"It's because I'm still on my honeymoon," says an 8-year-old Allison

One Touch II glucose meter: free (and it even comes with your very own chronic illness!)
Box of graham crackers and Tang powdered juice: $8.99
Waiting for a blood sugar reading: 45 seconds
Wide-eyed expression on the secretary's face: priceless.

I don't remember a whole lot about my honeymooning experience outside of this incident, which happened my first day back at school after my diagnosis. I believe mine lasted about eight months before we decided it faded enough that it was no longer affecting my blood sugars in any accountable way. I thought the honeymoon was cool because I hardly took any insulin and my blood sugars were almost always perfect! It was almost like not being sick! But then my insulin requirements suddenly jumped dramatically in a short period of time. Of course, we soon realized that was just one jump of many. My insulin requirements seemed to jump everytime I went to the doctor's. But this, of course, makes perfect sense. By the time I was in middle school, each time I visited the endo I was a quarter inch taller than the last, and thus my insulin-to-weight ratio required that my insulin go up. And up. And up some more. You think you're taking a lot of insulin now? Just you wait.

Of course, this is different for adults. I imagine once your honeymoon ends, your insulin will peak and then stabilize around a typical TDD. Not that your basal rates and ratios won't change, but I can't imagine they will be severely dramatic (unless you get pregnant or something...). But you parents out there, don't hold your breath. The basal rates and ratios aren't going to stabilize for quite some time.

I emailed my CDE about honeymoons and insulin changes over the weekend. He wrote back,

"I can usually tell when someone's honeymoon is over when their fasting (wake-up) BGs are ever above 200. If their nighttime basal secretion can't get them down to normal by morning, the pancreas has, shall we say, kicked the bucket.

Insulin requirements are FOREVER CHANGING! They tend to change less often after puberty and before the more advanced years kick in (age 25-50 approximately), but they can still change with variations in physical activity, diet, occupation, lifestyle, medications, other illnesses, environmental conditions, stress levels, etc, etc, etc. The wise among us roll with the changes. The morons keep doing the same things and expect different results."

So there ya have it, folks.