Basal testing - what to eat?

Type 1 and LADA
1

Hello, I need I do some basal testing, it’s been a while and things aren’t going so well so I’m planning a bit of a fresh start … I wondered, what do you eat when you’re basal testing? Nothing? A cube of cheese?
I’m planning on doing it one meal every two days, so first two days I’ll skip breakfast, and so on.
I’ve learnt from experience that pretty much anything plant based can cause a rise, but I don’t eat meat so that’s out of the question… any suggestions gratefully received! Thanks

2

Generally I don’t eat anything. Here is link to the process I follow.

By Gary Scheiner, author of Think Like A Pancreas.

2 Likes
3

I posted the method on another similar thread, I think yesterday or Friday.

4

here it is:

the way to go about basal testing (for pumpers–not for Lantus, etc) was to skip one meal per day so that you didn’t have to bolus for quite a few hours (given that the tail can be longer than 5 hours). If the same results were obtained a couple of days in a row, that was considered useable data and you either made an adjustment or left things as they were if bg’s were good. ONE day’s data was considered not a good way to begin changing basals. Several days, to see consistency (at least you have a fighting chance to make a better adjustment if several days yield very similar results).

After skipping breakfast and getting those basals correct, move on to skipping lunch for a few days and repeat above paragraph’s methodology. (if you woke up way to high or too low, do not do basal testing. If just a little high at breakfast time (but skipping eating), you can still do basal testing until lunch–just realize that all bgs will be higher than preferable. the key is that they remain near LEVEL.

And so on.

oh, and NEW PUMPERS: always begin pumping with at least 25% less basal than the amount used of Lantus, etc. Probably it’s better to start with even less than that. Then ramp up your basals until correct. There are two reasons for doing that: 1) you won’t have to have “emergency” carbs for a low during basal testing, which will cancel the test, and 2) its safer, esp at night if one doesn’t have a CGM with alarms.

5

Thanks very much Dave, yes I saw your very useful post on that thread. I will get started, BG permitting, tomorrow morning.

1 Like
6

Thanks MM1, I will be absolutely ravenous! hopefully it will yield good results.
Something else I’m looking into is the fact that results can vary so much depending on where my set is… I think after 30 years of Diabetes I am running out of good sites. What to do about that I have no idea, so I will start with basal testing - at least I have a bit of a clue what I’m doing in this respect.

7

Awesome!