A story problem just for fun



Here is a very real-to-life story problem about the fun calculating the insulin needed to cover a meal. This is our version of "Are you smarter than a 5'th grader?"

You are a typical 10-year-old in upper elementary school (or junior high, as the case may be in your school district). Unfortunately you have type 1 diabetes. Your teacher releases you from class 5 minutes before lunch so that you can administer insulin needed to "cover the carbs" in the food you are about to eat.

For lunch today, Mom made you a turkey sandwich (30 grams carbs), bag of chips (32 grams) pudding (18 grams) and a can of diet pepsi (no carbs).

You test your blood sugar and find it to be 280 mg/dl (darn!). Your correction factor is 60 counts per unit of insulin. Your carb-to-insulin ratio is for lunch is 22 grams per unit of insulin.

How much insulin do you need for your lunch-time injection?

And remember, you have about 30 seconds to make this calculation before your injection. You want to get to lunch and sit at the table with the cool kids. If you take more than about a minute, then you will be having your lunch at the table with the band geeks :-)

Hint: see Insulin pump control variables (but it will take much longer than 30 seconds if you do!  Welcome to the table, fellow band geek!)