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Written Records Can Improve Control

miahara

miahara

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,019
Location
Tayside
Type of diabetes
Type 3c
Treatment type
Insulin
I’ve been using the Libre reader and Libre View to record and review my glucose levels, carb intake etc. And I’m certainly finding them very useful. I’ve also been reading Gary Scheiner’s book – Think Like a Pancreas – an enormously informative publication. In it Gary suggests that WRITTEN records can be of great value too, so about a month ago I started keeping written notes using a form I downloaded from his website. I’ve found that the written log I’m keeping is an absolutely invaluable record of how I’m reacting to insulin doses and carb intake. If I look back I can gain insights into for example, how I reacted to porridge for breakfast after awakening to BG of nn mmol and how my BG rose/fell over the next 4 hours or how long it took me to recover from a near hypo after taking nn gms of glucose.
Now I’m sure many folk reading this will say ‘I can get much the same from my meter or phone.’ But the difference that a paper record affords is that I can easily look back several days or weeks to find a particular episode to help inform a current choice of action. And I can add footnotes to add information.

There’s a link to record sheets appended below. There are a number of them, some in MS Word and

some in PDF format. I’m using the ‘Word format as I can edit the form to suit my own requirements.



https://integrateddiabetes.com/diabetic-logsheets/
 
I agree, keeping a food-insulin-exercise-anything that may relate to blood sugar- journal has been an important part of my learning about how to manage my diabetes.
 
I totally agree with you. I have Contour Next One that comes with a free app for your phone, great maybe for some people but I found it over complicated and a real faff to use. I have instead created myself an Excel spreadsheet to record my test results and add any of my own relevant notes. I think as miahara mentioned you can also work out averages very easily this way, I might even print if off and take to the docs with me when I have my next check up mid Jan :)
 
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