For the past week, my correction doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Urgh!!!.
I know my insulin and site is working because I see my sugars come down after 20 mins when I bolus for food. But when my BG is sitting around +/- 10mmol(180mg), my corrections doesn’t seem to make the slightest impact. If my correction was supposed to be say 0.5units, I seem to need to be injecting an extra 3 units (and I do this manually with a pen syringe to rule out site and insulin issues) before it starts to come down and even then it falls short of landing at my target BG. Particularly during night time where I struggle with the reduction in BG the most.
My correction factor is already strong sitting at 1u:2mmol/L (32mg), I’m not sure whether I should make it any stronger, when its combined with a bolus for a meal, it seems to be okay but when I’m just correcting a BG without bolusing for food, it struggles.
Right now microbolusings are not working for me at all, anything less than 1u seems to do zilch.
Are you aware that correcting a higher blood glucose level like 10 mmol/L (180) will often require a more aggressive correction factor than it would at 8 mmol/L (144)? As blood sugar levels rise, insulin resistance usually follows. You may need to experiment to identify more aggressive corrections at higher glucose levels.
I’ve found that my sensitivity to insulin is not static but can go up and down influenced by food, exercise, and whether I get a good night’s sleep or not. I suggest that you keep a log of your corrections to help you discover what works best for you.
Yep I am aware of this. Usually my correction factor works at this level (or maybe I’m just dreaming that it does. With the CGM I can’t remember what is what anymore haha) or does to some degree. What I’m seeing is it doesn’t even budge the BG one bit!
I know @terry4 you don’t use a tslim but I’m also curious what happens with control IQ, I have heard mentioned a few times it relies on ISF, if this varies per state of BG, I wonder how effective is it going to be.
I don’t know about Control-IQ, perhaps another user could chime in here. In my Loop system, the user can segment the day with a schedule of ISF rates. Loop will then use the appropriate ISF to modulate the basal rate.
It should be the same as the tslim as we can set ISF rates based on time segments. But the question is, the ISF is variable depending on how high your BG is at the time as you rightly pointed out, but the setting on the pump is a static ISF number, so how can the loop calculate the adjustment dose accurately if the ISF is varying all the time - I’m not talking about the variations with the time segments but more variation with the BG level.
You’re right. With Loop, the ISF can be scheduled by the hour of the day but cannot be dynamically changed as BGs go up and down.
I’ve enjoyed good success with using Afrezza, external to Loop’s calculations, to knock down higher BGs. Have you ever used intramuscular (IM) injections to more rapidly reduce a high BG?
You mean injecting straight into the muscle? I heard gary scheiner in one of his presentations mentioned it and was meaning to try it as he said its faster. But I wasn’t sure how to identify whether I’m injecting into a muscle or just fat Does it hurt?
I found this picture on google, if i flex my arms and inject into the red part, surely that is muscle? Do i need to flex my arms or relax?
Tedos, you gotta go through and do a full 2 weeks of testing ALL your settings. It will take effort over a 2 week period. But, it will be easier than having all these lingering problems. I’m going to send you an excel spread sheet to do this.
What are your basal settings? I’ll fill them into this sheet if you write them down for me…If you want any changes made (like, if you don’t like the military time, just tell me and I’ll change it).
With C-IQ, your personal profile settings (including weight) heavily weight the algorithm. Basal settings especially, so if they are off then everything is off. @mohe0001’s sheet can definitely help to define your settings. Alternatively, you could opt for a secondary personal profile that has an incremental change and use that short term until things settle down. I personally have 3, 2 based on weight and 1 based on sick day values.
Yes. Turn C-IQ off to do basal\bolus testing. Once the values are determined, create a personal profile to reflect those determined values. Add your current weight, and then implement C-IQ. C-IQ will be wonky for a day or two until the algorithm has sufficient data to fine tune automated decisions.
Thanks, I’ve been trying to. I thought I had locked down my basal but then my BG started to change with the basal rates that was working two weeks ago. Just like this morning, my prebreakfast BG started to climb like an hour before I woke up and it was steady previously. Likewise with my overnight BG, I had days of steady BG so thought I had locked it down and about a week ago, it just started to do funny things.
I don’t know whether I can ever achieve steadiness. The testing is starting to wear me down.
Yeah I was so excited when I had days of consistency. You would think overnight would be the easiest to test as there is no food and IOB is zero, some nights I’m travelling steady, others I drift low, I’ve had nights where in climb too!! I can’t win.
I had the same breakfast over two consecutive days without exercise. One day, my BG came down nicely and stayed steady around 100mg, the next day I was sure I would nail it. But my BG just kept rising and I had to bolus twice to get it back down.
I don’t have control iq yet, only basal iq. Control iq will be released here next year.
Misled by the inaccuracy of: ‘life IS linear’ mindset: that a correction factor @ 10mmol/l will be the same at 28mmol/l, I can say I was observationally aware that it doesn’t seem to work. An extra correction bolus would be required.
ty @Terry4, for bringing clarity to that: I wasn’t really aware it isn’t linear.
When BG gets at or above the insulin starved range of 14mmol/l, I take prescribed correction bolus, & my best friend, Flyght O’Stairs, have a very gentle relaxed up & down chat for a brief 12-15mins of big leg muscle exercise. I can then surf the quickly declining BG back to a save landing with Basal-IQ monitoring the descent.
It pains me to think of taking an intentional stinging intramuscular insulin injection (yikes!!); did that too often back in the MDI skinny days.
I like the idea of much closer note taking to adjust the correction factor when BG is higher.
Not sure how long this has been going on, but the obvious answer is that the insulin is bad. I’ve had situations where an entire mail order delivery has been bad. Have you tried switching?
I ruled bad insulin out because the boluses at meal time have been working. And the basal has also been working. My thinking is if it was bad, these will be affected too but they are not
Does it hurt?
Just like this morning, my prebreakfast BG started to climb like an hour before I woke up and it was steady previously. Likewise with my overnight BG, I had days of steady BG so thought I had locked it down and about a week ago, it just started to do funny things.