Diabetes Life Hack

Topic: Share the (non-medical) tips and tricks that help you in the day-to-day management of diabetes.  Tell us everything from clothing modifications, serving size/carb counting tricks to the tried and true Dexcom-in-a-glass trick or the “secret” to turning on a Medtronic pump’s backlight when not on the home-screen (scroll to the bottom of this post). Please remember to give non-medical advice only! (Thank you Rachel of Probably Rachel and Kelley of Below Seven for this topic suggestion.)

When I have low blood sugars I tend to grab a juice box. Which works quickly and is great for the most part. Sometimes though I tend to see a spike in my numbers and then a few minutes later they continue to drop. Then I would have to grab another juice box and hope for the best. I decided to talk with my diabetes group about what they do during those times. Do they just continue to drink juice? Do you have a snack? One of guys mentioned that he loves to have a spoon full of peanut butter and honey. I had never heard of this before, but I do love a peanut butter and honey sandwich from time to time and was curious to try it.

The next time I went low I refrained from eating everything in our refrigerator or grabbing my typical box of apple juice and went for the peanut butter and honey. I scooped some peanut butter from the jar and poured some honey over the top. I stood in my kitchen with the spoon in my mouth and couldn’t help but smile. This was not only helping my lows but was a treat. When I was done I set the timer on my phone for 15 minutes and waited to see what would happen. I could start to feel my blood sugars rising. The timer on my phone went off and when I checked my sugars they were going up. I waited another 15 minutes just to be sure that they continued to rise and not fall again. I did another check and success! They were rising at a steady pace and I couldn’t have been happier.

How the honey and peanut butter works is simple. The honey raises your blood sugar levels, while the peanut butter being a protein keeps them up and prevents you from crashing again. This is usually my go to low treatment when I am home. It’s worked every time and is delicious. The next time you run into a low give this a try and see if you like it.