4 Ways to Keep Your Diabetes Supplies Organised

If you live with diabetes you understand the importance of planning ahead to maintain good blood sugar control. Insulin does not work immediately, and thus we need to plan ahead to be able to take action in time. A huge part of planning is about keeping your supplies in order. A mess in your tools, means a mess in your head and can lead to undesired consequences, such as poor insulin absorption from absence of lancet changes, running out of insulin in pumps when it’s least convenient and other unpleasant situations.

Our supplies are our life. We rely on them and cannot survive without them. Imagine your insulin runs out, and you don’t have any back up. What do you do then? Effectively, you have put yourself in a very dangerous life-threatening situation. Or what if your CGM expires and you have no test kit or test strips? How will you dose your insulin?

How to organise your diabetes equipment

Keeping T1D supplies well-organised and keeping track of what is running out is key to not only manage blood sugars well, but to simply keep yourself safe. We have gathered the top-tips to help you keep your T1D supplies in good order. 

1. Use a list. Keep a list of your supplies, how many of each you have and put it into your supplies drawer/box. Tick off an item of the supply you used each time you take one from the drawer/box. Still regularly check how much you have left (just in case). Most of our supplies, like pump supplies and sensors are often automatically sent to us on a schedule, but keeping track of insulin, needles, glucagon and similar items is still essential.
2. Use your planner. A lot of T1Ds use planners for their overall life and tasks, it is a great idea to mark pump and sensor change days in them. There are also cool planner stickers available online to make it more fun and bring some excitement into tracking your site changes. You can use the same method to remind yourself to re-order supplies.
3. Pack essential supplies into a kit. This is the best thing you can do in preparation for emergency situations, and it is also incredible for travel. Get yourself a kit and pack essential supplies to allow you to survive a few weeks, in case you need to leave your home in a rush. You never know what can happen, and having a kit with all you need for T1D brings great peace of mind. The Dystim Storage Cases are absolutely perfect for this matter.
4. Always think a week ahead. You need to account for travel, plans and commitments to avoid running out of any of your supplies and not being able to go out for them or being too far from your GP and pharmacy. Yes, there are always emergency solutions, but you really don’t need to be putting yourself through that stress, if you can avoid it.

Living with T1D requires a high level of organisation, but this makes us better at efficiently completing tasks, more focused and disciplined. That can only be a good thing, right?  

Author: Daria Arofikina