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Amazed and Amazing - Thanks (& quick question)!!!

Trixy,
Pls keep us updated with how you are getting on. I am a newbie to this too so follow your posts with interest! I find it all a bit daunting taking a bg reading and then hoping it is within range !

Well done for getting your levels down.

Mike
 
Hi. I never Bolus for breakfast unless I'm having a hotel-style breakfast! I still produce a little of my own insulin so can avoid a breakfast bolus for my 20g or so of carbs. I do run my overnight once-a-day Levemir shots quite high which provides some cover. If you don't spike beyond 8-9 mmol without the insulin then I wouldn't bother?
 
So for anyone following here's another quick update on the last day.

So as mentioned yesterday lunchtime I was 5.1 pre lunch, spiked to 11.6 2 hours later and 4 hours later was back to 5.8 (this takes me to 16.30). Pre dinner at 19.07 I was 4.2, so starting to get quite low, but this was late for me, I don't usually go from lunch at 12 until after 7 for dinner. Dinner was rice with sauce and turkey pieces (because I was late it was quite and easy), worked this out to be 88g carbs so had 8 units of novorapid. Checked sugar at 21.20, just over 2 hours later and I was 7.3, so happy with that. Checked again at 21.43 pre bed and was sitting at 6.6. At this point I took my usual dose of 14 units levemir. I woke at 6.15 feeling sweaty and cold so checked my blood and was sitting at 1.9! I had some jelly babies. Checked again at 7 at was back up to 5.7. This is my usual get up time so had my levemir (14 units) and breakfast, 30g carbs but I only took 2 units of novorapid as I thought I was quite low and didn't want to take 3, 2 hours later back up to 6.9. The rest of the day continued pretty well, 7.8 before lunch, 8.1 2 hours later, 8.2 before dinner and 2 hours later dropped to 3.7 (8.00pm). So! I'm not quite sure what this says, my thoughts are that Now I've cut out my after dinner snack I might need to look at reducing my night time levemir down from 14, I'm going to try 12 tonight and see how I am in the morning. Theres also been quite a drop from my dinner time, dinner was , 39.6g carbs, as I was sitting at 8.2 I took 5 units, I'm thinking I could probably have got away with 4. This is my day off work though and I have been on the go since 7am this morning so more active than I am on a usual working day

I know it's no where near perfect and I still have a bit of work to do but I'm only 4 day into proper monitoring so it's definite progress from where I was 2 weeks ago. I just need to watch out for the drops and factor in my activity level. I'm recording everything though so will look out for patterns. Apologies for rambling a bit, it helps to get things clear in my own head if I write it all down.

As always if anyone has any thoughts or tips I'd be happy to hear :-)
 
Number 1: well done for taking action and control you are doing really well you should be proud of yourself!

I also watch the carbs I'm eating and try and keep them low I know everyone is different but if that was me and my bloods were 7.2 I would eat 3g of carbs with me eggs and taken 1 unit of insulin. This is because 1 unit roughly drops me by 3 so would take me down to 4.2 therefore if I ate 3g of carbs that would bring me up by 1 hopefully to 5.2 which is perfect. I don't need to inject for protein though and I'm on a 1unit : 10g ratio. Hope that helps xx
 
Also like me you are in your early days so could be honeymooning that might explain the big drop that you didn't expect over night (your body produced some insulin itself)
I say it's my early days but thinking about it it's been 10 months now... How time flys!!! X
 
Me again... I think it takes 2/3 days for the change in your basal to take proper effect so don't expect a change straight away :) xx
 
Great progress Trixy. Little hint: can you tabulate the times and BGs (for you not us). It'll make the trends clearer. Then you can graph them I think from spreadsheet, no?

That makes sense out of all the random-seeming figures, and you can see trends.
 
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seems that your investment is paying off ! How are you finding adjusting to a low carb diet, it all makes sense less carbs , less insulin less work for the body to adjust bg.Mentally I am finding it difficult to cut out bread but have cut back.

You are giving me confidence adjusting my insulin knowing that you are doing something similar., keep posting please!!!
 
So far the less carbs has been easy. I downloaded the myfitnesspal app a while ago and I've started using it again to record everything (I also have one to record my sugar readings/insulin doses as well as a notepad and excel spreadsheet - I'm a bit obsessed!!) Before starting fresh this month I was averaging about 180-190g of carbs a day, this week I've been about 75-85g (I know for some thats not low carb but for me it is, and I'm only a week in so don't want to overdo it)! I don't feel like I have less energy and I'm not starving myself. I used to be a huge night eater, I'd have my dinner then binge on chocolate but I've stopped that as well, just now I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and a snack mid afternoon and I don't feel hungry. The difference in insulin requirement is amazing as well. Prior to starting this I wasn't carb counting so can't compare exactly but I used to average about 12-14 units per meal (so about 36-42 units novorapid a day) and still have crazy high all over the place blood, yesterday as an example I had 17 units of novorapid in total and my blood never went above 8.2! My biggest challange is the learning to cook haha. I am hopeless in the kitchen and my fridge is currently filled with fruit and veg I've never seen before in my life! But I downloaded the meal planners from here and figured even I can follow a recipe!

I still have a long journey but I'm encouraged by the results so far. As a fellow newbie I'm interested in your journey as well so please keep posting so I can see how your getting on. :-)
 
Hi Trixy, congratulations on your progress. I hope you are encouraged; you are doing great. One thing that you could immediately work out from those results is how carbs effect your blood sugars. If you use your hypo and jelly baby event in the morning you should be able to do that. Work out what the carbs were for the jelly babies and then look at the change in blood sugars; X carbs raised your blood sugars by 3.8. (5.7 - 1.9).

You can then use that to correct lows or hypos without over correcting and running high.

Also keep in mind that Novorapid takes about 4 hours to be out of your system. When you went to bed the night before the hypo you don't know what your blood sugars were doing; but it seems likely that they were decreasing and kept decreasing over night. I find my evening ratio is different to my morning ratio; so I need less insulin at night than I do in the day.

In no time you'll be advising people on here how to do all this!

Best

Dillinger
 
I think it helps that I work in finance so I have a very analytical brain. The poor dietician on Monday was laughing at me as she tried to tell me "round about x" was good enough when my brain wants to complete the full formula and be exact, I don't work with round about x being fine!
 
Trixy83 said:
I think it helps that I work in finance so I have a very analytical brain. The poor dietician on Monday was laughing at me as she tried to tell me "round about x" was good enough when my brain wants to complete the full formula and be exact, I don't work with round about x being fine!
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Get spreadsheeting then! :-)
 
I count each egg as 4g of carbs..so I would just work the eqquivalent out for yourself as to how much that would be.
 
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Those are really good reading @jack412

Quick question if anyone can answer. I don't want to get ahead of myself so it's more for awareness and knowledge than to implement at the moment. Just now I'm purely focussed on carbs, I'll worry about protein/fat later (unless I notice it becoming an issue). But can anyone advise what is classed as 'high' protein and when you would think about looking at this? Total random figures but say something was 15g carbs and 60g protein, would you include the protein value for this versus something say 60g carbs 30g protein?

I apologise for the million questions, I'm one of those need to know everything folk!
 
Nutritional calculator : http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/33614154.php

Kind Brunneria pointed me to this and I never looked back. I go for 15% or about 80g a day protein. Most LCHFs aim about the same.

Edit: oh I may have misunderstood your q. I wouldn't usually eat 60g protein, it's v high. But if I did, Id definitely treat 15 carb and 60 protein as equivalent to something like 40 carb.
 
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