Counting carbs

[DeusXM]

Whilst I'm usually pretty good about estimating how much insulin I need to inject when given a certain meal, my doctor wants me to formalise this so I know my insulin:carbs ratio. Since the majority of people here seem to know their own ratio, I was wondering if anyone's got any practical tips on how to find out mine.

Cheers.

[HeatherP]

Well, two ways to do it.

1. How is your blood sugar control now? If it's good, then if you know how many carbs you're eating and how much insulin covers the meal, then divide the gms of carbs by the # of units of insulin = ratio.

2. Then there's trial and error. Usually, you start at 1:15 (one unit insulin for every 15 gms/carbs) and ck two hours after your shot/meal. From there you make adjustments, usually in two's until you get the ratio figured out.

I find I have to make adjustments every now and then, but right now my ratios are 1:18 @ bkfst, 1:15 @ lunch, and around 1:9 at dinner (working on it).

[DeusXM]

Yeah this is the problem - how do I know how many grams of carbs I'm eating?

[am1977]

Looking at nutritional labels can tell you how many carbs are in a serving of a food product. Then if you just count that for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snacks, you'll get a good estimate of how many carbs you are taking in.

[rzrbks]

Deus,

here's a Carb link I use while at work. At home, I've a book I nicked from the CDE.:D

http://www.build4life.com/calories.html

[HeatherP]

Here's another source for carb counting:

http://www.sateeka.westhost.com/DRClub/Information/carbindex.html

[DeusXM]

Thanks for your help guys

[Ella1]

We found the programme on some Russian website, which I'd translated for my boyfriend, so now he is using it religiously. The programme calculates insulin doses based on carbs, fat, protein, Glycemic index, food amounts, and individual characteristics. It takes some time to understand how it works. But once we got his individual coefficients right through the trial and error, we were amazed how precises the doses were.

The programme has been created by the computer engineer who has had diabetes for over 10 years. Intresting thing is that with the good control for some period of time the insulin requirements reduce, and he had to lower his coefficients. :)

[rzrbks]

Intresting thing is that with the good control for some period of time the insulin requirements reduce, and he had to lower his coefficients.

Excellent, :thumbsup: give yourselves a pat on the back and a rewrd of some kind:whistling

[Ella1]

Thank you! :)

It's been the long learning curve for both of us. He had a "honeymoon" period for the first 2 years, everything was so much easier. But when it stopped, he had to learn how to manage it the new way.

Did you notice that when you have a good BS control for a prolonged period of time, the body becomes more forgiving, and you can throw in a treat or two without consequences, obviously using some common sense :)