[Gary_W]

Hi Jodie,

The DAFNE course does it a little differently to most of the folks on here in that it only deals in 10's of carbs and calls them carb units... To me, that's adding an extra layer of complexity whilst trying to make out that it is simpler.

Add to that the fact that DAFNE (at least around these parts) says that a patient's carb ratio is EITHER 1:5, 1:10 or 1:15 and you have a recipe for a system that doesn't quite work. If you insist of doing the above, you will forever be correcting with either food or insulin unless you happen to be one of the above numbers! If you are 1:12 then so be it. The maths is a little trickier but better tricky maths than feeling rotten.

To do it simply, do the following:

1. Work out your ratio. 1:15 is a good starting point, but if this doesn't work out for you then change it. Expect different ratios at different times of the day as you are naturally more insulin resistant in the mornings. To give you an example, my current ratios are 1:11 in the morning, 1:14 for lunch and 1:15 for my evening meal.

2. Count the number of carbs in something as exactly as you can. The only rounding is to the nearest whole number.

3. Do the maths with your ratio.

4. Decide to over inject a little or under inject a little, as the chances of coming up with a whole number are slim...

For example, for breakfast I'm eating 57g of carbs. My ratio is 1:11. I need 57 / 11 = 5.18 units of insulin. On a pen, you would reasonably put in 5u and expect to run just a tad higher than you'd like

Get to know your insulin profile (i.e. how long it is active for in you). Doing so makes testing at the 2 hour point work better as you'll get to know whether or not you need to do anything.

Good luck

Gary