Author: kathleen

I decreased my bolus rates last week. I’m down to 10 units of carb to 1 of insulin. It’s working exceptionally well, I haven’t seen a blood sugar post pranial (4 hours after a meal), over 135 since I made the change when I had an accurate carb count.

I’ve missed on a few guesses, and been a little high.

I’ve even changed my lunch bolus as I’ve been seeing blood sugar in the 120’s and hitting low in the late afternoon. I did one other thing for “insurance” though and switched to low carb lunches for a while. I’m following Dr. Bernstein’s idea, that the less variability the easier it is to control.

I’ve decided to drop my basal rate, on a very gradual basis.

My basal rates were set as:

12:00 am to 4:00 am — 0.90
4:00 am to 8:00 am — 1.10
8:00 am to 12:00 am — 1.00

And a second program for exercising:

12:00 am to 4:00 am — 0.90
4:00 am to 8:00 am — 0.55 << for exercise in the morning
8:00 am to 12:00 am — 1.00

By the way, the second basal rate has been working very well and was my idea. I have it set right now, and plan to get up before 8:00 am and work out. I haven’t had an exercise low in the morning since I put this in place, and was having plenty before that.

Anyway, back to the plan… so what I did last night, was to set a basal rate at 11:30 pm for 0.95 When I woke up this morning, my blood sugar was close to what I’ve been seeing in the morning — in the 110-115 range.

Tonight I’ve change the rate to kick in at 11:00 pm and plan to back the time up by a half hour every day until I start seeing a change in the morning.

Anyway, it at least SEEMS logical.

My morning blood sugar is still good — in fact, today was UNDER my target.

My average use is still not very stable — but then again, I’m adjusted both the basal and bolus lately. The calculations show I can go down to 11 units, but I want to stay at 10 units for a few days and see if things stablize.

I’m a bit discouraged on the weight loss… I’m losing but at around 1/2 pound a week. I think mentally it would feel better if I was losing a bit more — but I don’t want to put my body in starvation mode either.

Anyway, I’m off to the home gym…

Speaking of dog agility … (and I lied, I ended up walking 60 minutes today because I wanted to eat more).

We placed every run we finished. This afternoon we waited around too long, and it was too hot, and I decided to end the run in the middle. She’s a mostly black dog, and being a drug dog handler for a long time, you just don’t do anything to spoil the dog’s mood. Or at least I work that way.

So we took 1 1st pace, 2 2nd places, and a 4th place. I’m running easier, actually breathing once in a while, and was in front of her a few times. Mostly because I was short cutting and because she was hot, and has to run in a fur coat. She’s a beagle, mostly black as I said early, and experience shows that they get hot fast.

But working out and losing weight is paying off, even if it is taking forever.

As I predicted the other day, my insulin usage is really dropping. I’m consistently under 50 units a day this week. I am using the 1800 and 500 rule for calculating corrections and boluses.

What you do is you divide your average usage by 1800 and 500. So, of course, the less you use, the less you need.

I’m down to a 10 carb unit to insulin unit, and correction of around 38 blood sugar units to insulin unit. And of course, as those go down, total usage goes down. Actually my program says 11 carbs to 1, but I’ve only been on the 10 carb to one for two days, and that’s working okay. I don’t want to go on the high side.

You do too many corrections, and you end up roller coastering. Yesterday I stayed between 110 and 150 all day, except for two hours after breakfast, and that one was definately a wild ass guess.

Weight is going down too, but man is it slow. Something like .5 pound per week. Part of that is my choice as I don’t want to go much under 600 calories a day under what I burn. In fact, this weekend is hard for me because I’m not doing any extra exercise — we’re doing the dog agility thing, and that would just be too much pressure.