Hi Elaine!
I didn't understand it at all at the start either - not sure I really do now TBH! You just sort of get used to it by trial and error really. If the mixed is working well for you, which it does seem to be, then that's great. I wouldn't change a regime that's working. Hopefully it will carry on working for you for some time. I think at the moment you will be producing quite a bit of your own insulin still - probably more since starting on insulin - injecting insulin seems to cause our pancreases to burst back into production for a while - goodness knows why!
Unfortunately, my experience was that although I managed really well and really easily on two shots a day of Insuman basal for a little while, the excellent control I had with that regime didn't last and the Apidra bolus was added to cover meals. That all worked well for a couple of years and then the control got harder so the Insuman was swapped for Levemir - and the control went down hill from there really. Obviously, I don't know if the difficulty of control matched my own insulin production declining or whether Levemir doesn't work very well for me, but it's been a very hard battle to keep my HbA1c good for the last year at least and recently I've really struggled to keep even a modicum of consistency in my BG. I've never tried the mixed insulins, so I am interested in how you get on with them over the next year or so. I know a couple of LADAs who manage really well on just basal and have done so for a few years combined with low-carbing, but one of them has just decided to start using a bolus as his levels are rising. I don't think I know any other LADAs who have used the mixed insulins, so it really is interesting to see how well it seems to be working for you.
Smidge
I didn't understand it at all at the start either - not sure I really do now TBH! You just sort of get used to it by trial and error really. If the mixed is working well for you, which it does seem to be, then that's great. I wouldn't change a regime that's working. Hopefully it will carry on working for you for some time. I think at the moment you will be producing quite a bit of your own insulin still - probably more since starting on insulin - injecting insulin seems to cause our pancreases to burst back into production for a while - goodness knows why!
Unfortunately, my experience was that although I managed really well and really easily on two shots a day of Insuman basal for a little while, the excellent control I had with that regime didn't last and the Apidra bolus was added to cover meals. That all worked well for a couple of years and then the control got harder so the Insuman was swapped for Levemir - and the control went down hill from there really. Obviously, I don't know if the difficulty of control matched my own insulin production declining or whether Levemir doesn't work very well for me, but it's been a very hard battle to keep my HbA1c good for the last year at least and recently I've really struggled to keep even a modicum of consistency in my BG. I've never tried the mixed insulins, so I am interested in how you get on with them over the next year or so. I know a couple of LADAs who manage really well on just basal and have done so for a few years combined with low-carbing, but one of them has just decided to start using a bolus as his levels are rising. I don't think I know any other LADAs who have used the mixed insulins, so it really is interesting to see how well it seems to be working for you.
Smidge