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Basal Testing

dtennant9

Well-Known Member
Messages
715
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Well I did my first ever Basal Testing last night. My DSN said to do it two nights to see the effect of any changes but I'm pretty sure I don't need to make any changes, maybe somebody with more experience can advise.

My results were as follows:
00:25 - 9.1
03:00 - 9.4
06:00 - 8.6
08:30 - 7.5

The only change I could think of was reducing slightly between 5 and 7 due to the results getting lower but I'm still within 1.7 of my starting figure.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Personally I would not be running that high so for me personally I would look at that lot and think what level am I supposed to be at and make the adjustment to bring the lot down.
 
I'm in total agreement that they should be lower. I think some of my carb ratios are a bit out but we're targeting the basal rates first. The pump would have suggested a slight correction but obviously I didn't want any Bolus on board when doing the test.
 
Good luck with all this....

Tonight just in case you are not sure what to adjust, I would say eat yr evening meal no later than 5pm (low carb might be a good idea) and then that will enable the bolus to expire for 10pm. Next bit is adjust the 10pm basal rate upwards so that yr midnight bg will be lower but dont adijust the basal for the midnight, just test again at 3am and then use the midnight bg and the 3am one to adjust the basal so that on Sunday night when you do a basal test again, you'll get better bg levels from midnight to 3am and then, leave the 3am one alone and test bg again at 6am and adjust the 3am basal upwards so that the 6am bg will be lower. Do the basal test again on Monday night and with any luck your bg levels will be more in line

How much do you adjust?..... this depends on what you want yr overnight bg levels to be. My target is 6-7mmol but you can decide on yours through your DSN input. A word of warning.....bg levels do change even with a pump and basal rate testing so dont adjust your target to be too low as bg can change and go down as it can up. Look at Gary Scheiners basal rate adjustment guide and print it out and look at the table listing the adjustments

All the best
 
Yeah at the moment we're just trying to make sure that I stay level throughout the night which I wasn't far off.
At the moment I am running a little higher the majority of the time until I start getting tighter control. This is all quite new to me as I never did Basal testing before. I'm hoping to start a couple of the daytime tests this week which I think I'll find more tricky.
I've been on 0.675 u/hr from midnight to 6am but have reduced this to midnight to 5am from tonight reverting to 0.650 u/hr at 5am on account of me going down more around 6am.
 
Sounds like you've got a good handle on it. Only thing I would point out, remember that you need to adjust the basal rate an hour or two before you want the effect of the the change, so if you are going up around 6am, make a change around 4am.

I'm reasonably happy with my rates at the moment, but still want to do a few more basal tests just to make sure.

Have you done any bolus ratio tests yet?
 

No they want me to do all the basal tests first. Getting a bit down with having worse control than I had but I'll get there soon.
 
Your levels were good during testing...

I take it that you didn't do any corrections? If you did, then your correction rate needs to be adjusted.


If your levels had been 6.0 pre bed you would have had perfection to be honest...a slight adjustment possibly needed 2 hours before ur levels started to change, but nothing major!

Its getting your levels lower pre bed that you need, bedtime if you had been a 6 would have been acceptable and pretty good n safe to sleep..
 

Yeah they're more interested in my basal rates at the moment and have the targets in my pump set quite high at the moment.

Have made the change from tonight so we'll see what happens. Had one of the other nights where I started going up at 6am, the opposite to last night.

No corrections, my last Bolus yesterday was 6pm.

Not looking forward to missing meals for the daytime tests but want to get them done now to get my Basal rates sorted. I'll get there!
 
Morning ones not too bad as just missing breakfast (that I never used to eat.. But do now). The afternoon testing always a bummmer with me as have to have breakfast and thats it till 10 -12 hrs later.. Whilst I just prefer to have a really late brunch if (put out for me)... 1pm ish...Then dinner at 6pm ish.. Without that 1pmish snack I do miss it. Albeit only a ramekin of berries....

I don't understand to be honest why they set ranges artificially high?? Just means prolongued getting used to!!!!

Thankfully I had help from another person and completely over rode every target n setting I was given and gained all knoedge to reason out tbe actions taken... My appt was 1 week later and I pretty much had reasons for every change made.

Wouldn't have done it without the help of iHs tho.....
 
dtennant9 said:
No they want me to do all the basal tests first. Getting a bit down with having worse control than I had but I'll get there soon.
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It can take a couple of months or more in some cases to sort the basal out, so don't panic about it Your team is quite right in wanting basal sorted first. If the basal isn't right then it's difficult to sort out anything else. Also changing one thing at time is the most important thing to remember, as changing everything and anything just clouds the issue and you wont have a clue what works and what doesn't.
You have to learn patience and a new game called sit on handies so you are not tempted to change to much
 

Yeah they keep saying only change one thing at a time.

I've heard donnellysdogs say before that pumps aren't the easy option over MDI, I can see why now.
 

All going well I'm going to do the breakfast one on Monday/Tuesday as I'm relatively happy with overnight.
 
I again did opposite to what my team wanted (able to explain my reasoning to them). I had people with me at night... But it was daytime (almost losing my licence) that was my difficult times, so I changed my day rates as a pririty as it was obvious that I had DP and that caused me absolute grief.....

Good to get one thing sorted at a time...basal testing is important for initial starting up of a pump....
 
I must have been quite lucky in that case in that I hardly had to change my rates at all. Just a slight reduction for a few hours overnight
 
Mine were awful... But my life was different from morning to afternoons to evenings.. Same now, mornings always very physical till about 2pm, then less till 6pm then back physical again... It all impacts on levels throughout the day....
 
The overnight tests were fine with the exception of having to wake up.

The daytime fasting is not so much fun. This is my second day of missing breakfast and I'm hungry

Not to worry, all for the greater good
 
dtennant9 said:
The overnight tests were fine with the exception of having to wake up.

The daytime fasting is not so much fun. This is my second day of missing breakfast and I'm hungry

Not to worry, all for the greater good
Click to expand...
Ever fancied SF jelly for breakfast to fill the gap? If so make up some Hartley's SF and consume that Make sure it's Hartley's though as some other makes are not carb free.
 
CarbsRok said:
Ever fancied SF jelly for breakfast to fill the gap? If so make up some Hartley's SF and consume that Make sure it's Hartley's though as some other makes are not carb free.
Click to expand...

I'll maybe give that a go.

They did say I could have a small protein based snack such as a boiled egg or omelette but I wasn't too sure so have just had some water.
 
dtennant9 said:
I'll maybe give that a go.

They did say I could have a small protein based snack such as a boiled egg or omelette but I wasn't too sure so have just had some water.
Click to expand...
Def do not use eggs or any other protein on it's own as blood sugar goes up and spoils the basal test. SF Jelly is fine as just water really.
 
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