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Originally Posted by Mikexx007  Hey everyone, I'm 13 |
Hey Mike,
It is important for you and everyone else that you work closely with your doctor on this.
In my opinion, the foundation of good pumping control is matching the basal rates to your need. Like most, you likely envision basals as a flat line. That's how drug companies want us to think so we will buy their long term insulins like Lantus. It is not a flat line. In fact many of us have very up and down, roller-coastery patterns. But most of our patterns are consistent from day to day. Mine is.
Consistent with variable basals, most of us also have variable bolus ratios. At breakfast I take 2.5 units for 10 grams of carbs, but at lunch I drop down to 1.25 units per 10 grams of carbs.
I give you all of this info because typically these mysterious results are often due to incorrect basal rates, bolus rates, or a combination. The good news is that pumps enable us to closely match our needs.
Look at it this way: you have two insulin rates and one blood glucose reading. Which one caused the variance? Most doctors and nurses will use their intuition and take a stab at changing one or both rates. They are often right because of their experience. Then we decide to do something abnormal like sleep in, have a large Christmas dinner, or have that late midnight snack. Suddenly those guessed at rates fall apart.
I don't like guessing. My life is on the line here!
So what do we do? We separate our rates and test them by themselves. We test our basals simply by not eating. We skip meals and test every hour or so. Our goal is to set our rates to keep our BGs flat. Once we are flat, we then worry about our bolus rates.
Now understand there are risks. It is easy to make incorrect adjustments and put yourself in grave danger. I have no problem with you basal testing, but please have someone (Dr.!)review your adjustments.
Here's a bunch of links.
Integrated Diabetes Services - Diabetes Management Getting Down to Basals :: Diabetes Self-Management HOWTO profile your Basal Rates. PDF Worksheet Humalog profile - for adjustments Advanced pump techniques
