[Stuboy]

Ok, So tonight i miss judged my chinese take out carbs. i guessed at around 100, which i now know was very low, and bolused 5units, i checked my bg 2 hours after my meal and it jumped from 4.9 (before meal) to 13.3!!! Dissapointed... i bolused another 3 units in an attempt to bring it down, checked an hour later and it had gone UP to 15.1!!

What the?? Please help, very confused!!

Bolus is Novorapid.

[Stumpkins]

This happens to me ALL THE TIME. If I go to the gym, I take off my pump, and let my sugar get up to like 200...

Get back from the gym, sugar is always around 75 -- 1 hr. later, it's up to 250..take correction...300...take ANOTHER correction, and I'm good!

[spike]

Originally Posted by Stuboy

Ok, So tonight i miss judged my chinese take out carbs. i guessed at around 100, which i now know was very low, and bolused 5units, i checked my bg 2 hours after my meal and it jumped from 4.9 (before meal) to 13.3!!! Dissapointed... i bolused another 3 units in an attempt to bring it down, checked an hour later and it had gone UP to 15.1!!

What the?? Please help, very confused!!

Bolus is Novorapid.

this is what happens, Stu! I had an In & Out burger and a few potao chips. My bg was on target, I bolused 5U, ate and figured I'd be ok. Just a second ago, I've taken my 12th Unit--I'm now over 225.. Other days I can take 5-6 units with the same burger and be fine... go figure.

[rzrbks]

It depends on the different types of foods you had. The more protein and fat, the longer it takes your body to incorporate the food and longer you have to check yourself.

What you talk about is the very reason some people have just taken certain foods off their acceptable list.

I don't eat potato chips/crisps or French Fries any more, I just cannot figure out how to bolus for them.

For Chinese, I bolu at 1:10, then check at 1 1/2 hours, knowing that I'll have to bolus again, and every once in a while I have to bolus a third time.


This is part of the Interesting Charm of Diabetes. You'll have to figure out the bolus ratio for different foods for YOUR body/system.

[spike]

Originally Posted by rzrbks

I don't eat potato chips/crisps or French Fries any more, I just cannot figure out how to bolus for them.



.

You'll need a combo bolus to cover fries. don't think too many people can get adequate control with a normal bolus when eating fries. U ever tried?

[Emm]

Ah the pleasure & pain of junk food!

I find chinese *very* hard to bolus for - pizza too. All take-out foods affect me horribly but they're the worst (of course, because they're my favourites - you bastard, Murphy!!)

I can't say I have it sussed, but I'm getting there. What I do now is inject just a couple of units before eating - I mean 20 - 30 minutes before, so that my blood sugar is already dropping by the time I eat. Then I jab the 'usual' 3 - 4 units for the meal as I start eating, and I'll still need a 'top-up' jab about an hour & a half later, another 2 or so units.

So, all in all, to cover a junkie food meal, I have twice the usual amount of insulin than I'd usually have for most high carb meals, and 3 jabs over the space of a few hours.

I'm really not sure it's worth it! But at least it's a step forward in discovering what I can & can't do. As far as I'm concerned, I want to avoid anything that'll cause me damage. If I can find away around the damaging stuff, then I'm happy After all, a gal's gotta have her treats

[DeusXM]

So tonight i miss judged my chinese take out carbs

There's your answer. I usually triple my insulin dose for Chinese - for a variety of reasons, they'll rocket your sugar and just keep pumping the stuff into your blood. Don't worry, it happens to 'normal' people too - I've seen a LOT of people get a bit hyperactive after eating Chinese food, because it's causing their BG to rocket up too, although they're quicker at bringing it down again than we are.

Don't beat yourself up about it - just think how much worse you'd have been on Mixtard in this situation.

[Cyborg]

Chinese food is hard to bolus for... I usually guess about 100g for Chinese (depending on what I eat), but I do have my insulin to carb ratio pretty fine tuned. I also take Symlin whenever possible if eating over 30g of carbs.

One of the ways I found easiest to fine tune that ratio is to eat pre-packaged meals that do not have a lot of protein or fat. An accurate carb count can help you nail down the insulin to carb ratio, which may be different at different parts of the day. The closer you get to the correct ratio, the more carbs you can eat without skyrocketing.

Then there is also the trick of taking your insulin about 10-20 minutes before you eat. That can help with the post meal bg spikes.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Stuboy

..... i checked my bg 2 hours after my meal and it jumped from 4.9 (before meal) to 13.3!!! Dissapointed... i bolused another 3 units in an attempt to bring it down, checked an hour later and it had gone UP to 15.1!! ....

Bear in mind that you become more insulin resistant as your BG rises. Something to do with insulin receptors shutting down to protect cells from excess glucose. Which means that you have to load your correction bolus. And the higher your BG is, the bigger the loading needs to be.

I need to load correction boluses as soon as my BG goes over 10. And if it goes over 15, I have great difficulty getting my BG down again. Several overlapping corrections later, the BG plummets. So I have to watch the BG level very carefully.

My decision to keep away from the carbs that cause these extreme post-prandial hyperglycemic excursions has simplified my life enormously. The best part is that, after breaking the carb addiction, I don't miss them anymore.

[Cyborg]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

Bear in mind that you become more insulin resistant as your BG rises. Something to do with insulin receptors shutting down to protect cells from excess glucose. Which means that you have to load your correction bolus. And the higher your BG is, the bigger the loading needs to be.

One of the features that I look forward to in some of the up and coming pumps is the ability to have a correction factor based on current bg...

[kgm0612]

Any time I eat Chinese, Pizza, or foods high in fat or protein, I use the Dual Wave feature on the pump. I give half the amount upfront and the other half over 3 or 4 hours.

Karen

[It Ain't Over]

Originally Posted by kgm0612

Any time I eat Chinese, Pizza, or foods high in fat or protein, I use the Dual Wave feature on the pump. I give half the amount upfront and the other half over 3 or 4 hours.

Karen

Same here, and I add about 35% more per carb even then. I do notice that the 3-4 hours are about right with Chinese. Pizza is tougher to evaluate. Seems it is even more unpredictable and can raise the sugar levels for a very long time after eating. Best to check every hour after eating pizza, or better yet, order something else.

[Tokyo Cate]

I had a Chinese food blood sugar disaster last night, too. It is just too difficult to get the right amount of insulin to cover Chinese food without correcting. Good thing I am not so crazy about Chinese food.

[Stuboy]

what about chinese diabetics... how do they cope!?

[It Ain't Over]

Originally Posted by Stuboy

what about chinese diabetics... how do they cope!?

I would hope they don't have the same diet we see coming from Chinese restaraunts.