Very high basal rates

[Jerryshort]

Hi I have been using a Smartguard with a 780g pump with Guardian 4 sensors for about a year now. Over the last 2 months my blood sugars have massive rises between 1pm and 4pm where it goes up to 17 to 18, then very slowly goes back down to 5 or 6 but rises quickly again to over 15 from 7pm to 3am
Smartguard tries to stop these rises as I can see from the clusters of blue corrections, but my blood readings still rise steeply despite these. After getting fed up after putting up with Smartguard’s inability to help, I started switching to manual and found setting my basal rates to 9 or 10 U/hr did seem to slowly bring my sugar levels down. Are these unusually high or do lots of Type 1s use this level of basal rates at all ? I do not have tough skin or bumps and always switch infusion sets and sites when these climbs happen so it’s not that.

 

[In Response]

If you really mean 10 units per hour, if it was constant throughout the day, that would be 240 units a day. Most pump cartridges store 200 units and last 3 days. With that in mind, your dose seems high.
Another comparison is my dose which is, on average 0.6 units per hour. But then I only use 30 units in total per day.

Given the time of your rises, I wonder if you insulin to carb ratio is the problem.

It is important to remember that you need as much insulin as you need and comparisons with other is rarely helpful.

 

[Jerryshort]

Yes, I know it’s very high. My 24hr rate varies between 68U/day in the summer to around 120U/day in the winter. Most of the day it’s around 2.5U/hr except for those massive peaks