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Working out how much insulin to take?

Tubzi

Well-Known Member
Messages
55
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Hi guys!

I want to find out how much a cup of tea affects my blood sugar and if/how much insulin i need to give myself.

Assuming i do need to give myself insulin for it how do i work out how much to give based on how much my blood sugar rises after drinking it?

I have just checked my sugar and drank a cup and now waiting a while to check again...

I am taking novorapid and lantus. I take one dose of lantus at night and carb count with the novorapid.

This is probably quite simple to do but i just cant work out how to do it!

Thanks in advance!
 
Hi there @Tubzi
to actually begin to work that out we need to know the quantity of all the ingredients in the cup of tea

so water 250ml ( o carb)
tea bag ( 0 carb )

if black tea = no dose

if milk added 15ml ( 0.7 carb)
if sugar added -- 1 teaspoon = ( 7 grams carb )
total carb ( potentially ) == 7.7 carbs

so depending on your carb ratio
1u= 10carb would be 1 unit
1u = 5 carb would be 2 unit
1u = 15 carb would 1/2 unit
1u= 20 carb = should not need a dose up to 1/2 unit ( trial and error to determine effect on bloods )

hope this helps
 
@ tubzi
The rule of thumb is that for a diet of less than 15 gram of carbs taking insulin is not necessary. This goes pretty well for tea and coffee ( un less you add flavor to it like like caramel etc)
To calculate your carb to insulin ratio simply divide 500 by total number of insulin units to take in a day. And then use the results to count carbs before any meal

Hope it helps
 
I barely go two hours without a cup of tea, so I'm drinking tea all day long & I never inject for it. Assuming you are having 30-40ml of semi skimmed milk & no sugar that's about 2g of. Carbs in a cup of tea. What's your carb ratio? Usually, people tend not to inject for <5. I think caffeine can impact on blood sugar, but I think that's more for coffe which has a strong caffeine hit, than tea which is much gentler release of caffeine.
 
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