What is a basal test?

If you look it up on Internet, there should be sites that show you how to basal test. I know you need to fast, but don't know more than that I'm afraid. It will tell you if your basal amount is correct.

Hi. The proper test involves fasting and various measurements during the day which I've never done but Googling will help or someone else may come along and explain. A simple approach which allows rough setting is to just measure your fasting blood sugar first thing in the morning and check that it is between 5 - 7 mmol. Adjust your Basal to move it up or down to get into this area. Adjust over 2 -3 days by one unit at a time. I'm assuming you have one Basal injection per day. If your Basal is split life gets a bit more difficult and you will need to make some assumptions. The objective is to match the Basal insulin to the background liver output.

Basal testing means testing your blood sugar frequently during a longish period to make sure that your blood sugar isn't rising or falling, by itself, at any point in the day or night, regardless of whether you do or don't eat anything and have bolus doses for those meals.

That's what it means. How to go about doing it is another question.

The way I would basal test would be to (for example) test my blood before lunch, say it's 5.0 then not eat anything or do any insulin. Then test my blood at tea time and if it's still 5.0 (or hasn't gone above or below by about 1.7) then my basal is correct. I don't use testing in the morning as a good representation of is my basal working because of the dawn phenomenon.

You basically hsve to have 5 clear hours from eating and a bolus injection before you start basal testing.

Ie. Morning basal test: Don't have breakfast or eat for 5 hours after you get up. Test every hour.

Afternoon: have breakfast and nithing else for 10 hours and test every hour between 5-10 hours from eating.

Evening testing:
Have light carb lunch and bolus . Eat nothing else for 10 hours. Then test every hour for your 5th, 6th,7th etc hour.

Night testing. Eat a light carb meal 5 hours before bed and then eat nothing else till the next morning. Test every 2 hours whilst asleep.

If you go low at any point you must eat and abandon testing.

If your levels go too high you could still carry on your test but do a correction injection and then test every hour after for 5 hours from that correction injection. By the end of 5 hours your level should be back to your target if your correction factor is right. Or you could just abandon test.

If you go high or low during the 5 hours of actual basal testing when all bolus is out of your body then your basal rate may need adjusting.

Tylers73 said:

What's a basal testing

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The following is a fantastic article on basal insulin and why it is important to do basal checks to get your diabetes under control:

http://integrateddiabetes.com/basal-testing/

I've had diabetes for 16 years, so far so good hba1c ok but could be better, but am currently looking at basal testing as don't think it's totally right. I went to bed at ten pm on 4.9 and woke up at 7 am at 8.2 ( no night hypos as far as I'm aware as usually wake up). I have lantus injection at ten pm too before bed. My last novo rapid injection was at 5 so should have warn off. I know those readings are pretty good but with such a jump maybe I need more lantus? Will keep testing and try missing tea time novo rapid tomorrow and have a carb free tea.

That's a dawn rise, most likely. Is this a new thing or have you not tested at this time before?

The other possibility is a night hypo followed by a liver dump rebound high.

Spiker said:

That's a dawn rise, most likely. Is this a new thing or have you not tested at this time before?

The other possibility is a night hypo followed by a liver dump rebound high.

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Ok I need to know a little more about dawn rising I think?!

Oh god yes I'm always testing, and my blood sugars tend to fluctuate a bit which can be very frustrating!! sometimes it goes up like this by morning, or higher sometimes , other times it's fine.

Tonight for example I've woken up to a hypo at 1.45 am ( 2.2) (I had not adjusted the basal and last novo rapid was at 6.45pm) so it will now be higher in the morning ( I will be fully aware why however in this case).

I don't think the night before case was a night time hypo as I always get woken up shaky . - but who knows I was very tired after a walk so if it went low 4's I might not have noticed... Hmmmm

Ahhhhh so annoying and frustrating!!!!!!!