Figures muddle me!!!

Hello everyone
I have been 'lurking' for some time now. Reading all I can and trying to figure it all out.
I am 64 yrs old female. Told I was T2. Tried dieting and all kinds of pills but nothing worked. After lots more testing they decided I was T1 and I went onto insulin. I had gestational diabetes during my pregnancies. my consultant says i have probably been on the borderline ever since. Maybe this explains why i never ever felt well.
I'm on a waiting list for training (May 2014). ive been studying all I can find on the Dafne course while I'm waiting and I think I understand the concept of it all. I have no trouble counting carbs and working out insulin needed. My problem is what to do with the figures when I've got them!!!
I look at them and they mean nothing to me. I can see that most times my BG is too high. Usually at bedtime it's in the 20's. I'm sharing yesterday's diary in hopes of some ideas. Is my bolus too high or too low? Is my QA not enough? That's the numbers that I can't grasp. When I look at them I don't see any patterns just that BG is too high.
They are better than when diagnosed. Nov 2012 my HbA1c was 98. It's now 69 so that must be an improvement.
Any help or advice gratefully received
Maryjc

when DAFNE is started you learn that the background dose is the most critical.......its the foundation.........so for you the 9 in the morning and the 9 before bed.........

you will need to test these doses by having carb free meals, this will tell you what the current dose of 9 is actually doing..........it should be holding your blood sugar steady from one meal time to the next......

Its also taught to obtain 3 consecutive days results in order to make accurate conclusions about what is happening........

these 2 background doses will need to be adjusted and correct before any real evaluation of the bolus/mealtime insulin doses can be done....

it seems as though your ratios are really low, so you need not a lot of insulin, this may be the case, but it may also be that your background doses are too much........

I hope that made sense........basically you need to get some background test results down on paper........

Welcome to the forum Mary.........

Thank you very much. I will try tomorrow for carb free meals. But I will be honest and admit I have never been able to go without carbs. I have trouble just trying to keep them lower than normal.
Am I right in thinking then, that the basal insulin keeps my blood sugar stable and the bolus only covers what I have just eaten. Does that sum it up?

Thats exactly right...

I Usually go for meat, cheese or egg meals....although for complete accuracy your best just missing the meal altogether. ...

its difficult for most but thats why its good its only down now and again....

do you think you will go hypo if you go carb free or is it just a hunger thing...

Its

I've always been a compulsive over eater. I binge eat. Since being diagnosed I am much better but I still crave the carbs. If I don't eat regular I do have hypos. Sometimes I'm as low as 2 mm ol. I find these rather scary as I live alone and I don't always have warning signs. Just going for a walk can make me hypo so I overcompensate with the carbs because I don't know how to juggle my insulin. If I eat regular and stay sedentary I'm ok. Not good for the weight though. Lol
I also find all the different advice confusing. The clinic tell me to have carbs with every meal and never to skip meals. I'm getting good with working out how many carbs and how much insulin. But to me they are just numbers that don't mean anything. I've been reading everything I can find so am much better informed now. It's the correcting and juggling and looking for patterns that I don't seem to get. I've always been a 'words' person and not good with numbers at all.

the basic rule for carb counting is that 1 unit is needed for every 10 grams of carbohydrate.....this can change later on as you fine tune your doses.......

Because your saying you can go low without the carbs, or even with a small increase in activity, this would suggest the background doses may be out, too much in your case......

So getting the BI tested as soon as possible is critical.........

Have you managed to do the tests yet?

1 important note for BI when on a two split.
Try and inject at the same time every day,
"Why"
Day 1 inject at 6 am then at 6 pm
Day 2 inject at 9 am then 6 pm

This very basic example shows the effect of not having a set time
Day 2 would be out of your target because you have a period of no BI 3 hrs this would throw all your normal ratios out giving highs, which in turn when you correct later you'll find your BG lower than expected since you have a over lap of BI.
Dafne gives you flexibility with your QA but I'm sorry to say the BI is less forgiving.
Type 1 42 yrs

Thank you for replies.
Sorry to be a dunce but when you say no carbs for testing BI does this mean all day or just for one meal. I could probably manage that but would be very hard for me to go all day.
Feeling fed up with it all so very down this week. Ready to give it all up.
As for injecting Bl at same time, I've never seen this anywhere but it certainly makes sense now I've seen it in print. Thank you for that. I have been injecting at any ol time of the day whenever I remembered. So from this morning I shall try 10am / 10 pm
Something puzzling me from last night is....
Went to bed high. 22.5 mmol
At 3:30am reading was 5.4 mmol.
With nothing to eat or drink in between my reading is now 10 mmol.
I always imagined that BG wouldn't rise if you had no food? Am I misunderstanding.

you only need to test with one meal, you can then get 2-3 days worth of results over the same meal time and then make a decision on what you need to do with the BI dose.....

no doubt there are some who can manage a whole day, I know I couldn't.....

I sometimes don't even wait 2-3 days.........I would miss lunch on the Monday, then dinner on the Tuesday ,then lunch on Wednesday, dinner on Thursday......

its obviously quite easy to do overnight tests as you wont be eating anyway......

Most would tackle the overnight first because of this, and because its quite important to get your morning reading right, so as to set you up for the day......

That's what you should do , and its obvious you need to from the results you posted.......you overnight results show a large drop, this is down to too much BI, would be good to get a similar result again to confirm, but you will be reducing in my opinion.......

Thank you for trying to help me. I am posting my diary for last 10 days as i realise 1days reading is not enough to go on. Any input gratefully received
I have started trawling through all previous posts to see what I can learn from everyone on here

Mary