Hi Gazza
If you can get onto a DAFNE course, do it, it teaches you everything about carbohydrates and insulin.
How many times a day do you test your blood sugar? Do you test before meals and before bed time?
I am also a Type1 diabetic - 32yrs but I'm afraid that I don't agree with the advise that Tracey69 has given you about two hour testing after you have eaten - this all depends on what insulin you take.
This is advise given by DAFNE:
Soluable insulin i.e. Actrapid/Humulin S Hypurin Porcine Neutral when injected begins to have a glucose lowering effect within 30 minutes, it peaks between 2-4 hours after injection and can affect the blood glucose level for up to 8hrs.
Quick Acting Analogue Insulin i.e. Humalog/NovoRapid/Apidra works very quickly, less than 15 minutes after the injection, peaks between 50-90 minutes and may continue to affect the blood glucose level for 2-5hrs.
So if you can imagine you have eaten, you inject and inbetween the 2-4/5hrs your blood glucose is/has risen/rising so a 2 hour test after eating will probably show a high reading, cause you to worry, maybe take extra insulin which could lead to a hypo.
I am on NovoRapid and find that a 4hr gap gives a good indication on whether I have calculated the carbohydrates with the correct amount of insulin. I won't go in to anymore detail about insulin correction because if you get on a DAFNE course you will learn about that.
Sarah