Type 1: I can't get my levels down :(

[donnellysdogs]

You may well find though tomorrow at work that you are needing more basal but I think possibly the carb counting should be truly reflective. I actually used to weigh lettuce!! Only reason I dont do it now is because I cant eat any leafy salad or veg....I weigh every ounce on my plate.. only exception which is impossible is the homemade corned beef or tuna hash I share with hubby.. he obviously may get extra veg or meat etc as we divide it up. I am just a bit OTT!! Hospitals do tell you not to count lettuce. When I used to eat full salads my carbs used to total 19-28ish (no coleslaw or potatoes)- just from olives, avocado, onions, tomatoes, peppers etc etc....

If it were me... I would give less by 1/2 unit tonight.

Give the same basal that you were giving last week for morning and do some working basal tests again...
Its first day back, its unlikely whatever you do will be right!! Thats the way it goes...

My first concern before any more testing though.. are you having adequate nutrition after the testing time.. you must make sure that you do have days off from basal testing!! Please make sure you are getting good nutrition.

You could just lower basal rate tomorrow and accurately count for starters.

Please dont stress.... you have learnt and done so much over festivitys... I expect you will crack this work level issues by the end of this week....

 

[Kristin251]

I him, finding your carb ratio at different meals will help you a lot. For ME, 1 carb raises me about 7 points. In the morning much more. If I'm trending low I can literally have a radish and it brings me up a bit. Obviously for. A true hypo I need more than a radish but adding a little hummus works and I don't over shoot.

You still may have to CONSIDER protein in your boluses. I vdon't rynting matters. Meal SIZE matters as well.

 

[Lucielu]

I'll do another basal test some day this week maybe. I put my night time one down by half last night and I went to bed being 8.5 and this morning I am 9.2 (((( I don't get it. Surely I was supposed to lower it because of when I was on 9 I was dropping abit over night but now I've gone higher. I don't know what to do now. Weather I should take 8.5 in morning for background because I was going low of 9 then I'll have my weetabix for breakfast then I'll correct by 1 maybe. Ahhhh

 

[Lucielu]

I'll do no lunch today I think with 8.5 back ground

 

[Lucielu]

So I've done 5 for breakfast with weetabix and milk and 2 correction and this is on 8.5 background not 9 as I went low yesterday through the day. See what happens by lunch and hopefully I can try the no lunch. Just don't understand how I was high this morning. I'm going to walk to work today and home aswell - I feel annoyed

 

[Lucielu]

Sorry I mean 1 correction

 

[Lucielu]

Just gone low I don't get it. Sorry to be a pain on here

 

[donnellysdogs]

Lucielu..

I know its a pain but with your morning levels changing rapidly on smallest change of 1/2 a unit.

1) do a week (sorry I do mean a whole week) of checking blood sometime between 3 and 5am.

2) analyse the info;
a) it will give you a more general idea of what time your levels are changing overnight.

B) you could then go to dsn / consultant. If it is changing during the night with randomness... you could ask to try Tresiba (degludec).

C) if levels cant be improved consistently due to dawn phenomenon then it would allow alternatives to be considered...

I think personally that you need to give a basal rate for weekends and a basal rate for workdays.

 

[donnellysdogs]

Lucielo... what is your correction factor for mornings?

Have you got different ratios for bolus and corrections during the day?

2 units was quite a high correction amount to give for a level of 9.0.... based on looking at your food and insulin I think you have overdone the correction this morning...

 

[Lucielu]

Hey, sorry I meant I done 1 correction. My weetabix was 40 my milk was 10 and then 1 correction which I think brings me down by 3. I'll do more AM checks through the night to see how I go that's fine it's just the day time I need to sort. Do you think I should've put my background insulin in the morning down to 8?

 

[donnellysdogs]

Hi

Are you ok?

Going back to work and getting back into routine is really the only way to know whether 8 or more!!

Whatever happened with todays levels.. its a learning curve for next year, or after holudays, or after next weekend etc....

I see what you mean by correction for this morning , but I think the rise was more toward you going back to work routine.

The fact levels rise in morning.. you need to find out more exactly what time they start to rise... see if there is a pattern at all. There might be a pattern to the morning rises that start sometime in the 4 hours before waking..

How did your levels pan out today?

 

[Lucielu]

Well I took 2 for salad and yogurt and I was like 8.7 when I left work and when I got home ( walked about 15 mins) they were 5.4 done some exercise and they went to 10.3 then had my tea took 2 units for 20g then before bed was 5.6 I stuck with 4.5 units before bed as I had exercised and woke up 5.4. I put me back ground this morning down to 8 and had 3.5 units with my porridge and milk so see what happens this morning if I go low or whatever. Fingers crossed no lows

 

[Lucielu]

Yep... just had low again. I don't know if it's the QA or the back ground. But I mean from the other day when I was doing the fasting test I was on 9 and I've lowered it to 8 so god knows? Fed up now

 

[tim2000s]

@Lucielu The issue all the way through this is that in order to get a quick fix you are constantly changing things. Unfortunately this leads to incomplete data and often irreconcilable results. To fix a problem like this you have to take a systematic approach.

Accept that you are going to be high for the next week, then over the next 4 days do proper basal testing, systematically, according to the www.mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/ instructions.

Then when you've identified whether that's your issue, start to look at fixing it. An increase or decrease here or there. If that doesn't work with regard to Basal, then you need to look at what else is going on and whether you need an alternative strategy for Basal, i.e. a different insulin or a pump.

If your basal works out okay, then start to test ratios, eating boringly, the same thing at the same time on consecutive days and adjusting bolus amounts to see what works.

It's dull, it's long and it's a pain, but it's also the only way to really get around to a result, as you are isolating individual elements one at a time. That's the downside of T1. Treatment is really a complex set of interactions, so unless you simplify it down and identify each piece a step at a time, identifying what isn't working is really hard.

 

[Lucielu]

Ok thank you.

 

[jonniey]

Your much better than I am I ride bike everyday I'm skinny but I inject 12 lantus morning and 5 evening which has now become 13 and 6 and my sugar levels are mainly above 15 but iv got a habit of waiting for the food to digest totally then trying to correct.

 

[Lucielu]

Does cycling not bring your levels down?

 

[Kristin251]

I feel your frustration! 2 lantus raises me too much and 3 drops me too much.
I have tested and tested and I bolus 10 min before a fatty almost no carb bf at 8 am, then one hour later is when I start to rise again so I take 1/2 unit and I retest after 12 noon. If I'm rising I take another 1/2 unit

As Tim said, I do eat at the same times everyday and my macros stay the same at each meal each time of day. I can't eat carbs at bf and I need the most insulin with the smallest meal until 1 o'clock. Then lunch I can eat larger with 1/2 unit and dinner even larger with 1/2 unit. I do eat small, vlc, high fat meals though. But same time of day, same size and macros at each meal. Many would find it boring but I include avocado in each meal one way or another, various types of protein and various veggies. This is/ was the only way I could find out what was going on and find some continuity. So I just stuck with it. It's easier for me than calculating everything eating random meals and finding no rhyme or reason.

 

[jonniey]

Cycling usually brings levels down if there is lantus or humalog in the body but I never inject humalog before I once injected 3 humalog before cycling and I almost died had to drink 3 litres of cooldrink.

 

[Kristin251]

Any form of exercise raises me. This is one area we all very different and testing fewuently is crucial. Sometimes going low can come hours and hours later.