DAFNE course

[noblehead]

But... what will the rest of the week bring.

Sick day rules is good and you have the chance to bring along a wife, husband, partner, parent or friend with you so they can learn how to help you in times of illness.

The last day is also good where you all eat out at a local restaurant ......although I don't know if all DAFNE courses do this!

[Paul1976]

But... what will the rest of the week bring.

Sick day rules is good and you have the chance to bring along a wife, husband, partner, parent or friend with you so they can learn how to help you in times of illness.

The last day is also good where you all eat out at a local restaurant ......although I don't know if all DAFNE courses do this!

Sounds good to me Nigel as long as it's not McDonalds! A good Indian or anywhere that does a big juicy steak is welcome in my books!

[Loey1953]

Hi Susieg

I am due to go on a DAFNE course on 14 Nov. Looking forward to reading about your experience.

[noblehead]

Sounds good to me Nigel as long as it's not McDonalds! A good Indian or anywhere that does a big juicy steak is welcome in my books!

No not a fan of McDonalds food myself, the group collectively decide where to go and it was unanimous that we go for a Chinese meal

[susieg]

Yes we're all going out on Thursday to the local restaurant for a meal, lovely little country place it is, by a river, smashing!!! Not touched on sick-day rules as yet, all family etc in tomorrow morning.

[susieg]

Well, that's my week over, I can't praise them enough,
I've learned so very much, everything you need to know about carb counting, sick day rules are invaluable! sensible eating, and insulin adjustments - this gave me so much more confidence in adjusting my ratios and background insulin.
My BG's were all over the place last week, but now after reducing my background insulin and tweaking my ratio's I'm getting some nice level readings.
It also dispels some dodgy advice we'd all been given by different sources, I'd always thought that upping your background insulin would lower your overall readings, but was so very wrong. Gone are the hypo's at night, thank's to my reduction in Lantus.

We also brought up the subject of low carbing, It wasn't pooo poo'd as I thought it might be, but put into perspective and we are told the roles that all the food groups played in keeping us healthy. I can look at it all in a different way now.
One thing I do know is that I will form my own opinions as to what to do with my diabetes rather than listen to so many different people who try to bully you into doing it their way!

Over the week we all came good friends and were all of the opinion that it was nice to discuss between ourselves our own problems and that we all knew what it felt like. and pledged to each other we'd all be there for each other, which is so nice!
Looking forward to catching up with everyone on our 6wk review day.

[Belzedar]

@pinkjinks58

Hi, there. I'm interested in that course you did. I had asked my doctor about DAFNE at my last review because it sounded like something I needed. At my review before that one, the internet told me there was a six month waiting list. But this time her boss told me I was ineligible because thought Type 1, I didn't qualify since I was on Humalog 505/50 and my two daily injections didn't really depend on what I was eating.

Nevertheless, I would like to know about carb-counting and how planned exercise affects my insulin dosage.

Thanks in advance for any info you can give me.

[noblehead]

DAFNE is designed for people on a basal/bolus regime.

[Neicy0412]

I have found DAFNE to be fantastic, I did it 3 years ago and to be honest didn't follow it through, after some serious soul searching about my diabetes control I attended a refresher course and this time I am really making an effort, it's not all plain sailing, I am still struggling a little to get my ratios correct, but I am getting there if you take on board all the info, and stick to it, DAFNE can change your life. Good luck

[marcusblack]

Hi there - I have been through the DAFNE course and it really did make a massive difference to me. It has made life so much easier knowing about the ins and outs.

The course itself you have to put into it what you want out - it's no good turning up and asking the course instructors "so what do I need to do to fix it" as the only way things can be fixed is by working out yourself what you need to do - there were a couple of people on my DAFNE course that were like that and they got nothing out of it yet myself and a couple of others got loads from it. You have to work at it and there will be hypos from time to time but it is definitely worthwhile

[Snodger]

DAFNE is designed for people on a basal/bolus regime.

Hi noblehead - can I tweak that answer? It is usually delivered to people on basal/bolus, but it was actually designed for people on 2 injections a day, and there's no real reason why the principles can't still apply to those people.
If anyone is getting turned away because they aren't on basal/bolus, they could try fighting on those grounds and I'm more than happy to dig out some useful academic papers if they're needed.

Snodger (now entering scary final year of PhD on DAFNE...hence my silence of late)...

[noblehead]

Hi noblehead - can I tweak that answer? It is usually delivered to people on basal/bolus, but it was actually designed for people on 2 injections a day, and there's no real reason why the principles can't still apply to those people.
If anyone is getting turned away because they aren't on basal/bolus, they could try fighting on those grounds and I'm more than happy to dig out some useful academic papers if they're needed.

Snodger (now entering scary final year of PhD on DAFNE...hence my silence of late)...

Of course you can Snodger be my guest, let's know how you get on in your final year

[phoenix]

It is usually delivered to people on basal/bolus, but it was actually designed for people on 2 injections a day, and there's no real reason why the principles can't still apply to those people.
If anyone is getting turned away because they aren't on basal/bolus, they could try fighting on those grounds and I'm more than happy to dig out some useful academic papers if they're needed.

would be interesting because I don't see how!
The DAFNE myth presentation reminds people that it can be used with twice daily Isophane and regular at meal times; http://www.dafne.uk.com/uploads/224/doc ... ptions.pdf

[Snodger]

Phoenix - I know, I have always used basal/bolus and I find it hard to imagine how you'd make it work on the other regime, but I suppose lots of the principles still stand. Carb counting's still going to be really useful, understanding the length of action of insulin and how it works is going to be really useful, learning not to over-treat hypos, learning all the stuff about annual review, etc. You'd have to allow for the fact that you are still going to have relatively inflexible amounts of carbs once you've taken your injection and you can't tailor your jab to your carbs, but still good to know how it all works in your body, even if it's less flexible.

Anyway the big studies that gave rise to DAFNE were done with the majority of the participants on 2 jabs a day - this is one of the references, but they don't go into detail about HOW they did it, they just say that they did it:
MÜHLHAUSER, I., JÖRGENS, V., BERGER, M., GRANINGER, W., GÜRTLER, W., HORNKE, L., KUNZ, A., SCHERNTHANER, G., SCHOLZ, V. & VOSS, H. 1983. Bicentric evaluation of a teaching and treatment programme for type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetic patients: improvement of metabolic control and other measures of diabetes care for up to 22 months. Diabetologia, 25, 470-476.

in my research I spoke to some of the people who brought it to the UK and they confirmed that they originally based DAFNE almost totally on this model, just adapted it for UK foods (interestingly, the only thing they added was the healthy eating section. The Germans didn't have that).

[glenmoray]

I've been a diabetic since 1977.On my last check up (last week) I was told that I've got to attend the DAFNE course. What is this course ? I've been use to the portion diet since 1977 and have 200 grams of carbohydrate a day. Will i find the new way of measuring my food intake hard to understand or is it easy?