your basal might be too high
even though the only time i'm going low is when I bolus for meals? What I don't understand and maybe somebody can shed some light on, how come the insulin doesn't work this fast when i'm 400 during the day and trying to correct? I just don't get it, I wasn't low to begin with either, I was around 248 at dinner time. I changed my i:c and will see what happens.
Maybe I freaked out too soon because I actually didn't go low like last night but I also ate a bunch of gluc tabs and a package of blueberry breakfast snacks with 36 more grams of carbs, my iob is 6 and I'm sitting at 135 right now. It was that sudden drop of over a 100 points in an hour that set's me off, oh and the feeling of the worst low coming on.
Maybe somebody can explain this and it might help me, when I see the dex going double arrow down and I'm eating to raise my sugars and they just won't stop, how long do i really sit there and wait. I know what I've been told but yesterday if I didn't keep eating tabs I would of passed out I think. If your at 100 with down arrows in my experience which is short your screwed and that is what has been happening.
My bg always went up 40-50 points at dinner not down 100, it's got me to where I have no confidence going to work and eating. I pray to god tomorrow that my adjusted i:c helps, even after my sugars recover I still feel like I'm low, what is that all about? Before when on shots once my bg came back up I would feel a lot better. I still feel like I'm going low even though i'm not.
I have calmed down a bit and I apologize for being all over the place. I'm a little lost. I feel like I'm starting to get it and then something throws me off.
I will go by some books tomorrow and read up on how to eat, clearly a problem for me. Secondly I really have to just keep reading old threads here and everywhere with similar stories like mine of folks who started the pump and had same issues. I did read a lot tonight and I feel better mentally, I'm high as heck right now but I am understanding it's because I have no clue on what food's are doing what and when to my body.
I basically just ate what I wanted within reason taking shots but now I'm eating smaller portions, for some reason I'm basically doing the same thing but getting burned with a 30 minute after meal low and then a 3 to 4 hour spike.I'm ready to kick this in the butt. Just need to figure out why and how I can get my high's after meals to come down as fast as when I bolus-ed for the food. I have to be missing something. What I feel is I am clearly not educated on what food's have what in them besides carbs that may be slowing absorption and my insulin is kicking in before the food is.
Btw I tried to do extended bolus and I had it setup up for units now and later, no matter how much I allocated, once I hit confirm it would show the entire bolus and none of the amount I asked to be extended. What am I missing here? i can explain more on that if that wasn't clear.
I do think it is your ratio, not your basal. I would call your educator and tell them you want to change to 1 for 10. The reason the highs don't come down is that you become insulin resistant when you are high. You may have ketones with them and that requires more insulin.
If I were you I would try to eat lower carb for right now. That way you are using less insulin, and shouldn't cause the lows. Basal testing is another option, if you are able to skip meals. I don't think that you have said if they started you on one rate, but that is usually the case.
You can use the manual to go through the steps for the extended bolus. Sounds like you are not entering a length of time when that comes up on the screen.It should show the amount now and the amount extended, with the total at the bottom when you get to the confirm screen.
Yes I talked about my i:c yesterday with cde and she definitely said to change it. What I am trying to figure out is does the extended bolus feature only show up or work for meal time bolus. When I go to give a correction bolus it doesn't give an option to extend. Didn't know if that was the reason.
I don't even know what kind of carbs I can eat, it seem's whatever I eat the insulin is kicking in quicker than the food then the food is keeping me high. If i can figure that piece out I will have made a huge stride. I'm getting how it all works I'm just nervous to eat anything with carbs now but I need some, I won't sustain when I work on just proteins,fats,etc.. I have a physical job sometimes so I have a lot of trial and error coming my way.
I'll take one thing at a time, let's see today if this new i:c ratio works better. Thanks for your comments
No, you wouldn't want to do an extended bolus for a correction dose, so there is no option for that. Some people do a temp basal increase in the case of stubborn highs, but I wouldn't advise you to do that until you get everything else worked out. The CDE needs to be able to see what needs changing, so you don't want to do any temp basals or she will not be able to figure things out for you.
I agree with you MaryMary, my Cde said that if I notice i'm more lazy on the weekend to go in and change my basal from 1.6 to 1.5 but no more than that for now.
I had lunch today and used a new i:c ratio, I didn't go low and my bg seemed to have stayed pretty stable like it used too. I am still a little high but not like i was but it really gave me some confidence that changing my i:c kept me from dropping. I really appreciate all of your comments Mary and everyone else who has posted. What a community here,everyone is so nice and willing to share their knowledge and experiences.
This is probably hard to answer but I am having lasagna tonight for dinner(I know). My wife made it and look's delicious. I have been reading all day about food idea's and complex carbs vs simple carbs etc.. Well I already know this lasagna could set me up for a night of terrible high's and it's back to work tomorrow and I don't want that. I want to stay level. I'm going to use the extend bolus feature, I'm not asking anyone to tell me what to do but what do most of you do for a percentage now and later of bolus when eating something like pastas,pizza etc...
I know everybody's body is different but is there information on how long it usually takes for these types of carbs to breakdown and finally start turning into glucose? I have read like 4 hours but that seem's like a very long time to kick in from time of eating.
The usual recommendation to start is 50/50 for 3 hours. We still use that most of the time, but lately 4 hours seems to work better.
Like I mentioned before, if it doesn't seem to be working well for you, just make note of the amount that hasn't delivered yet and cancel it, then reset it differently.
Will give it a try, Thanks again
Hi gadgetfreak, I too am just starting on the omnipod over the last 3 weeks. I am right at 6 years since diagnosis and have been on mdi up until jumping to the omnipod, I have been on a .65 basal, with a 1:10 carb ratio and a 1:35 correction factor,
I had a follow up with my cde this morning and we adjusted my basal up slightly overnight (to .70)for morning highs related to dawn phenomena and also changed by correction factor from 1:35 to 1:25, as highs haven't been coming down very quickly. My I/C is holding at 1:10 for now.
I made a big lasagna this weekend and was really happy with my results using the extended bolus as I am still experimenting with the more advanced features like that, I bolused for 70 carbs at 50% now, 50% in two hours and somehow magically hit it right on the bullseye, never going over 140 bgl or under 100 until breakfast the next morning. That is by far my greatest success story so far, as I've mostly been running higher than usual as I get things dialed in. I've had much less trouble with lows since moving off lantus/novolog mdi and on to the pod, so the opposite experience from yours so far,
I have also on a dexcom G4 for the past couple of months, and I can't imagine doing the pump without it to see what is happening. Good luck getting everything worked out. It has been great for me to not take a shot for a couple of weeks now, and that is not something that I thought would be a big deal. The convenience of just punching a few buttons instead of dealing with an injection has really been a bigger benefit than I would have imagined. Stick with it - I will follow along and share my experience as it relates.
90Duck that's awesome!!! I'm happy for you, I still have a ways to go, Everytime I eat I go low or if I don't go low I go down so fast that I feel like it and push the panic button and start eating glucose tabs before they hit rock bottom. Very frustrating, I agree about the dex too. I couldn't imagine having a pump or even doing mdi without one now. When I had to switch sensors it was in the middle of a pretty bad drop and I was finger sticking like a madman because I couldn't see where I was at. I didn't get how important it was at first, I actually didn't want the dex but I said what the heck and now I couldn't imagine not having it. Keep up the good work, that's got to be a good feeling.
I want a dex. pout. still waiting for insurance company to approve it if they don't no CGM for me. to expensive. :-(
Well I hope you can get one,Luckily my insurance company went right through with it and omnipod.
I had more of a battle getting the test strips than I did the dex or the pod, go figure. I had to get a medical necessity letter from doctor and wouldn't you believe the day I got my 450 strips they recalled em. Just got a letter sent today from omnipod, couldn't believe the timing. I read on another thread here about the strips, this place is amazing with the information. Good luck I really hope you can get your dexcom
I really need to improve on my carb counting. With the Dex and the Pod it feels like I have all of these high precision instruments, but unless I'm eating something pre-packaged I'm really just making a guess on the carbs in the meal. So, like always, I'm the biggest variable (and weakest link) in the program.
Like you mentioned earlier I also felt like I had mdi pretty well figured out and resisted going pump or cgm, but once I demo'd a dexcom there was just no going back to running blind on my bgl. It will take a while for both of us pump newbies to get it all worked out, but we'll get there. All of the experience on this site and others has been invaluable; while I haven't posted much, I've been reading and learning for a while now, so thanks all who so willingly share their experiences and insights gained the hard way.
You can do a better job carb counting by using a scale, or if you have a smart phone, you can use it to get carb counts for foods when you are out. There are scales now that will give you all of the nutritional facts for the food you put on it. We love the Salter 1450, but there are others that you can get too.
My son has never carb counted either, and isn't interested in a pump. I have told him that if he did decide to pump, he could stick with the way he does things now. You can use a pump and not carb count, just dial in your dose that you would have used with shots. I don't think it is a great idea, but when pumps first came out, no one carb counted.
My wife is buying me a scale tonight. I agree 90Duck, I am definetly the weakest link. I know how to count the carbs my problem is knowing how they break down and how fat plays a role.
Here is a good example yesterday working I bought a salad with chicken on it, said it was 30 carbs so I bolus-ed for 30. I didn't eat the bread that came with the salad and guess what those were my carbs, so I went low and had to chow on glucose tabs. Then I went high, I need to figure out when the insulin kicks in too when the food is kicking in, I'm terrified to eat now for fear of this rollercoaster. I need a good nutritionist besides my Cde.
for some reason my pod stopped giving me insulin last night somewhere around 2am. I had 14u left should of been enough,3rd time this has happened to me where I woke up with bg over 400 and pod not working. I think I am going to put less insulin in them and just where for 2 day's, that's my average anyway with what I take and it seem's like I'm wasting to much insulin.
Thanks Mary - I have that Slater scale, and it works well - when I use it. I understand the principals of carb counting and I do a pretty good job of guesstimating overall. I just realize that I will never get as much out of the pump as I could if I really buckled down and got more precise in my carb measurements. I have to say that overall that has been the greatest benefit of the pump and cgm so far; it has reinvigorated my interest and motivated me to get better at managing my diabetes. I had kind of plateaued with mdi thinking I was doing as good as I practically could, but the pump and cgm open up a whole new level of possibilities. Unfortunately for those of us just starting on one, it also opens up a whole new level of complexity that is frustrating and bewildering, kind of like starting all over again. I'm sure it will all become second nature at some point, but I have to admit it makes my head spin a bit when I start thinking about which settings to adjust to refine things. I've been holding off on the last few chapters of Pumping Insulin
until I was at that point in my pump therapy that it was relevant and I could actually understand it. I'm getting closer, but not there yet!
+1 What he said, perfectly sums up how I feel. Couldn't have said it better.
Just a couple of things that I could pass on from switching from injections to a pump is try to stay on the conservative side with corrections and boluses ratios and action of insulin time until you get your basals fine tuned. I focused on my basals firsts. Tried to analyze different times of the day fasting at varying times to see what my body was tolerating.
I tried to only change one variable at a time and then tried to see what was working and what wasn’t. It seemed to work the fastest to find the right basals first and then to fine tune my ratios based on being solely on fast acting insulin. Finding the right timing for the Action of insulin time makes a big difference for each person.