Thanks for the tag,
@Robbity
FWIW, I’ve spent 20 years eating the standard diet they encourage - low fat, high carb. And over the years I’ve gained more and more weight, and my diabetes control was horrendous, even after doing the DAFNE carb counting course. I think they do you a great disservice by telling you you can eat what you want and dosing for it. Many T1s have wonderful results by pre-injecting up to an hour before carby food, and avoid the spikes we so often see after eating. Now, despite a pretty advanced science education, I was more than happy with the maths, calculations and general working it all out, but my body just doesn’t seem to cooperate. Sometimes the insulin worked quite fast, sometimes it could take over an hour - not very compatible with eating with the family if you’re waiting for the stuff to work before you eat.
I had a real scare in January when my husband had cooked the family a lovely pasta dish, and food was on the table before I was expecting it - so I ran to the kitchen cupboard, grabbed the pasta packet to read the carb content so I could inject (he’d weighed my cooked pasta, so I knew how much I was having) - and I mistakenly read the dry weight instead of the cooked. I ended up taking 50% more Novorapid than I should have, and we had to get the paramedics out to rescue me from the hypo.
So.... I joined this forum the next morning, and read about Bernstein’s “small numbers” theory for controlling diabetes. I ordered his book (while I think he’s great, he’s not god), and pretty much (mostly) follow the guidelines in it. Since then I’ve found my control has been so much better - no spikes after meals, very few hypos (those I do have are extremely mild, never less than 3.2mmol, and they come on so slowly that a two or three 3g dextrose tablets get me back into range in minutes). So small amounts of carbs means tiny or no insulin dose with food - I don’t eat any fast carbs like rice, bread or pasta, all my carbs are contained within the veg etc, so release so slowly I don’t need to inject. I have found I need a little insulin with prawns and white fish, due to the liver making the tiny amount of glucose certain functions of the brain and eyes require, in a process called gluconeogenesis.
It doesn’t suit everyone, and it’s quite restrictive especially when eating out, but it really works for me. Some T1s are able to manage a “standard” diet with their insulin regime; I’m not one of them! But when I get traces on my Libre sensor like this, all the inconvenience is more than worthwhile. Also, I feel a gazillion times better - no drowsiness after meals, some weight loss, shape change, mental clarity... plus all the benefits of an HbA1c of 43 instead of 94