So, when I wake each morning, my blood sugar is pretty well normal.
I'm no longer diabetic!
In effect, that's what my regimen amounts to: it makes for a far more effective - and safe - cure for diabetes than does the orthodox method. (DAFNE is daft.)
Of course I know that as soon as I start to eat (and even drink my coffee with frothy milk first thing) my blood sugar will begin to rise.
Okay, so I'm diabetic again.
But that's no problem: I've taken my insulin.
And the trick is to see that with this medical condition, things are precisely back to front.
What I mean is that for those who aren't diabetic, their pancreas releases insulin as and when they eat or drink stuff. And that insulin serves, very precisely, to make use of and/or store away the body's fuel: glucose.
But you and I, we take the insulin FIRST. And then we eat.
But that insulin we just took does not, of its own accord, match up with the food we eat - as happens in the case of the non-diabetic's naturally produced insulin.
Rather, we need to eat food in order to match the effect of that insulin, as and when it comes into effect.
And in order to do that effectively and safely, we test our blood sugar quite a lot.
In effect, this is like glancing at the fuel gauge in a car when driving: we definitely don't want to run out of fuel. But neither do we want to put too much fuel in the dodgy fuel tank. (In effect, diabetics have a fuel tank which they cannot fill: that excess glucose just stays in the blood stream, which is very unhealthy indeed.)
I mostly use the visually read strips, because they're simpler and cheaper. And I don't use those clunky, spring-loaded gadgets to get the blood sample. I just gently jab myself with a bare lancet. (I don't throw it away after just one use, either.) Nothing could be simpler.
The visually read strips can be cut with scissors, too. That makes them cheaper still. (It also makes the requisite blood sample smaller.)
But the use of the meter-read sticks is very important first thing in the morning and last thing at night: you want to know precisely how things stand at those times in particular.
I tend not to eat much animal fat. If I eat a lot of meat or cheese then my blood sugar will rise later in the day, or in the evening, or overnight.
But I do eat very well. And most important is the rye bread. This is what allows me to SAFELY keep my blood sugar near normal all the time.
I'm particularly careful about what I eat in the evening. If I eat an evening meal, then it will be a very early evening meal. And what I definitely don't want is to have high blood sugar at bedtime.
But as the evening progresses, there is still insulin active within me, even though its effect is lessening. So I keep an eye on my blood sugar, and I'll eat fruit, or a potato crisp or two, or three, or four (but definitely not too many of those), or I'll eat a biscuit, or have some fruit juice, or maybe some cake.
I eat, on and off, throughout the day. And I eat very well.
But I do not eat normally. And I firmly resist any temptation to do otherwise, or any effort on the part of others to try to make me do otherwise. Because, after all, I am not quite normal.
Just as I don't want high blood sugar at bedtime, neither do I want anything more than the bare minimum of insulin active within me at bedtime. That's why I don't take any so-called 'basal' insulin. I have a very strong feeling that the effective medical imposition of these basal insulins is a misguided effort to make 'normal eaters' out of those who need to take insulin.
But you are the one who's in charge. So you decide the way you want to eat, and (preferably with medical advice) take your insulin accordingly. But you must always be very careful about making changes.
Incidentally, the Actrapid insulin I take (first thing, and also at 11.00am) is a bit slower acting than the Novorapid I also take (at 4pm). For me, the effect of the 11.00am insulin and the 4.00pm insulin runs out together at midnight.
