D
Deleted member 99312
Guest
Am I the only one who has struggles like this? I am really struggling to figure out my insulin to carb ratios. I know it varies for everyone and you should keep records of what and when you eat, how much insulin you used, what your blood sugar was before and after etc. I've done all that extensively. I've just been told I have background retinopathy, after having had no signs of retinopathy in the previous seven years since I was first diagnosed as diabetic. And despite having had a decent hba1c each year. A few months ago mine was 5.9%. Not perfect but you would hope that as a relatively new diabetic it would be good enough to avoid retinopathy. I do have occasional high blood sugar and more regularly I have brief and mild hypos. I wondered which of these, or both, are causing the retinopathy (I know it could also just be one of those things and not necessarily related to my blood sugar control. But nonetheless I figure it would be prudent to have another look at my methodology and diet to see if I am doing everything as well as I could and should be). I know that low blood sugar can be dangerous to eyes just as high blood sugar is. Some of my lows have been very low, doesn't happen often but who knows, maybe these are causing a lot of damage.
Here's the sort of thing I just find baffling. Firstly I usually find my numbers going high after eating in the mornings. My numbers on waking are good almost every time, so I believe my basal is correct. But after eating, the numbers can be seemingly anything they feel like being. The first thing I tried when really struggling with morning numbers was eating nothing whatsoever, but my numbers could still be 2-3 higher as presumably the liver 'helpfully' dumped glucose into my blood for me. So I read about this and I see that eating nothing is not a good idea and doesn't work anyway. So I think okay, low carb then? High fat low carb yogurt? Or zero carb eggs? Nope, doing that or even just eggs still results in a rise - a bigger one.
For example, yesterday I had a small breakfast with 21g carbs, which was a greek yogurt, two eggs and one piece of toast with olive spread. If I were to eat such a small meal later in the day or especially the evening, this would only need two units of insulin.
Normally my blood sugar in the morning is really stubborn and the only way to even keep it from rising after 2-3 hours is to take a much larger dose than I would need the rest of the day. So I had been just taking 10u regardless, as this worked better than trying to figure out a proper ratio. Usually this would keep my number down to more or less where it had begun the day, or with a small rise.
So yesterday I was 7.2 before eating - higher than ideal as it gave me little room for a rise. I'd prefer to be around 5. I took 10u. Just over two hours later it was 3.3. This was very surprising to me as my blood sugar is usually very stubborn about going down in the morning at all. I would have been happy for it to have not risen over 7.2 (or risen and gone back to 7.2 at least). But here was a big drop and of course I wasn't happy it had gone below 4.0 either. I corrected the low and for the rest of the day used my normal 1:10 ratio and all was fine, numbers were in the normal range for the rest of the day.
This morning I was 5.5. I ate exactly the same breakfast. I did exactly the same amount of physical activity. Mindful that I was low yesterday after taking 10u, today I took 6u instead. So after 2.5 hours I check my blood sugar and it is 8.9. So how on Earth are you supposed to figure out the correct ratio when it is this wildly inconsistent? This isn't a one-off inconsistency either, it's par for the course. Going high is typical, yesterday's low was the outlier. I hardly ever go lower at all in the morning, never mind into hypo territory.
Bear in mind that 21g of carbs even if NO insulin at all was taken, shouldn't have raised my levels to more than 7.5 or so. But even with 6u of rapid insulin it took them to 8.9?
It is hard not to be despondent at how random it all seems. I can learn any system but if it is this random, I don't know what to do. All I can do is tolerate the random low or high numbers and hope for the best re my future hopes for keeping my eyesight I suppose?
btw, I am not overweight, and both my cholesterol and blood pressure are fine, so I was told a few months ago at my last annual checkup. I don't smoke or drink.
Here's the sort of thing I just find baffling. Firstly I usually find my numbers going high after eating in the mornings. My numbers on waking are good almost every time, so I believe my basal is correct. But after eating, the numbers can be seemingly anything they feel like being. The first thing I tried when really struggling with morning numbers was eating nothing whatsoever, but my numbers could still be 2-3 higher as presumably the liver 'helpfully' dumped glucose into my blood for me. So I read about this and I see that eating nothing is not a good idea and doesn't work anyway. So I think okay, low carb then? High fat low carb yogurt? Or zero carb eggs? Nope, doing that or even just eggs still results in a rise - a bigger one.
For example, yesterday I had a small breakfast with 21g carbs, which was a greek yogurt, two eggs and one piece of toast with olive spread. If I were to eat such a small meal later in the day or especially the evening, this would only need two units of insulin.
Normally my blood sugar in the morning is really stubborn and the only way to even keep it from rising after 2-3 hours is to take a much larger dose than I would need the rest of the day. So I had been just taking 10u regardless, as this worked better than trying to figure out a proper ratio. Usually this would keep my number down to more or less where it had begun the day, or with a small rise.
So yesterday I was 7.2 before eating - higher than ideal as it gave me little room for a rise. I'd prefer to be around 5. I took 10u. Just over two hours later it was 3.3. This was very surprising to me as my blood sugar is usually very stubborn about going down in the morning at all. I would have been happy for it to have not risen over 7.2 (or risen and gone back to 7.2 at least). But here was a big drop and of course I wasn't happy it had gone below 4.0 either. I corrected the low and for the rest of the day used my normal 1:10 ratio and all was fine, numbers were in the normal range for the rest of the day.
This morning I was 5.5. I ate exactly the same breakfast. I did exactly the same amount of physical activity. Mindful that I was low yesterday after taking 10u, today I took 6u instead. So after 2.5 hours I check my blood sugar and it is 8.9. So how on Earth are you supposed to figure out the correct ratio when it is this wildly inconsistent? This isn't a one-off inconsistency either, it's par for the course. Going high is typical, yesterday's low was the outlier. I hardly ever go lower at all in the morning, never mind into hypo territory.
Bear in mind that 21g of carbs even if NO insulin at all was taken, shouldn't have raised my levels to more than 7.5 or so. But even with 6u of rapid insulin it took them to 8.9?
It is hard not to be despondent at how random it all seems. I can learn any system but if it is this random, I don't know what to do. All I can do is tolerate the random low or high numbers and hope for the best re my future hopes for keeping my eyesight I suppose?
btw, I am not overweight, and both my cholesterol and blood pressure are fine, so I was told a few months ago at my last annual checkup. I don't smoke or drink.