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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, getting caught out somewhere without snacks and a looming hypo is one of my nightmares. I try to always, always, always have snacks on me (for a diabetic, this is even more important to have when you leave the house than your keys or wallet), but sometimes things happen, and you end up somewhere without anything. It's really scary, but the good news is that if there is anybody around, enough people understand at least enough about diabetes to give you something to eat if you start saying "I'm having a diabetic emergency, does anyone have anything with sugar?"

The scary part is potentially getting caught out somewhere entirely alone and without an emergency snack.

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My wife has t1d and when we were dating we backpacked the Lost Coast trail. She was pretty paranoid of bears, so made sure we didn't have any food in our tent and did a good job of hiding our bear canisters some place where any bears couldn't move them around if they got to them. She'd had a bad experience with bears pushing bear canisters off a waterfall.

So she had a low in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. She was still verbal, but barely, and sent me to get her some snacks out of the bear canisters. However I didn't know where she'd hid them. After looking in the dark for a while I had to go back to the tent and try to get enough of an explanation out of her to find the hidden canisters. Fortunately she was abele to give me enough context that I was able to find the canisters and get her something to eat.

After that, I kept my own hidden stash of snacks in the tent and make sure she told me where the canisters were.

Oof. For finding my bearcan, adding conspicuity tape (the red/white reflector tape used on tractor trailers) makes them stand out like a beacon with a headlamp (which, so far as I know, bears have not learned to make use of). It also has adhesive good enough to stick to their slick plastic.

This is a great idea, thank you! If I can get myself into shape for it by late June, I'm going to try doing the JMT this year. This tip may come in handy. Thanks.

>The scary part is potentially getting caught out somewhere entirely alone and without an emergency snack.

First thing I do every morning is A) put on pants B) put my keys and a tube of glucose tablets in my front pants pocket.

You can probably guess the expensive way that became ritual.

I never thought about how being diabetic takes emergency preparedness to a new level. We saw people unexpectedly stuck for a couple of days in traffic because of snow recently. What if there is an earthquake and you can't get to somewhere with snacks? There are so many situations that could unexpectedly arise that could cut you off from food. If I'm cut off from food, I'll be fine for a few days. Not so much a diabetic. That's scary.

> What if there is an earthquake and you can't get to somewhere with snacks?

I’m a Type 1 diabetic (diagnosed in my 30s) and have been living with it for about a decade now. This really isn’t a “what if” situation. I know what will happen. I will die or hopefully just become incredibly ill.

It’s not really scary at all.

It’s just something I live with and prepare for as best I can. The one thing that I’ve learned from living with Type 1 is that all you can do is make the best decision you can in any given moment. My favorite doctor told me that diabetes is a disease that is all about making decisions. So is life, I guess.

Please forgive my ignorance, how is it possible that you lived until your thirties without knowing you have T1D?

The really interesting thing is not that T1D diagnosis has erased the label for "Juvenile onset diabetes" because it can happen at any age, it's that those previously-thought-destroyed pancreatic cells that produce insulin, are actually continuing decades after disease diagnosis and can be "reactivated" via BCG or Valter Longo's FMD:

"Identifying most people with T1D continue to secrete varying amounts of insulin and C-peptides for decades after initial diagnosis:

https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/dr-faustmans-controv...

See below for my deeper response on these and other issues:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30382364

Peak age of diagnosis is mid-teens with quite a sharp bell curve. But, it can develop at any age.

It takes a genetic predisposition and a trigger - perhaps a virus? - for your immune system to start eating your pancreas' insulin-producing cells.

The old labels of "juvenile diabetes" etc. are as unhelpful as the notion it's caused by obesity.

My nephew was 22 when diagnosed: https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/charlie-kimball-diab...

T1D can be triggered at any time in a person’s life. It’s autoimmune. Thinking of it as a childhood disease is outdated and (fortunately) most doctors are becoming aware of that.

diagnosed at 25, it happens :-/

Yep, very much. Most insulin pumps only cary a few days worth of insulin at a time so it's not uncommon to be heading home after work with only half a day of insulin left. That can quickly become a life-or-death situation.

Kind of reminds me of the movie with Justin Timberlake where people trade lifetime, not money, because people live forever.

I guess this is somewhat similar. Especially in places where your health insurance isn't a given.

I always have 4 or 5 glucose gels in my car. My diabetes kit has a couple more. You learn pretty quick you need to be able to treat at least a couple of hypos by yourself

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