs comes from eating a piece of cake versus two apples it doesn't matter, he still has to pump out 4 units of insulin. Does that make sense?
Many of the artificial sweetners that work well for Type 2 diabetes do not work as well for Type 1. In fact, most of the sugar-free ice creams/cookies actually raise my blood sugar higher than the "normal" ones. It's all trial and error. I know a great forum about diabetes if you are interested.
This is a gross over simplification, but I hope I explained myself well. There will be certain foods he will probably learn he can't eat or he has to use a different insulin to carb ratio to eat, but the key is figuring all that out and keeping a good A1C score.