Pump and basal rate changes

Hi

It really depends on when you see the specific change in your blood sugars. for example if its only evenings that you see an increase in blood sugars then change your settings to comply with this time frame. if however you find that during working hours in the week you are goin low then you will need to decrease your basal rates to co incide with your working hours. look at how the change from your week day differs from your weekends and work out what time these changes occur this is when the cahnges in your settings should occur. there is no use sticking to the same profile pattern if it does not correspond with any relevant change in your activity.

heres an example: during the week you have set up a profile that takes in to consideration how active you may be at work and has a pattern that works during nine to five but with an increase in basal from 5 through till 10pm lets say to compensate for your evening relaxation.

however lets say on a wednesday only you go to a martial arts class between 6pm and 8pm for this you could create a secondary profile on your pump that keeps your work settings the same but drops the basal down 1 hour prior to going to the martial arts class and then resumes to its normal dose some three hours later compensating for your increased level of activity and its after effect.

the next day (thursday) you can revert back to your normal working profile to coincide with your routine activity.

Hope this helps

2 year pump user (very happy with vastly improved blood sugar readings)

Kindest Regards

Jon

I have found that with my pump i have a profile set that generically speaking works for a wide spectrum of daily activity ranging from going to work or going shopping with my wife to taking my baby girl to the park. however when im running out my bouncy castles for hire the energy exerted requires me to switch to alternate profiles for short periods these profiles may have exactly the same time frames attached but the value of insulin reduced - for example my current all round profile goes as follows: from 12 midnight to 10am i have a fixed rate 0f 0.75 units per hour at 10 am through till 12midnight it is fixed at 0.80 units per hour this has proven to work for my build type (stick thin and stupidly under weight lol) however my profile for heavy exercise is from 8am till 7pm 0.65 units per hour then from 7pm it goes up to 0.8 units per hour until 11pm when it drops to 0.70 until 8am again. however i only use this second profile when i know im going to be using up lots of energy relevant to my day. what i mean is the 0.8 units per hour at 7pm until 11pm is because of relaxing and taking an evening meal around this sorta time. but then going to bed just after 11pm means i no longer need the 0.8 units and have gone for a reduction down to 0.7 not only to prevent me from going hypo in the night but also to allow for the after effects of heavy exercise which could last a good few hours even after youve stopped exercising.

you can use temporary basal rates for shorter periods of time lets say an unforseen run from A to B that was more exercise than normal you can drop your basal rate to accomodate for it on a temporary bases and not have to change your settings for your day to day profiles.

the best way (unfortunately) is to fast and take lots of blood tests to identify your natural peaks and troughs in your blood sugars. they say doing one every 2 hours n thats fine but if your worried about hour on hour changes you may need to take more than one test every two hours. its a pain because of the pain involved in testing so often. however i know of other people on my course whos profiles look like a series of waves going up and down over twenty four hours and when their circumstances change the wave can either simply shift what hours they fall over or more waves appear more frequently if you catch my drift?

out of intrest what pump make and model have you been issued?

To set a weekend/day off basal all you do is set up another profile move all your everyday basals across then basal test at the weekend. You will then know what needs to be changed