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Got myself in a pickle

Lucie75

Lucie75

Well-Known Member
Messages
302
Location
Bristol
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Hi all,

I've been on a pump for a month or so and over the last couple of weeks have got myself a bit worked up over the fact that my blood sugars are not always doing what I want/expect them to do. I was warned on here that it is a mistake for new pump users to expect it to make our blood sugars perfect and a lot of new users become quite disappointed when all doesn't go to plan. So, in all, I was/am well aware of that pitfall. Nevertheless, with the combination of my bg crashing at least once a day, while still having more than a couple of units of insulin on board (e.g. this evening my bg was 2.9 and I still had 3.7 units active), together with not being able to get in touch with my pump nurse I felt more than a little disheartened because despite all the warnings, I DID expect to see reduced instances of hypos.

Anyway, my nurse eventually phoned me today (after I have left message after message for her since Christmas), I explained this issue I'm having. I've been keeping quite a comprehensive record of everything for the last day or two so I will keep doing that for the next 10 days and then go to see my dsn with all the info. Hopefully I'll just have to adjust either my ratio or my insulin sensitivity factor. My pump obviously calculates according to the set rates and I can only think that one of these must be wrong.

Thanks for reading - problem shared problem halved and all that...
 
don't get to worried about it, once you've got your 10 days record and see your dsn, hopefully, things can tweaked a bit and stop those hypos.

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Much improved now. I am totally confident about what's going on with my blood sugars. I saw my dsn and she advised I adjust my i:c ratio as well as reduce one of my basal rates. It seems to have solved the problem, although I still think another of my ratios needs to be altered. I love the fact that we are totally in control of all these sorts of things and making tiny adjustments can make a world of difference. Something which will take more time to get the hang of is how a small amount of activity (such as walking the short distance to school every afternoon) needs a basal reduction. This is fine for activity which you do everyday but for unplanned activity I'm finding that I don't ever do a large enough temp basal reduction or for long enough. I guess this is where you learn from your mistakes.
 
Activitys are hard to manage, but possible...
Everybody used to tell me to do a tbr... However if you dont know how long these activitys are going to last or if they are spur of the moment ones then I found that a 17g yumyum from M&S is fantastic for me to have. Doing a tbr just before exercise with me is useless as by that the time that TBR kicks in I could already be low. So now (I do gardening in 4 hour slots) I have half a yum yum pre start and 1/2 2 hours later. The balance of fat in the yum yums works fantastic for me. However, I am lean and muscly, so a yum yum on days I work at 17g carb is also a treat that I love.

You will find the balance for you, but it won't be instant!! -lol!!

Well done....


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