I know what you mean about the carb thing! Don't get me wrong, the diabetes nurse was great and after zero support for months, I'm very grateful for the time she gave me. However they do seem to have a very set way of thinking and nothing can deviate from that.
Nothing bad is going to happen to me if I don't quite manage my 150g of carbs but to hear them talk, I will waste away.
If i had followed their advice entirely I would have had huge spikes and massive lows. As they merely said " count carbs and take the full dose as you eat". I am very quickly learning that the timing of insulin is just as important as the dose and that this varies very much depending on the meal and getting it right can prevent massive spikes or sudden crashes.
Luckily I have the libre and have now set that up with miao miao to my phone and fitbit so I can use a bit of trial and error to see what works for me and take action if I have got it wrong.
I think every day is a new learning experience at the moment but I do feel like i am making progress.
My biggest thing at the moment is fear of hypos. I haven't got the confidence yet that taking fast acting glucose will resolve it quick enough so the minute i see I'm heading for 4, I panic to treat it and spend the next 10/15 minutes as a nervous wreck worrying that im going to pass out and be rushed to hospital.
The lowest I've seen it go so far was 3.4 (blood glucose, not libre), that was after treating it at 3.8 and I was an emotional wreck waiting for glucose to take effect. If anyone has any calming/reassuring words re hypos, that would be great. I'm sure its something that in time I will relax more about....still very early days.
Hi SareN, I'm smiling here and that is because I was exactly the same at the start, worrying excessively about hypos. I didn't go to work for a month because I thought I would fall over at any opportunity! I'm embarrassed about that now (3 years on) because as you become more experienced and confident you will realise that yes, a really bad hypo COULD happen but when you manage, control and respect your diabetes in the manner you are doing, it is rare. Don't let the thought of a hypo rule your life, your body is very good at adjusting when you are going low (not for all I know) but usually there is time enough to correct lowering glucose levels. As you go along you will observe patterns too, for example no matter how much I manage my diabetes, every day around 4pm my levels drop into the high 3s, I have spent months & months adjusting bolus/basal/carb ratios to prevent me having to take a snack at that time which I don't want but it still drops. If a 10 carb biccie stops that isolated low, then that's what I do BEFORE I get to hypo stage. A minor (tasty) adjustment in advance of what I know is going to happen. You are doing great actually, but remember it is not a 'take this medicine' and 'this' will happen, it is far more complicated than that as so many factors come into it, exercise, work, ironing, stress and the honeymoon period where your own body drips out insulin at any old time thus meeting up with whatever you have oh so carefully, worked out and injected...resulting in an overload...sigh. x
Edited to add; I find (and many others) that the libre is not that accurate when the glucose levels are in the 4s and lower - I have tested this with finger prick tests and the libre will say '3' when the prick says well above 4 even allowing for the time lapse). x