Worst day for a looong time

ArtemisBow

Well-Known Member
Messages
302
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Today has been one of the worst control days I have had so far. Massively underestimated the carbs in my lunch, causing a 15.6 two hours later, took a correction dose which put me at 3.5 two hours after again and then overtreated the hypo to bounce back up to 13.6.

Finally now at 5.8 so am going to put a line under the day and go to sleep! Have you ever had days like this? Any tips for a newbie like me to deal with them?
 

Adele99

Well-Known Member
Messages
143
You seem to know what caused it so next time if eating more carbs than normal perhaps you could adjust your fast acting to accommodate it. Sometimes we experience high blood sugars for no reason we can work out, it's the nature of trying to manually achieve something your body would normally do automatically without you even being aware of it.

Due to long term damage causing intermittent delayed digestion, nearly every day at some point my blood sugar will reach the high teens or into the 20s, or go too low, sometimes even both in the same day. Despite all this and with a lot of effort now, my Hba1c result is within acceptable levels now, and the last time I saw the Diabetic consultant he said it hat was the most important thing.

When these things happen, you learn from them over time, so don't feel too bad about it, tomorrow is another day, and as long as you don't make a long term habit of having raised blood levels you should do just fine.
 
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-Artemis-

Well-Known Member
Messages
533
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Other
Today has been one of the worst control days I have had so far. Massively underestimated the carbs in my lunch, causing a 15.6 two hours later, took a correction dose which put me at 3.5 two hours after again and then overtreated the hypo to bounce back up to 13.6.

Finally now at 5.8 so am going to put a line under the day and go to sleep! Have you ever had days like this? Any tips for a newbie like me to deal with them?

Hey @ArtemisBow - I'm a fellow newbie too - so only going by what I've learnt so far too... but... I think you may have "stacked" your doses... ?

I did the same (on my first day on insulin!) and so now never correct any miscalculations until at my next meal - which is usually around four hours later anyway - by which point I know that most of the last dose is out of my system... It does sometimes mean I see double figures two hours after my meal - especially around my period - but it's almost always back into single figures by the next dose anyway.

Here's a thread that talk about stacking which may help:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/stacking-insulin.55568/#post-586961

Also, have you worked out your correction ration? ie how much 1 unit will bring your personal blood sugar down...? This also helped me too when figuring out how to much to adjust on my next dose.

Lastly - depending on what you're eating - and to some degree, your make-up, you may just be digesting foods slower... I eat low-ish carb and high-ish fat - so my spike is often at the two hour mark, instead of the one hour that they tell us it should be... which was alarming at first until I realised what was happening...

Hope some of this helps :)
 
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ArtemisBow

Well-Known Member
Messages
302
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi @-Artemis-

Yes I think you are probably right about the stacked doses. Normally if I was higher than I wanted but under 14, I would just chalk it up to experience, wait til the next meal and adjust if still high as you say. But with it being that high I felt I had to do something! I have worked out my correction ratio but as my insulin needs keep changing due to honeymoon, that means the correction factors change too - this is the first time I had done a correction dose in a while which is probably why I got it wrong.

Unfortunately I am not on my usual diet this week because I am staying with my family who are high carb people, so while I am trying to make the best choices I can it's still a fair bit more carb than I would normally have.
 
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Daibell

Master
Messages
12,642
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
I've learned not to over-react to unexpected highs and try to come down in stages. It means being too high for perhaps a day but does avoid overshooting and risking hypos
 
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