New video on T1D in the New York Times

@ AR,but your kind alternating between two main bolus dosages, right? I'm trying to remember. How many unique basal dosages are you on?

Whatever it takes


Iā€™m doing just the opposite. I try to keep my regimen as simple as possible. I actually try to force myself too because itā€™s in my nature to continually ad layers of complexity over time. Thatā€™s part of why I donā€™t want a pump, I think Iā€™d fiddle with it to the point it would be counterproductive----

For the same personality quirks a refuse to buy a car with power- adjustable seatsā€” because I mess with them continuously to the point that I can never get them just quite rightā€¦ But with old fashioned manual seats I never even think about messing with them and Iā€™m always comfortable

i'll give you a +1 on that snapshot AR, would love to be 80 at 4am, 5am, 6pm or ANY am. :)

Thanks Sarah! I donā€™t always kick my blood sugarā€™s ā– ā– ā–  but when I kick it, I have a Dos Equis, and bolus for 6G of carbs!! I like to toss those out there to show some good days but I have bad days too. I try to keep it on a leash. In some comments like moheā€™s it sounds like sheā€™s skeptical that itā€™s worth it or that ā€œweā€, as Iā€™m not the only person doing this, are overly D focused, OCDiabetic or whatever. I test my blood sugar as much as I need to and would probably end up testing more if I didnā€™t work to control my BG as much. I think itā€™s less work to control it as, when Iā€™ve done what I need to do, Iā€™ve been fortunate enough to control it and to be able to recirculate my data so I can work to do better which, at a tight level of control means smoother as much as lower. I would still put it out there that thereā€™s a large group of folks, D-moms, who all do this and I think we should look closely at popularizing their game plan. Many of my friends who are on this purportedly OCD plan report that it seems to be less work once you shake it down.

yeah, agree. i think it does matter if one's on a pump. i'm still NOT yet. I'm OCDiabetic but I still go all over the place, half the time I can't figure out why; if it's basal- bolus, yet my last A1C was 6% with higher highs and lower lowes..so yeah, if we can get something dialed in that can kick ā– ā– ā–  then go for it cause it is the high highs and low lows that suck simply suck, suck the energy out of me with all this work. I wonder if there are true studies or data which suggest men may have an 'easier' (relative term) time with BG's compared to women as they don't go through the nasty monthly hormonal changes/fluctuations, menopause, etc...

Interesting comment because I do notice that (at least here on TuD) most of those complaining about crazy blood sugars and difficulty finding doses/settings seem to be women in their 20s to 40s (a guess from what I know of members' ages on here). I'm not sure if there are any studies, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was something to it.

that is just so beautiful acidrock. you need to quit your day job and do this!

i would agree. when i was first diagnosed i must have had a lot of residual beta cells working and had no fluctuations due to periods but three years on, its pretty crazy (hiiiiiigh the week before and then looooow for the next week)for two weeks of the month.

LOL, thanks PW, I love my day job too though and it pays better than playing with my insulin pump, not to mention that it pays *for* my insulin pump!!!

I've noticed that Tu doesn't seem to really attract parents of CWD of both genders who often report that they are on the crazy BG train a lot of times, maybe due to growth?

Thats awesome, AR! I'm inquiring about just how complex your basal settings are to achieve that - aren't you, kinda of, oscillating back and forth, between two two main basal dosages, or do you have a bunch more, like Jen?

I'm trying to start off simple, like Sam. I'm trying to find one good, honest baseline (which has been pretty difficult), but I think I got it now. Found the magic number. Now, I can add complexity on top of that, if needed. Hopefully, anyway...

I have a few different points of interest, .775U 12A-3A, .95U 3A-5A, .975U 5A-7:30A, .8U 7:30A-9:30, then back and forth between .775U and .8U until 3:30 when I go to .75U and 4:00 is .775U, 4:30 .75U and then that until 3:00 AM again, so maybe not that many but some of the points are places I've cut out a .8 to replace it with a .775 so it "counts" as 2 or 3 but might just be one for a while. The thing that gets me is that if someone like me, 5'11" and 191 lbs (this AM...down from 197 at the close of the holiday season, in a "Biggest Loser" thing at work...) can perceive differences with little "fine tuning", why don't more doctors try an approach like this with their patients,or maybe they do? I don't think there's a baseline. My day is sort of get up, workout (T25 now, although I mix in some P90X3 bits that have some weights too...), get out the door. Stress in the AM has gone down as junior started driving herself to school so I just cruise to work, maybe a bit of "rush hour" adrenaline but I mostly blame the AM on DP. If my BG runs up, I will "redline" my basal to 200% until it starts to come down. I don't keep track of that but haven't been doing as much of it lately, maybe the cleaner eating helps? then the day is at work, pretty conservative. I have some yogurt for a snack in the AM and then lunch at desk (our office is not very convenient to go out and, when I last ate lunch out regularly, I weighed 275 lbs...eeek!) and then head home. Right now, the sidewalk conditions suck so no running but I will get back to that and also mix in some cycling as I signed up for the Tour de Cure again. And hang out.

I don't know. In the past, I would say that I have way too much variability, day to day, to make that level of fine tuning work. But, things might be better from here on out. That's big my biggest argument against a pump - one morning I might be flat line and the next four mornings, I might jump to 400 in a couple of hours after waking up. There's just not any good, consistent basal setting for that kind of variation.

I think my Doc does stuff like that with help from a diagnostic sensor, but that might be a new tool. I don't remember ever hearing about it before recently.

We decided this kinda variation was just inherent in my system, but after talking to you guys, I figured I ought to try harder to snuff out the variation. It worked. It took three or four months of trying, but the solution appeared. I'm interested to see how long I can go before the pattern changes again. If there's some consistency over a couple weeks or a month, what you do, might work for me. Only time will tell. Thnks for the detailed info. Its really helpful.

I saw a lot of that before I got a pump which was a great help for organization. One thing in Bernstein is that shots > 7U have more variability. I still don't get why he's so opposed to pumps though. Since I got the CGM, I've been able to attribute many AM highs to late night snacks "it's protein, it's low carb!" or whatever but maybe, maybe not. I can always find an explanation in some phenomenon to account for this or that thing that goes on BG wise. And I always have a plan to attack. One day might be this and one day might be that but thinking really aggressively about it has been the key for me to unlock some of the other adventures I've had, running, biking, surfing (although the trip to Maui was quite sloppy, trying MDI...big shots indeed!), raising a kid, etc.

It seems like this discussion is falling along male/female lines as well. Not sure what is happening in medical research these days, but there was a big fuss some years ago that testing on new meds., etc were done only on males.

My basals were originally set based on the diagnostic cgm test run prior to my getting a pump. Although some tweeks were needed, it is working pretty well: 12A - .300; 4A - .500; 7A - .500; 8P .550. Will be having another cgm diagnostic next week, so we shall see what that reveals. The Contour data has shown much improvement in my highs and lows. With lows being a bigger problem for me. For the most part, the lows tend to happen because I'm not paying attention. So far, am really appreciating the pump. It's funny how the visual of the data has a greater impact on my understanding and behavioral changes than simply looking at my log book (shrug).

The self-reporting of bg numbers/curves is heavily self-selected towards those with good to superb control. Don't be surprised you don't see the victims of crazy BG train, under-reporting.

The 200% basal rate seems huge to me, especially when in the same paragraph you talk about noticing differences with little changes like 0.025 units. A -10% basal rate has a huge impact on my blood sugar (I use -10% overnight on days I exercise, or ocassionaly -20%, but that's often too much). If I'm high, I've tried doing +120% or +130% but find that often I'll crash low with this, although I haven't tried using it since getting the Dexcom (which I currenly don't have because I gave back my loaner and am waiting for the one I ordered to arrive). Isn't +200% like two or three times the usual basal rate? I don't know how people do that without going low - even if you cancel it as soon as you start going down, for me by that point there'd still be an hour or two left of insulin to act, and especially since you are correcting at probably 140 or something, whenever I've tried it (even with +130%) I end up low even after cancelling and always end up having to eat...

Good point Tim! There's very little examination of this but there's almost no examination of what people who do better than Rx level performance do since, of course, that would be dangerous...