At what difference in blood glucose would you say your ratio was right?

[staffsmatt]

Hi All,

I've been gradually increasing my lunchtime ratio all week trying to get my pre tea reading as close as I can to my pre lunch level and was just wondering what rise from pre lunch to pre tea would you be happy with, given that there is so much that can impact levels that getting it back to the exact same level every time probably is't possible?

I seem to keep incresing mine for about a week and then suddenly I'll be going really low mid afternoon and have to drop them by quite a lot again, without ever having them working quite right, only to start the pattern all over again. It's really frustrating! I'm waiting for a referal to a diabetes clinic so they should be able to advise but just wondered if people accept a mmol or 2 increase?

Cheers

Matt

 

[slip]

So long as my before and after meal results are within my limits then I'm happy.

Bare in mind you could do and eat exactly what your did the day before (how boring would that be!) and still end up with differing results - don't get fixated on the numbers, so long as they stay within reason and you can work out why its slightly higher/lower than expected sometimes don't worry too much about it.

"I've been gradually increasing my lunchtime ratio all week trying to get my pre tea reading as close as I can to my pre lunch level and was just wondering what rise from pre lunch to pre tea would you be happy with, given that there is so much that can impact levels that getting it back to the exact same level every time probably is't possible?" And yes I'd say it is impossible every time!

 

[staffsmatt]

So long as my before and after meal results are within my limits then I'm happy.

Bare in mind you could do and eat exactly what your did the day before (how boring would that be!) and still end up with differing results - don't get fixated on the numbers, so long as they stay within reason and you can work out why its slightly higher/lower than expected sometimes don't worry too much about it.

Sounds like good advice to me. Just need to get the before meals level down a bit now!

 

[noblehead]

I'd be inclined to do a basal test first Matt, if you eat breakfast and start testing 4 hours postprandial (and miss lunch & bolus) your bg levels should stay within 1.6mmol/l if your basal dose is correct, if it is then you can then look at your I:C ratio's, but @slip is right, if your pre-tea levels fall within your bg target range then you have nothing to worry about..

 

[iHs]

I usually use the advice that a DSN would recommend and that would be.....6mmol before eating a main meal and then allow a rise no more than 3mmol 2.5hrs later which should then fall back to around 5-6mmol towards the end of the acting time of most bolus insulins. If bg was 8.5 to 9mmol mid way, then I would not eat a snack but if it was 6 to 7.5mmol mid way, then I would eat a small snack without bolus to allow for the IOB to soak up otherwise I would end up experiencing a mild to moderate hypo about 1hr before the acting time had finished.

 

[staffsmatt]

I'm fairly sure my basal is correct (at least I'm certain that if I dro pit one I'll go high during the day and if I raise it one I'll go low during the night so it's as right as it's going to be!

Had an interesting couple of days though that I thought I'd share (at the risk of hijacking my own thread)...:

Wednesday:

Thursday:


On the plus side I'm currently at 5.8 which is bang on where I want to be, not sure I'd want to repeat the same steps to get there again though! I'm thinking that if I have a larger amount of bolus it goes in a lot slower (i've looked back over my results and every time that I've had a particularly nasty low that I can't really explain it's been after a larger than normal dose of Apidra ~ 5 hours previously....

Tomorrow I'm going to try having smaller meals and snacks through the day (I am determined to be able to have snacks gosh darned it!)

Oh the reason for the 2 checks close together in the morning is to cover me the 2 hours the DVLA want for driving, the first one would fall about 20 minutes short!

CHeers for reading!