Hi All,
After receiving an A1c of 8.0, I recently tightened my diabetes control and now I have been going low everyday... and im sick of it!!
I suspect my basals are the culprits because I usually go low after not eating for a long time.
Embarrassingly enough, it been a while since I've fixed my basals and I'm feeling a little lost.
I've been doing some reading and it seems that I must start the fast 4 hours before the beginning of the test, is this correct?
When making changes to my basal rates, do I make the change 1 or 2 hours before the change in blood sugar?
Is it true that if I go low or have to do a correction that I must stop the test and start all over again another day?
Any other advice would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Maria
PS I use novolog in a minimed revel pump.
Pumping insulin by Walsh suggests this is the best way to check and modify your basal rates:
Skip a meal and begin basal testing 4 hours (or however long your last bolus insulin to no longer be active) your BG should stay within +/- 30 mg/dl during your basal testing. You should test every hour or two while basal testing. If, for instance, at noon you end up going low. Then you would want to decrease your basal rate when you insulin peaks. For me, humalog last 4 hours and peaks at 2 hours. Therefore, I would lower my basal rate at 10 am.
If your make a correction, then you basal test has failed and you may wantt to consider re-doing the basal test if you think it may be of additional benefit. If you make a basal rate change I would recomend that you make the minimun change as small changes can have bigger changes then you might expect. I would also recomend that you follow the change closely for the next 2-3 days to determine if the basal change is helpful or if you should consider another change.
Thanks, this was just what I needed!