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Completely confused with ratios and in 'I give up' mode!

jessie

jessie

Well-Known Member
Messages
275
Location
Gloucestershire
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi there,

I have just completed a REACT carb counting course (my HBA1C has always been great but mainly because I have lots of highs and lows) - I was hoping to work out my ratios and in turn get the Expert Metre to take control of my blood sugars again.

I just can't seem to get it right, I can eat the same number of carbs at the same time of day, take the same doses and still end up too high or too low.

I'm currently experimenting with a ratio of 1-5 (which I think is a lot?) but still getting highs sometimes. I take 10 units of Lantus also, every evening.

Before I had my little family I felt totally in control as I had the time to put into my diet. I low carbed and barely injected, I spent a lot of time buying lovely expensive food and creating yummy dishes which I simply can't fit into my lifestyle any more. It's so much easier to have a sandwich for lunch!

Can anybody give me any advice please, I am currently burying my head in the sand in a chocolate eating frenzy!

Many thanks. :)
 
Start with your basal and make sure that is right, without doing so all else fails I'm afraid.
 
Well basically with basal testing you just eat a low-fat meal and start testing your bg levels 4 hours later, it's at this point that the QA insulin has worn off and your food has digested and won't interfere with your bg readings, you then skip the next meal ( and insulin) and observe.

So if your bg reading is around 7 say after 4 hours then it shouldn't budge much more than 1 mmol if your basal insulin is right, therefore if you ate breakfast you would then skip lunch and test every 1-2 hours to see what your bg is doing, come tea-time you can eat again and repeat the exercise again the following day missing another meal.

There's some, and probably better explanations of basal testing on the web, just Google to find out more.
 
Good advice from Noblehead but for basal testing you need a zero carb meal or skip a meal altogether.
What may also be useful once you get your basal right is to keep a detailed diary noting all BG levels, carbs and insulin. Try to stick with a few meals of known carb context until you sort your ratio's out. You may find these also vary throughout the day. Some people have different ratios at weekends too. Put the groundwork in for a week or two and hopefully this will pay dividends later on. Good luck, Mo

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Thanks very much all!

So I'll start with the basal testing... and go from there.

Daibell I'm I'm currently just under 9 stone so my BMI is OK. I do like my food though, skipping meals for the basal testing will be a challenge, ha ha.

Thanks again.
 
Hi Jessie

The problem with diabetes is that it is never simple :( like you said, taking the same insulin at the same time with the same meal can yield different results. One thing that helped me a lot was to drastically reduce my carbs (which in turn meant drastically reducing my insulin) so there was less room for error with the Insulin I was taking.
 
I agree, there are just too many factors to get your head round - I never had any problems when I did the low carb thing!

Thanks for the great links Jack - I will have a good read.

Jessie.
 
Jessie, if it helps just continue to count carbs in grams rather than CP's, it does take some getting your head round it if you've been diagnosed a long time
 
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