I am almost tempted to not answer this. Banking lows is the deliberate use of sustained hypoglycemia with the specific purpose of bringing your blood sugar average and HbA1c lower. Do not do this, compared to Marps relatively benign coasting, this is bad, bad bad. Did I mention this was bad?
I have to admit that I am way happier when my BG drifts out of my BG target zone on the low end, not on the high end. It would be so nice if the talked about BG control standard was “% of time spent in target zone” instead of A1C. This would eliminate any desire to bank lows.
I’m happier to see lows, as long as they’re not low-low, than highs also. Easier for me to correct lows & get back to where I should be than to correct highs that sometimes won’t come down.
Gerri, I agree that correcting lows is much easier. I drink OJ which starts to turn around my BG after a couple of minutes and stops after 30 minutes. Apidra starts after 20 minutes and stops after 3 hours. Thus I can be back in range within minutes coming from a low whereas a high always keeps me out-of-range for at least an hour.
Same with me. Where some people get impatient treating lows, mine seem to bounce back pretty quickly. Highs–take a good while. I get impatient waiting for numbers to come down & try to resist the urge for another correction.
I fixed the low about a half hour after posting this thread. I don’t normally ride lows out, but was only waiting to fix this one because I have been battling so hard to keep that stupid reading in a straight constant line. It’s so hard for me because I end up swinging one way or the other really rapidly. Usually when I’m correcting a low, I will be HIGH within an hour. I can climb 50 points in only a few minutes. If you look at my past pictures on this site, you can see that I swing pretty rapidly and often.
again, I don’t NORMALLY ride out lows. I know the dangers, but I was just wondering how (in the long term) riding out a 55 or 60 was going to affect me.
I’m currently at 92 (thank goodness) and have been having readings between 200 and 80 all day long. I am just really tired of having the highs. I feel so sick.
But, thank you to everyone who posted on this thread. 12 years into this disease and I still have a million questions.
BSC- thank you for all of your pertinent information that I seem to get from you. You really help me along with this struggle most times.
For the record, I do NOT bank lows to lower my A1c. I’m just trying to stay “constant”. I want what we all want- stable BG.
It will be over soon, I know it will, I know it!!
I’ve been feeling rather hopeful since I read up on the Smart Insulin stuff. Granted the time-line is that usual 4-5 Bullsh@@t I’ve been hearing for the last 15 (or so) years, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one.
I can’t tell you the number of times I ran HIGH HIGH after a low. (And I was supposedly a professional.)
I finally figured out that I was a small person requiring a small number of grams to correct the high (after all, most dosages are based on weight).
I didn’t need what a 145 lb person needs (15 grams)!
I decided that if 6 grams raised me 40 mm/dl, then that would do. I then would test after 15 minutes if I had a bolus on board to ensure I still wasn’t going down.
Then after that I figured out that the feelings of the low lasted a LOT longer than the low. The low was already corrected. I just had to ride out the feelings, and never walk into the kitchen.
Lastly, I decided that I would treat lows only with glucose tabs that required no digestion. They are measured doses.
I can’t tell you how frustrating it was for me to find out that what I had been teaching about “take 15 grams, wait 15 minutes, test again, take 15 grams more if still low” was SO WRONG. I had taught it over 20 years since it first had started. If it took this professional so long to figure it out, I don’t know how a lay person can be expected to figure out that the professionals are telling them all wrong.
Marps,
The other thing that it took me FOREVER to accept is that those 15 gram snacks they told me to take mid-morning and mid-afternoon: I needed insulin to cover them.
I couldn’t take a 15 gram snack without having more insulin. I stayed in absolute denial over it.
If I take a 7 gram snack, I need 1 unit of insulin.
If I take a 15 gram snack, I need 2 units of insulin. And when I jerked myself into doing it, I lost my swings during midday. No more highs. No more lows.
Have a good - constant 92 - all day!
Leo,
Same here because I’m also small. The 15/15 rule doesn’t apply to me. Wish doctors/educators would move away from this generalization. One gram of glucose raises me 10 pts consistently. Fifteen would send me soaring.
It takes me closer to 30 minutes to see the effect of correcting a low (& often the full effect for some can be up to an hour). If I ate an additional 15 grams after 15 min, I’d skyrocket. Easy to see how people over correct when this is what they’re told to do.
I’m on my phone so this isn’t going to post right, but this is in response to Gerri and Leo2.
I also need to cover snacks and anything w carbs. Anything over 5g sends me soaring. And I gave to correct even a 137 w 2 units to bring me down to 90. But apidra still takes 1 or 2 hours to correct a high. And eating 5g of carbs takes abt a half hour to come into effect.
Pavlos: I haven’t researched the smart insulin very much, but I am leery to believe a cure will come any time soon. No matter if it’s a real cure, or just a cure in the matter of electronics w no injections. I believe we r too expensive and we make too many companies business for them to want to cure us. Sad way of thinking, maybe, but I gave seen nothing else in the past 12 years to make me change my mind. 
At 73 right now and falling slowly. Woke up at 169. Almost lunchtime anyway.
i’m going to disagree slightly here … 55 is a tad low but for me, at least, it’s not in the serious danger zone. i’ve been at that level for extended periods both intentionally and not without consequence. i much prefer trending a bit low than high (by that, i mean anything above 180). i am fully functional; have reffed soccer at that level; interviewed presidential candidates and had some of the best results of my life. so … there’s a lot of variation in numbers for each person. you have to go by history.
even so … i would eat something small – a scoop of peanut butter perhaps.
Thank you DC Reporter. That’s what I thought exactly. I don’t freak out until i’m at 40. But on the same note, I don’t freak til i’m at 200 either. I’m just still trying to get everything under control.
Medtronic’s CareLink program , including wearing MM sensors will show , how much time is spent in target zone OR out of the zone . It helps me .
55 (Canadian divide by 18 equals 3.0) too low to my liking , as I like to be around upper 90 for safe driving .I could not do any safe exercising either .
I know you would not bank lows, but I also know that you have struggled to stabilize your blood sugars, so just seeing that arrow point to the right is an accomplishment.
I remember when I got my DexCom that I saw double arrows both up and down. I overdid corrections for both highs and lows. These days a single up/down arrow is rare. Most of the time it’s a horizontal arrow, after I eat I see 45 degree arrows. Playing the game at a slower speed is so much easier.
Spooky: yup! I used to feel safer in the higher BG numbers, due to many insulin shock comas, but since I got the Dexcom a month ago, I’ve really started to reign in my BG numbers. It’s really hard! But I feel a lot better! Hopefully things work out for the long run.
As for banking lows, I used to do it subconsciously when I was first diagnosed. I didn’t fully understand the A1c thing and I used to ride a 25 or a 19 so that I could bring my averages down. I did it for like 3 months… Ugh. So not worth it! I ended up getting wicked sick and then it only helped my A1c by abt HALF a point. NOT worth it and was SO dangerous. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it, but looking back 12 years ago, I can see why and I can see that I was doing it.
Messy.
Today has been 23 hours in TARGET range! Hit a 200 for an hour after I ate breakfast, but other than that, I’ve been good! Hopefully this trend continues tomorrow!
Marps,
One of the reasons you described … one cannot totally rely on A1C numbers …there is more to our story as you know …I don’t mind my Team asking me , when we discuss A1C results …" how may lows ?? " , neither when we talk actual result of 7.0 …and I get to share " hardly any lows " because I know I felt pretty darn good , doing all the stuff I do at my age of almost 70 years .
I will not be surprised , if you get to manage those 200’s either …can be lots of reasons …even an air bubble in tubing; time to change infusion set , delivering insulin 20 min prior to breakfast, use of square bolus …or the unexplainable reason …be well .
I don’t like the 50s. Makes me shaky and unable to think. This morning my fasting was 140 but noticed I was blowing yellow snot out of my nose. (sorry, that sounded gross.)