• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Strict meal times

C

ciara26

Active Member
Messages
27
Hey, im newly diagnosed T1 about three weeks ago. My levels are very high between 12 and 17 sometimes can reach 19. Im on Levamir twice a day and Novarapid. Ive been told o try and and keep on a strict routine for meal times which i have been doing during the week and tryin to do so at the weekends but also dont want diabetes to take over my life, so im tryng to work with it.

Does it actually make a difference whether your an hour later hanyou would be for dinner etc? I cant figure it out yet as my levels all over the place.

Thanks
 
ciara
Ideally, you should take your rapid insulin shortly before you eat. However if your bg numbers are as high as you say, a slight delay isn't going to hurt. Still you don't yet have the knowledge and experience to manipulate your treatment, so it's better to play safe. Although Your Treatment plan of multiple daily injections is designed to give you freedom in timing your meals.
the most valuable tool you can acquire is carb counting. this will enable you to get the right dose of insulin for your meal.
You and your care team are still working on finding the right doses. It should come right fairly soon.
In the meantime, you might find it interesting to read "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution."
the book is quite expensive, so ask your library to get it for you.
Hana
 
Hi :)

I'm sorry that no one has answered yr post until now but I'll have a go :)

If your bg levels are high before you eat a meal it usually means that you are not using enough bolus insulin to cover the carbohydrate content that you are eating. As you are new to diabetes, has anyone spoken to you yet about insulin and carbohydrate at all or has it just been left that you inject xxxamount of basal and xxxamount of bolus insulin 3 times a day and eat whatever you want?
I would say for the time being to not leave yourself go no longer than 5hrs between bolus injections.


Most people once they learn a bit about carb counting and adjust their bolus insulin to suit their required target bg levels, do ok and just have to test their bg levels frequently to see what their levels are.
 
Hi, If you taking injections with each meal, then it shouldn't really matter if meals are delayed or even skipped (within reason). The idea of the basal/bolus regime is to mimic a normal working pancreas. The background insulin is there to deal with the glucose produced by the liver and the bolus is given each time a snack/meal is consumed. If you are new to this, then it may take a little time to get the doses correct and it may help you to do this by having meals at set times and even possibly the same sort of foods to work out your insulin requirements. If you are getting high blood sugars 3 -4 hrs after eating, then this is probably down to the bolus being wrong, but could well be down the not having enough background insulin as well. The best way to get the background insulin as accurate as possible is to do fasting test s and see if your blood sugars remain fairly stable (say within 2- 3 mmol of what they were previously). Once you have worked this out, you can then work on the ratio of insulin to carbs when you have your meals. It sounds a bit of a pain at first, but one you get this sorted, it will makes it easier for you to eat when and what you like. Good lucks
 
ciara26 said:
Hey, im newly diagnosed T1 about three weeks ago. My levels are very high between 12 and 17 sometimes can reach 19. Im on Levamir twice a day and Novarapid. Ive been told o try and and keep on a strict routine for meal times which i have been doing during the week and tryin to do so at the weekends but also dont want diabetes to take over my life, so im tryng to work with it.

Does it actually make a difference whether your an hour later hanyou would be for dinner etc? I cant figure it out yet as my levels all over the place.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Caira, Sticking to strict meal times is the 'old school of thought', but if this is what you have been told, best to stick with this advice for now. Ask your dsn about carb counting courses in your area, here they will teach you to match your insulin to the carbs you eat. Once you complete the course, you will take away the knowledge and understanding that will enable you to be flexible with your meal times more often.

In the meantime, try and get those bg's down.

Nigel
 
Once you get your doses sorted out, it doesn't matter if your mealtimes vary. As others have said, your bolus is purely to deal with the food you're eating at the time.

The timings of your Levemir must be regular though. Think of it as specific times, eg 7am and 10pm, rather than "breakfast and bedtime".

If they say take it at "bedtime", that doesn't mean whatever time you fancy going to bed that particular night. Set a time that suits your earliest usual bedtime and always take the Levemir within 1 hour (preferably within 30 mins) of that time. You can stay up later some nights of course, but still take the Levemir at usual time.

If you take Levemir at "breakfast" time you could take it after breakfast on work days, but as soon as you wake up at weekends (max 1 hour difference) so you can get up a bit later.
 
I take levamir at 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening and stick to it. It will be so much easier to go out and aboutwhen i dotn ahve to be so strict on m mealtimes. At the weekends im not as strict maybe having my dinner an hour later if were going for something to eat. My levels are slowly starting to come down so hopefully i can start the carb counting soon, just hope is not too difficult.
 
ciara26 said:
I take levamir at 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening and stick to it. It will be so much easier to go out and aboutwhen i dotn ahve to be so strict on m mealtimes. At the weekends im not as strict maybe having my dinner an hour later if were going for something to eat. My levels are slowly starting to come down so hopefully i can start the carb counting soon, just hope is not too difficult.
Click to expand...

Its not difficult, and once you find that you can match your insulin to the carbs you eat, you should see a big improvement in bg's. Good luck!

Nigel
 
Back
Top