Finding the elusive pattern

[petsnponies]

Hi all!

Does anyone here struggle to find a pattern with their blood sugars? I'm really trying to improve things for myself and part of that has involved writing down more. I now write down my blood readings (pre and post meal, before bed and during the night), I write down carbs eaten, insulin taken, exercise done. I'm even keeping a food diary. And looking back over my last 2 weeks results I can see numerous examples of me eating the same thing, same insulin, same exercise, etc and yet the variation in blood sugars from day to day is wild.

For example,

Yesterday I woke up at 9.3. I had a slice of burgen toast with peanut butter. I took 9 units of insulin. and one hour after my reading was 7.8.
TODAY I wake up again at 9.3. I had a slice of burgen toast with peanut butter. I took 9 units of insulin and then went for a walk. My post meal reading (2 hours) is 9.7. What? Surely it should be lower because of the exercise??

There are numerous examples of this throughout my last couple of weeks records and I just don't know what to do. How can you possibly do this without being able to predict what your body is going to throw at you next?

 

[Engineer88]

I would look at your next reading - what was that? you will find the insulin is still working at 2 hours post. its useful for finding how much food spikes you but I dont read too much into it.

 

[Spiker]

You need to compare post meal values at the same number of hours after the meal. Testing after just one hour is bordering on meaningless. After 2 hours, if you are on insulin, is only useful for spotting hypos or foods that give you a high GI type of response. The crucial time for figuring out patterns would be 4-5 hours post meal. Often, this is before the next meal. Insulin bolus dose adjustments should only be made based on this +4 hour reading.

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[Spiker]

A walk won't have much of an effect on your blood sugar, particularly if you are used to that level of exercise.

Also if you are waking up at 9.3 each day you might want to increase your overnight basal dose. In turn that might minimise your problems during the day. With 9.3 as your morning reading, did you also take a correction dose in the morning?

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