Help

If you inject or not for a snack really depends on what you ate and what your BGs are rather than a random guess. DAFNE works towards you having to do a lot less guessing after all.

Considering how unsure and underconfident you sound, I really think you should speak to another diabetic that is on similar insulin because they may be able to give you a view that is better than the one I get from being on my insulins. It's very worrying how you're coming across.

Will you be having a refresher meeting with your DAFNE group soon?
If you're feeling like you cannot cope (possibly causing comfort eating), I think maybe you should speak to someone about your emotional health as well.

There's a turn up for the books. All ady my sugars have been B= 14.9, L = 14.5, D = 14. I decided to try Humalog for dinner, which was 5:30pm, had 2 CP's and took 8+4 units, and at 8:30pm my BG was 5.9.
If that had been the porcine I would still have been high. Back onto the humalog I think.

Thanks for your help and taking an interest in my post, much appreciated.

Best regards

Derek

It's okay, you were asking for help - so I've done my best!

As bad as it sounds, with my new understanding of the animal insulin you were on, I'm glad to hear you're going to stick to humalog. From my own experience, it does make things a lot easier to understand to use an insulin that works within a reasonable time (2-5 hours) than 8 hours.

With this, best of luck with working out your doses for humalog! You may be quite close to a good result!

Hi

Thanks for your encouraging words.

I have always taken less insulin in the last 5 or 6 years because i have it in my head that insulin causes weight gain and I hate being fat, although htat's what I certainly am now.


Dafne has beenh a great help and opened my eyes to how much insulin I need to be taking , eg if I had a snack I would never have taken QA even if they had 20 or 30 grams..

I used to have many hyos over the years, but none in the past 5 years because I always preffered to keep myself higher rather than lower due to not wanting to have too much insulin for the weight gains but that idea has obviouslky not worked as|I have put on sbout 5 stone in the past 8 year.


You're right I could do with some help with my emotional well being and support at a gym or something. Shame you can't get a personal trainer on the NHS lol.

My sugars have been improicving in the past couple of days so hopefully I will have it sorted soon.

All the best

Derek

I suppose deciding on wether you want a good HbA1c or a slim figure has to be made, I chose a good HbA1c over weight................I thought there was a direct link with weight and insulin but the mechanics are not that straight forward..............any excess energy/glucose left over is stored as fat, this process is completed with the use of insulin so I believe so getting the dose as accurate as possible is a good idea....................obviously the normal what goes in/out in terms of calories applys to us too..................

Nice change to your results! Keep working at it - try not to get disheartened. This may take you a while. It has me with my doses!

I think that if you try to do both weight loss and insulin working out at once, it's clearly only going to cause confusion.

Concentrate on perhaps changing eating habits (like less snacking between meals for example) and getting your doses right before worrying about losing weight.
Use carb free meals to see if your BI is working for you too - and use the 5hours QA working time to help you as well. This does mean carb free only between this time if you must eat.
Try to carb count the best you can so you don't have to extend your dose working out times more than a few days. Guesswork can mess up the picture (as we all know I'm sure).

Perhaps don't have a snack before bed every night... have one every other night until you feel confident that you don't need to)... if you're worried about over night hypos, look at testing around 3am - that is the most common time when hypos occur after the QA has finished and if you do hypo, you know to put your over night BI dose down.

Once you know what insulin your body needs to remain stable and in a good range, you can plan for weight loss so much better - after all, if you exercise and adjust your doses for the exercise, then your body will start to lose weight (as covered on the exercise pages of the DAFNE guidebook). If you're not sure what doses you need, you cannot do this as easily as you could be doing.

Not accommodating correctly for exercise is only going to cause more problems as well - I should know, I've had plenty of times where I haven't and hypo'd a lot!
Hypos can also lead to weight gain because you end up eating more than your body has exercised for! On this note, when you do hypo, do not worry about the weight stuff - and do not correct 24 hours after a hypo, this can cause another hypo! Let your BI bring you back down from a hypo's high.

As long as you plan ahead, you should be fine! Best of luck!

Thanks for your replies.
Novorapidboi your right |I shoulfd concentrate on my HbA1c first. I have always took less insulin to hopefully help with not gaining weight, well that approach obviously doesn't work.

I am not a big eater and don't have many snacks, recently been trying low carb/high fat and obviously too high fat calorie wise, hence the difficuklty losing any weight.

Since doing dafne I realise | have not been taking anywhere near enough insulin , last night before dinner at 7pm I was 7.7, had 24 units for 6 CPs, previously i would have taken around 14 units, and by bedtime at 11:45 my BS was 8.3. I thought I would have hypo with all that insulin.

One very bad habit I have is eating at bedtiome and it is something I have done since I was old enough to make my own supper. t is a very hard habit to break, I can have my dinner at 6pm and have nothing to eat all night, until bedtime and I psychologically/mentally have to eat something. Perhaps cognitive therapy or something along those lines would help? The bedtime snack has always been carb free in the past 6 months, not that it's an excuse it's still calories.

You will be getting fed uip reading my woes lol.


All the best and be happy


Derek

I like to have something to eat before bed as well, but I have to choose wisely in order to dampen the effects of dawn phenomenon, I often find myself having slowly absorbed carbs, like crispbread with banana on top, doesn't sound to good but its actually nice, other than that 2 slice of toast is usually my next choice.

What would you have that's carb free at night, if you can get the dose and timing right you could have anything theoretically, so better choice of more lower calorie items...........

Hi

Sorry I took so long to reply. For bedtime I usually have a packet of mattesons fridge raiders in a bowl with tablespoon of mayonnaise and primula cheese spresd.
Although a few years ago i was having packets of crisps and bowl of ice creasm, very bad!!

My sugars are getting better with taking BI later at night and increased 2 units to 18. This morning I was 6.6 and by lunch 5.5. Hope it continues.

JWo sorry for not acknowledging it was yourself who mentioned my HbA1c. I am concentrating on getting that lower and then I will tackle the weight.

Going to cut down on the carbs also as put on 4lbs since doing dafne!! More carbs = more insulin= weight gain, unless your bodybuilding or running every day.

all the best

Derek

Good news you morning reading has come down..............I was pleasantly surprised as you were with taking my evening dose later on, and its strange as that's what i done when i left the course,.....

I think the more carbs you have, the more calories going in, which obviously needs X amount of exercise to balance out, as opposed to the insulin's direct effect.........I would like to learn more about the link between the two to be honest, but cant seem to find anything online that is easy to understand.........

I say that and I am over weight, but I dont believe I eat crap, just dont exercise a lot.................also could be thyroid, getting checked in a few months........

Well done and may the good results continue..........