rmz80
Well-Known Member
I’ve been trying to improve on a situation with carb counting that has been driving me nuts i.e. a small number of carbs needs a different ratio than a high number of carbs to get a good post meal BG result (even when I’ve double checked my adding up). The situation is even weirder; as below a certain level of carbs I don’t need any insulin!
Fortunately I bought a GCSE Maths book last year which gave some examples similar to this. It’s called a slope/intercept form. This sounds complicated but you’ll have probably used this at junior school (without the fancy name).
If you get some graph paper and draw an insulin unit scale along the bottom of the graph and grams of carb up the side of the graph. Then mark each known good BG result you have available on the graph. You then draw a straight line that best fits all your readings you’ll then end up with this slope/intercept form graph which can be used as a lookup for any value of carbs.
In my case; this creates a lookup which gives a different ratio of insulin for low carb counts e.g. 14 gram of carb for each insulin unit at 75 carbs and 9 gram of carb to each insulin unit at 140 gram of carbs. It also gives a start point where no insulin units are needed (this must be the body still making a small amount of insulin. In my case; this at the 42 g carb mark (the intercept)).
This also partly explains something that applies to me. I don’t need insulin for breakfast meal (normally about 10 g carb) or lunch (normally about 50g carb), just the evening meal which is usually 90-120g carb. I was also diagnosed as Type 1 not Type 2 diabetes and do not use a long acting insulin as a base. Perhaps this graph proves the diagnosis wrong.
The idea of just using a constant ratio for all value of carbs and where the start of the graph is always at 0 is perhaps an over simplification of a real world process.
What do people think of this method?
Fortunately I bought a GCSE Maths book last year which gave some examples similar to this. It’s called a slope/intercept form. This sounds complicated but you’ll have probably used this at junior school (without the fancy name).
If you get some graph paper and draw an insulin unit scale along the bottom of the graph and grams of carb up the side of the graph. Then mark each known good BG result you have available on the graph. You then draw a straight line that best fits all your readings you’ll then end up with this slope/intercept form graph which can be used as a lookup for any value of carbs.
In my case; this creates a lookup which gives a different ratio of insulin for low carb counts e.g. 14 gram of carb for each insulin unit at 75 carbs and 9 gram of carb to each insulin unit at 140 gram of carbs. It also gives a start point where no insulin units are needed (this must be the body still making a small amount of insulin. In my case; this at the 42 g carb mark (the intercept)).
This also partly explains something that applies to me. I don’t need insulin for breakfast meal (normally about 10 g carb) or lunch (normally about 50g carb), just the evening meal which is usually 90-120g carb. I was also diagnosed as Type 1 not Type 2 diabetes and do not use a long acting insulin as a base. Perhaps this graph proves the diagnosis wrong.
The idea of just using a constant ratio for all value of carbs and where the start of the graph is always at 0 is perhaps an over simplification of a real world process.
What do people think of this method?