Danny - You handled a large meal well. I’ve given up on these kind of challenges, but more power to you! You and AR share an adventuresome side with eating. Thanks for posting. It’s great to see the picture of the food and the results. Keeping that burger below 180 was no mean feat!
I love extended boluses. They work very well with the protein and fat in the later hours after eating. Your second extended bolus was definitely needed.
On a roll
I find that my blood sugar control cycles between good numbers and then poorer ones. Something always changes and I start to have to fiddle with basal rate changes, insulin to carb ratios, or some other parameter. Adjustments usually take me a week and then I can often get good numbers again. Right now, I’m on a roll. Good diabetes numbers, however, are a moving target. It’s a feature, not a bug!
My post-dinner curve yesterday slipped due to a forced menu change after I had already dosed. I ran out of some items in my refrigerator and didn’t realize it until after I took my insulin. I didn’t have time to run out to the store and replenish. So I swapped in some other food and didn’t match the carb/protein/fat profile that I dosed for.
I went for a 45-minute walk to degrade that post-dinner climb and that worked pretty well. When the second post-dinner bump challenged my upper limit, I took a 1-unit intramuscular or IM shot and that did the trick. I didn’t take any Afrezza corrections yesterday.
Even with those after-dinner rising curves, yesterday met 4/4 goals for me.
The numbers (in order of importance to me)
Time in Range, 65-120 mg/dl = 95%
Time low = 0%
Standard Deviation = 17 mg/dl
Average = 95 mg/dl
We never know what curve ball will be thrown our way… You handled the last minute food change well Terry. Fantastic day of Diabetes right there.
Keeping it real
I’m going through a real sweet spot with my BG control these last few days. It is not without effort but the world and nature often gives you a pass when things are going well. The wind is at my back!
Two weeks ago today, on May 7, while I was enjoying a tropical holiday, I recorded the above trace. It’s not pretty but it is real. I do have diabetes and sometimes I let my BG guard down. The jitteriness of the line is due to the sensor age, but the underlying values are close to accurate.
I make this post in an effort to reach out to any that think aspiring to a flatline is impossible for them, not within their reach. That is not true!
The numbers
Time in Range, 65-120 mg/dl = 39%
Time low = 4%
Standard Deviation = 45 mg/dl
Average = 135 mg/dl
Nice post. For the most part, (in my opinion) Flatline control will not happen over night. But, with a lot of tweaking and getting to know your body, I believe it’s possible to achieve now more than ever. You are living proof.
135 mg/dl average, not bad for being on Vacation…
Keep up the good fight Terry!
Thanks, Danny. I agree the current D-tech combined with a reasonable diet makes good control and the occasional flatline well within our reach.
Great stats, edging toward lows
I’ve been here before. I’ve arrived at what I consider my ideal day but trouble lurks on the horizon. Why can’t we just enjoy the positive side?
The sensor is now at about 10 days and it’s starting to overshoot on the low side. For the morning calibration it was spot on but when I started to go low in the afternoon, like in the 70s, the sensor started to report 50s. I let it ride for a bit but it was not pulling up. I calibrated, but instead of reporting a higher number, it reported a lower number. This is when I’d like to be able to talk to a Dexcom algorithm expert to make some sense of why the program does what it does.
So I probably over-calibrated in the afternoon but the sensor line finally came back in line with my fingersticks. As a result, my time low numbers, numbers < 65 mg/dl, is over-reported today at = 6% when it’s really around 3-4% at most.
So, I said that trouble lurks on the horizon. What I mean is that looking over the last few days, while they have been very good, the slow trend is toward lower numbers overall. That, of course, is good to a point but can go too far. What I’ve learned in the past is that I need to start tweaking my basal rates or I’ll be faced with taking aggressive counteraction (eating glucose-tabs).
The trouble time is the afternoon, starting around 2 p.m. That means I’ll need to back off my basal rates starting at noon. Here’s my basal profile for that time of day:
11:00 a.m. - 0.9 units/hour
1:00 p.m. - 0.4 units/hour
5:00 p.m. - 0.5 units/hour
I will just make one adjustment today. I’ll change the 1 p.m. 0.4 units/hour to start at noon instead. I’ll watch and see what happens. I’ve found with basal rate changes that baby steps are better and changing one thing at a time makes analysis easier. We’ll see.
Overall, this was an excellent day! What’s not to like about a day with an 83 mg/dl average with 94% time in range and a 13 mg/dl standard deviation? That means that about 2/3 of my readings fell in the 70-96 mg/dl range.
The numbers
Time in Range = 94%
Time low = 6% (really about 3-4% according to my fingersticks)
Standard Deviation = 13 mg/dl
Average = 83 mg/dl
Terry, Good morning…
83 mg/dl reminds me of Dr. Bernstein, he says this is the “target number.” Which just happens to be your average (smiling). Well done.
Nice write up too! Thanks for sharing.
Good morning, Danny. Yeah, I thought about Dr. B when that 83 popped up on my report. I changed my pump target to 83 seveal months ago. If you’re gonna aim at something, why not make it worthwhile?
It’d be nice to have a few more people stop by, but it seems the new site has not changed that. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort to post on a “social” media site. I’m starting to think that flatlining will always be a marginal topic.
Oh well. I’ll keep plugging along, documenting and posting. I know I’m getting a lot of value out of it. It seems to hold me accountable.
Don’t give up… your posts are reaching people, whether they reply or not. This group has gone through some slow times over the past 4 or 5 years, so…
I’ll keep posting/replying every now and then too, it gives me value as well.
Glucose Trend Report.doc (165 KB)
I have been following this group for the last 11 months and have learned quite a bit. I really appreciate the effort put in by the various posters. I have been having a good day, so I thought I would try to contribute also.
Brian, that’s not a good day, that’s a great day! Glad to read that you’ve found our posts useful. You have a helluva system to paint a line like that. Can you tell us more about how you eat and dose? Do you use a pump?
What’s the upper and lower limits of your green stripe? Looks like 6.something mmol/L and 4.x mmol/L. My eyes don’t work as well as they used to!
Thanks for your comment.
It’d be nice to have a few more people stop by, but it seems the new
site has not changed that. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort
to post on a “social” media site. I’m starting to think that flatlining
will always be a marginal topic.
I think people are stopping by to read, even if they aren’t commenting. Your write-ups of your strategies are helpful, and could prove to be very useful to someone.
Thanks for the encouragement, Jen. I do believe that what I and other flatliners do is a useful way to deal with this disease. It may not be popular but that doesn’t diminish its value. I was surprised and pleased to read Brian’s comment above. He’s been following our posts and using it to improve his life.
@Terry4, long time reader, but I have never contributed. I enjoy seeing your posts, and they provide a motivation of sorts for me - thanks for continuing the series. I doubt I will choose to go
Here is a flatline from a day working as a barista in our local coffee shop, One Flight Up in Mount Dora, FL. I had a 50% basal rate going, but there are a lot of variables all around how busy we get - on some of the busiest days I have to go to 0%. My low/high alarms are 65/170.
It’s only six hours, and it’s overnight, but I finally have something I can post here after a week of struggling with highs due to hormones. Hopefully my basal and ratios are finally set right, at least until the hormones disappear and I crash low. (I don’t know if it’s true, but I read that progesterone, the hormone that causes all this monthly chaos, is actually a steroid. No wonder it causes problems!)
Great line, YogaO! I’m surprised, again, to read about your visits to this corner of TuD. I shouldn’t be, however. Lurking was my primary mode for a long time when I started checking out sites like this.
Photo-shoot assistant, barista, you’re a man of many skills! Negative (or minus) temp basal rates are effective for me with extra exercise. They’re one of the reasons I prefer a pump over MDI. Thanks for your comment.
Jen, that’s a beautiful overnight line! It’s nice to wake up rested instead of feeling like you’ve been through combat. (For those of you who may be mmol/L impaired, Jen’s 6.0 flatline is equal to 108 mg/dl.) I need to remember to add the mmol/L when I make my posts. It seems like the US is always out-of-step with the rest of world’s measuring standards!
When I read about female diabetics struggling with the effects of their monthly hormonal changes on blood sugar, I’m amazed they can stay in range at all! Good for you, Jen.
Wow, Jen and YogaO, you are both crushing it! Way to go!! Oooh rah!!
I got my copy of “Sugar Surfing” by Dr. Stephen Ponder today (really yesterday but I went out after work last night and forgot to get the mail until this AM…). I hope I can read quite a bit of it this weekend!
Cool! I’m waiting for the e-book to come out.
