Fasting basal rates - How long ?

[Mr Whippy]

Hi everyone.

I'm T1 on a pump for around 3 months now, and I've decided it's time to start fine tuning the thing, and I'm starting doing my fasting basal rate testing.

Reading up in my "think like a pancreas" book, and also from a fact sheet my pump nurse has given me, it says to split the day into 3 or 4 sections, and do one each day.

Maybe I'm just getting too "into it" but once I've done the morning fast I think - "Well, I might as well carry on, and so on etc. until I've clocked a fasting 24 hours worth of BG readings to base my basal changes on. (Get the hunger and aggro out of the way in one session)

Does anyone have any opinion if this is a bad idea or should I definitely be breaking it down into 3 or 4 blocks ? Is there any reason that data collected over a longer period would not be accurate (assuming no hypos or very high sugars)?

Thanks - Dave.

 

[sugar2]

Hello..

following is my opinion, not claiming it to be fact!

i can't se any reason why a 24 hour fast would not be OK...although I am not 100% sure whether your liver behaves normally in a state of fast. I think they split the day into 3 (in my pump guide it is even smaller chunks) becasue some people (me! for one!0 could not actually fast for 24 hours.

Like evetrything, it is trial and error, and if you levels stay constant for 24 hours, your basal is probably right...if it goes up and down at various times...I would tweak the rate at one of the ose times, and then redo teh fast in a few days to see if the tweaking worked, and then focus on teh next period of time that needs attention.

Good luck

 

[cugila]

Fasting for 24 hrs doesn't seem to be what you should be doing. There would obviously be attendant dangers of severe hypoglycaemia whilst doing so. You should discuss what you plan with your HCP's first.

Here is a link to a Hospital document which explains the procedure, take a read:

http://www.gloshospitals.org.uk/ppi/lea ... PI0939.pdf

Extract:

Test the basal rate at night first. Once you have the correct over night basal rate set you can move on to testing the basal rates in the first part of the day. Test basal rates in sections of the day
rather than test for whole day. Remember; optimising your basal rates is key to optimising your pump.

I hope we get a few more experienced 'pumpers' along to give their views.

Ken

 

[Mr Whippy]

Thanks for the input.

I've now done two testing periods of 24 hrs measuring at least once per hour, and another one of around 20 hours. (not on consecutive days though !)

With such regular testing there's not much danger of a major hypo coming on without you knowing about it, obviously you break the fast if it looks like it's going to go much below 4.5.

I had plenty of swings in BG, after each test I made a few changes and now I'm getting a fair bit less variability in fasting sugars but there's still some way to go before I get it bang on. However, now I reckon I'm getting fairly close to where I should be and there's not so much urgency so I think I'll start splitting the day down into smaller chunks as previously advised.

On the plus side due to the fasting my weight has dropped by 6lbs in just over a week

Thanks again - Dave.