Bad Habits

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21

The thing to realize with carb counting, you don’t need to be exact, just get really close and perhaps count a tad conservative until you really get hang of it. I’ve taken the classes, read few books, and got lots of advice from this site, and i’m still not 100% sure i’m doing it right, but my a1c has dropped significantly in last 3 months, so im on the right path i hope. I don’t know what the sliding scale is, but from what i can recall, it’s an older method that is mostly outdated now? I’m on levemir (equiv. to lantus) and novolog, and i have a very non-standard day and eating habits. And yup, stress sucks, gotta work on getting rid of that, one step at a time! You don’t have to ditch the pizza meals either, just need to cover it correctly. I’m starting to think you need a new doc/endo, as sliding scale is old and a doc that thinks your water issue is psychological appears to be just lazy and incompetent to me. I just switched my primary doc this week because of similar issues. It’s a roll of the dice, and i hope the new one is better or i’ll have to switch again until i find a good fit.

Back to your control… skipping breakfast is not too terrible either, as long as you are not taking novolog without eating, the basal should keep you at target range. This is of course assuming your basal rate is correct. The only time you should take novolog (my opinion, based on my experience) is right before eating, or to correct a high. My general routine goes like this: test morning fasting, take breakfast dose of novolog to cover meal and adjusted for high/low fasting. So if im at 110 in the morning and have a venti mocha (about 56g carbs, pretty high for most diabetics, but it’s my guilty pleasure), i’ll take about 6 units since my insulin to carb ratio is roughly 1:10 in the morning currently. Then i test 2 or 3 hours later to see where my BG’s are. Novolog stays in the body working for up to 4 hours, so based on my schedule, readings, next meal, etc, i’ll base my next dose on bg level, insulin still in system, amount of food im going to eat, and correction factor if required. It sounds complicated (and kinda is at first) but it becomes second nature after awhile. I’m not very good at keeping records which is a major weakness of mine, if you are fulltime student and worker, I suspect you have less time than I would even but don’t let it get you down! I had no idea how to do any of this before i found TuD, as both my primary doc and Endo were rather useless in giving me any guidance. If nobody has recommended them yet, let me suggest “Think like a pancreas” book to start. Lots of great info in there, but of course anyone here can help give great tips and suggestions too! Being a picky eater is ok, just gotta count your carbs and take bolus correctly to cover them. =) (Also, i just googled sliding scale, that sounds draconian, dump it is my recommendation!)

22

Welcome to the community. I know you didn’t come here because everything is just peachy. Diabetes is difficult, we all know that and share that with you. Please be patient, there is a lot that this community can offer, information and people you can talk to who understand what you are going through.

For some years, I’ve been drink flavored water. I have well water and I use a lot of the crystal lights, I buy them in bulk at costco and drink them at about half strength. I also buy large costco natural lemon juices and mix lemon juice and stevia for my own lemonade. There is nothing wrong with diet sodes, but I actually have come to believe that our brains crave sweetness, so even if you just drink just diet sodas you can still feek adicted to the sweet taste. I do think it is important to stay hydrated, if you become dehydrated it can make you sick and susceptible to DKA. And drinking diet sodas is by far better than that.

I do hope you stick around. We really are a good bunch.

23

It shouldn’t be that hard to find something to eat. All of us can come up with “reasons” why our diabetes should be hard to control. What steps have you taken so far besides trying to cut down on the sugar sodas?

24

I’ve found that skipping breakfast makes BG higher. Not eating causes a continuation of the dawn phenonmenon. Know how it is being a student & working, but eating on regular schedule, as regular as you can, is important in managing diabetes.

Pizza is an incredibly difficult food to cover with insulin because it’s a deadly combo of fat & carbs. The fat causes slowed digestion, so carbs hit much later & often after the insulin for that meal is gone. Ditch the pizza.

Check out www.bloodsugar101.com. It’s a great place to start. Sliding scale is not accurate & outmoded. Counting carbs isn’t difficult. You have to know how much insulin covers how many carbs. That’s called your insulin:carb ratio. Doctors start patients out on a 1:15 ratio. One unit of insulin for every 15 carbs. From there, it’s adjusted because everyone is different. You also need to learn your insulin senstivity factor. That’s how much 1 unit of insulin lowers your BG to correct highs. A wonderful book is Using Insulin by John Walsh.

25

Water gives me a stomach ache. Mystery! My dad also. Try bottled water with electrolytes added, such as SmartWater. Drink slowly, goes down easy. H2O with electrolytes also got rid of late night charley-horses.

26

Perhaps you could find something other than pizza to have for lunch. Many diabetics find that pizza spikes their BS quite a bit. Maybe a salad or a tuna sandwich or a container of yogurt could be used in place of the pizza. Also, maybe you could pick up a book with carb values so you could select your food based on the amount of carbs that it has. It seems that you dealt with the problem of soda successfully, this can be dealt with as well. There are always going to be situations which arise regarding food and drink when you are a diabetic, but they can be addressed and handled successfully. As bsc said stick around we are a very helpful bunch of people who truly want to see you succeed.

27

I definitely plan on sticking around :slight_smile: Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I’m going to talk to my doctor about instilling a carb/insulin ratio like I had when I was younger. That was the easiest for me to follow but since I’ve switched doctors they haven’t given me a new one. I’m also going to take the advice and try a salad or yogurt for lunch instead of the pizza. All suggestions and advice are welcome and appreciated. Thanks again.

28

I forgot to say - make the yogurt a “light” one. Regular yogurt has too many carbs, “light” usually has around 15grams of carbs/ container.

29

There’s no such thing as perfect diabetes control. The ultimate goal is to achieve good enough control without sacrificing quality of life. There are few things you NEED to just give up - sugar soda is one of them. Period. No going around with that, sorry.

Right now, my BG is 16 mmol (288 mg/dl), because I had some beers. It’s a really high BG, but there’s little harm to your body if you do that only every now and then and your BG is normally in range.

Giving up pizza and similar foods that aren’t recommended for PWDs isn’t that hard. It’s just food. You can have pizza from time to time, if you manage to work it into your diet and give yourself proper dose of insulin. Certainly not every day. That’s really unhealthy for anyone, even people without diabetes.

30

Not to hijack, but do you really think a 288 causes no harm? I would have thought it would definitely cause microvascular harm.

31

Well of course I do. But if your levels are good otherwise, there’s no need to deprive Oneself of a guilt pleasure from time to time. You know, to reward yourself for good work. Being obsessive about BG levels and guilty whenever you eat a gram of sugar is much worse for your mental health (and therefore health as a whole) than an occassional 288. Real danger comes from long periods of elevated BG and/or wild fluctuation, not ocassional, isolated spike.

32

I meant I DON’T think 288 causes no harm (in the first sentence :slight_smile: