I know we all TEST our blood - but are you TRACKING it? I have found that keeping good records of blood glucose is very helpful in determining any changes in insulin for the next day. On standard forms, I always found that there wasn’t enough room for things that I felt important to track – like what my daughter ate!!
So … I developed my own form. Check it out here: http://www.libertybella.com/blood-sugar-tracking.htm
I’m a tracker!! : )
And I completely agree that the logbooks that you get from the docs/meter companies/can buy dont hold nearly enough information!
I currently use a logbook created by Kevin over at Parenthetic
Its, by far, the best log Ive ever used…The doc loves it also. : )
I am too lazy to track all the time but when I am pump tuning I use Excel. I can do a time (bs v T) graph and it looks like a CGM (with enough pionts). I find the paper forms really useless in visualizing response and trends. Joe
Hi Lisa:)
I’m a tracker! I use SugarStats.com It is an awesome site to use. I can email my doc, give him details about what I’m eating or doing, ask my “questions” of which i always have a few:) He can go look anytime he wants as well. Sometimes he emails me and gives me tips on when would be a better time to eat a favorite cheat food.
MeadowLark
I defintely track my blood glucose. It’s for my own good because my doctor adjusts medication to what she sees and gives me advice based on that. I record it in microsoft excel, where I can convert the data to graphs and such for my own use. I’ve been tracking it since the fact that I am diabetic fully sank in.
My meter has a cable I use to download my readings to my computer, I can also add my carb count in it as well as make any notes about sick, active etc
I download mine to my computer because it makes cute little pie charts.
I write mine down on paper with notes about food when relevant and occasionally look back to see what dose I used for what restaurant meal. But the software doesn’t give me the information I really need, which is more along the lines of how many units did I use for the Ginger Chicken with String Beans that time I stayed almost flat?"
I have occasionally used a spreadsheet and manually added values to see what trends were when I made a major change in my treatment (changing to insulin, trying Januvia) but mostly what I see is pretty predictable.
Ditto that! I LOVE Kevin’s excel log.
I like the idea of your pads too, Lisa, but I prefer having my stuff on the computer and getting pretty pie graphs etc out of it 
I made a simple graph of time against BG with space at the bottom for Insulin, carbs and exercise. It’s kind of like Joe’s excel graph but this is made out of graph paper and photocopied. I print a bunch double sided and make a little book. This is the first time I’ve kept good records because it is so easy to put an x on a graph and I can instantly see if I kept in range and why/whynot. E.g. I coould see that I spiked 3 hours after injecting Novolog and eating pizza, and that regular insulin is too slow to cover sweet corn.
I definitely track all my sugars as well as tag and add comments, I use SugarStats.com too. Good looking form you made! 
I don’t track mine and I hear it all the time from my CDE who also has diabetes but i am doing good so far.
Is anyone out there an excel guru? I am trying to create a spreadsheet to just record glucose level and carb intake. Then to take that data and create a chart that graphs the glucose levels while listing carb intakes on the same chart. so I can show the correlation of my carbs to my glucose at particular times. Does that make sense?
Yes, we have tracked on our Naomi Berrie log (which I have modified many times since diagnosis). We circle all highs in red and I used to number them, H1, H2, etc by time period. Same with lows, which we circle in blue. However, her blood sugars change so rapidly now that only her basal pattern stays the same, not the basals. I have created colored lines at the bottom of her chart (colored printer). On the side of the chart, I put the blood sugar number. So it is 50 (blue), 75 (yellow), 100 (yellow), 125 (yellow), 150 (light pink), 175, darker pink, 200 (magenta), 250 (light red) and 300 (red). On Naomie Berrie sheets the time is the top row of the sheet from 12 midnight until 11pm. So I can now chart her blood sugars and that visual is extremely helpful. Below all this is her breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner and I created a basal change box, as well as TDD box, basal, bolus, etc. Unfortunately, I did not get the idea for the graph until I had cgms (though I had seen John Walsh’s graphs before). The graphing has been the most helpful; I can see at a glance when she is above or below range, and the time it happens. We leave the logbook open to the right page, on a little cabinet below our kitchen phone. I do not want to wait until we download pump or cgms to see what’s going on.