Recent Posts - DAFNE Online

May 3, 2011

Simon 578 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Android app

I'm going to have a look at this now - what version of the Android OS is everyone using? NiVZ - perhaps you, Mark and I could work together on it, sharing the workload? I've done some Java dev in the past, just need to get my head around the Android SDK.

May 3, 2011

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Id cards

I've used Medicalert - you pay an annual fee but they maintain your medical information on a database, and you get an ID card with basic info, then medical professionals can call the number on the card to get your full profile. You can also get ID bracelets/necklaces from them (I always forgot to put my bracelet on though...)

May 3, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high

Im glad your sugars have came down...................

It may just be a case of upping your BI dose whenever symptoms occur and your on medication, just the same as fighting virus or infection only you are providing the ingredients/fuel orally instead of automatically by the body........

May 3, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Id cards

Your clinic can provide cards, they just say that your an insulin dependent diabetic..........if you are looking for something more personal a Google Very Happy

search will give you some routes to go down........ Very Happy

May 2, 2011

JayBee 587 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Help

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! Smile

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. Smile

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! Smile

Best of luck!

May 2, 2011

grace080919 2 posts

Topic: Questions for HCPs / Blood Glucose range whilst pregnant

Caroline, i had my baby 8 months ago and i'm pretty sure bg should be no more than 7.9 before bed. I will try and find my diaries as i did record it! You will probably find that your insulin doses re quire more frequent adjustments, i was doing mine every week in the last trimester. I remember the hospital were particulary focussed on preventing a hypo as it takes a lot for the baby to recover from. I also remember my insulin requirements were nearly treble towards the end of my pregnancy and it took several monhs before i got them partially stable again. Good luck

May 2, 2011

grace080919 2 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Id cards

Hello

Does anyone where you can obtain diabetic id cards please? Rolling Eyes

May 2, 2011

DFH_17 22 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high

Thanks to both of you to replying to this. I did wonder if the tiny amount of lactose would have an effect or not. It seems to have taken 4 days of taking these tablets for an effect to occur.

I decided to stop taking the tablets this morning and already my BG's have gone back to normal but that may have coincided with me upping my BI insulin.

I've looked at the various antihistimine medication and all of them seem to contain lactose. so it makes it pretty difficult for GP's to sort out us diabetics on this issue by the looks of things.

Thanks again. I'll check on the lactose content in the Loratadine.

May 2, 2011

grandma carol 61 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon

glad I could help. I have been a lot better with the 0.5 at dinner times but as you I sometimes need the 1-1 so I do change it now and them. It dose take a bit of getting useto but think I am getting there been diabetic for 36 years and just would have the same injectons everyday but now with the different ratios and the carb counting I dont seem to hypo like I did the big drop in the BI was the thing I could not get my head around and even now I still want to put it up when I am high in the mornings but dont.
And things seem to settle down and I go back to having good days .
Hope things work out for you soon it did take me from last September till now to get my BGs down and in single figers but not to bad now good look with the 0.5 unit Smile

May 2, 2011

Alan 49 284 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high

I think the word 'lactose' is derived from 2 Latin (I think) words meaning 'milk' and 'sugar', so it looks as if it's bound to have some effect. I wouldn't have thought there would be much in 10mg tablets. Your GP should have spotted this.

May 2, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / porridge

as others have said, if your happy with your weighing of the oats, and the negligible milk count, and you consistantly get above target readings at lunch, the step wise approach would indicate your ratio is not enough, so crank it up and see how it goes.......... Smile

May 2, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Help

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.................. Crying or Very sad

May 2, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high

I would definetly try and find out whats in these tablets, amounts if possible, even though they may be small, there may be a cumulitive effect if your taking them regularly..........

i dont actually know the active process of antihistimine medication but it may also be effecting the livers normal production of energy............

May 2, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / latest figures

Neil Brown said:
Thanks for all the advice . When I was on 1:1 ratios BG was usually high

I would recommend investigating your BI doses in that case.......

May 2, 2011

novorapidboi26 1,819 posts

Topic: General Discussion / carb counting Apps

I havent heard any of any apart from the carbs and cals book version, might need to google some now...................probably wont use it though as the longer you carb count the more self able you become at counting them, its always a stab at the dark when eating out, but an app would help in these situations.....

May 1, 2011

derekh1965 95 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Help

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

May 1, 2011

HelenP 218 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon

Davie..
You could try a 0.75:1 also. It sounds daunting but it maybe better than just halving the dose. I am assuming you have a demipen. Helen

May 1, 2011

DFH_17 22 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high

Hi,

I dont know if anyone else is suffering from hayfever at the moment? Unfortunately my hay fever kicked from the Friday before last - have been prescribed with Loratadine 10mg tablets which contain lactose. I've been taking these tablets since last Tuesday and initially my BG's were fine but since Friday my BG's keep going high - I've been correcting and the correcting unfortunately isn't working.
I've increased my BI last night so am hoping that'll over the next few days my BG will calm down.

My question is - would the Loratadine affect my BG's - due to the lactose in the tablet? Am asking as its putting me off taking the tablets.

Any thoughts/help would be really welcome.

May 1, 2011

daviebear 19 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon

Thanks Trudi and grandma carol.Am fairly sure I'm not hypoing at 4am.But may ask for the CGMS,I have the first follow up to dafne on wednesday,so will give it a shot.Grandma Carol,you have answered another query I was going to put up here.I hypo evry working day(not on days off as ratio is different then),at 2pm then again at 4pm.I have reduced my BI and am on a 1to 1 ratio at lunchtime.I was going to ask if you could do a 0.5 to 1 ratio.Seeing as you're doing it,I will go ahead and do it too,and agin let them know on wednesday.That's been a great help.Thanks a lot. Very Happy

May 1, 2011

JayBee 587 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Help

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

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!

Apr 30, 2011

grandma carol 61 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon

I was the same and just would put my BI up to try to bring BGs down in the mornings tests at 3.00 were fine. Got the use of a CGMS and found out that I was hypoing at the 4.00. I have now drooped my BG down from 20 to 10 and if I am high through night then I give a extra QA things still not quite right yet but getting better. Would never have known about the night hypos if it haddent been gor the CGM so if you can get one for a week take it. I am on a 3.5 to1 ratio in the mornings but at dinner time just 0.5.

Apr 30, 2011

Trudi 8 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon

My neice has been having highs in the morning with good readings at 3am. My sister decided to try a CGMS to see if there was anything going on - turned out she was hypoing at 4am so they were missing it with the 3am test. Do you have the option for a CGMS - if only for a week, it can give you some fantastic feedback and provide patterns you might otherwise miss.
Trudi

Apr 29, 2011

Caroline 29 posts

Topic: Questions for HCPs / Blood Glucose range whilst pregnant

Hello Lil, sorry to hear of your miscarrriage. Miscarriages can happen for many reasons and not just because you are a diabetic. I do agree that your blood glucose control needs to be tightly monitored, however you and me both know it can seem like an impossibility at times. My advice to you is to keep on trying to conceive and continue to follow what you have learnt from the Dafne course. My blood glucose range wasnt exactly good when I fell pregnant with my first child. In fact I only got diagnosed as diabetic 3 weeks before I found out I was pregnant. Education was poor then and to be honest I did not have a clue what I was doing! However, she was born 3 weeks early than due and weighed 9.4! With my second child, my education was obviously better understood and I ate the same carbs each day and he weighed 7.9 (born by induction at 38 weeks). Now carrying my third child (6 months pregnant now) my blood sugars have been ok but I wouldnt say brilliant. Some times they are high... so I adjust my insulin accordingly. Then some times im low... again I follow the dafne way and adjust if necessary. Since doing Dafne in Sept 2010, I feel pregnant in November 2010. They say it bests to have good control before you plan, but in my experience that could take forever. Keeping a closer eye on my blood glucose control enables me to correct if necessary. Its up to me and now not the speciailists and I very rarely need their input in my montioring. My last HBA1C was 6.6 (miracle) however I expect it has risen lately due to frequent highs (2 trimester requires more insulin). My HBA1Cs were not great before becoming pregnant. Anyway, I hope my comments help you, and I wish you all the best.

May 3, 2011 Simon 578 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Android app I'm going to have a look at this now - what version of the Android OS is everyone using? NiVZ - perhaps you, Mark and I could work together on it, sharing the workload? I've done some Java dev in the past, just need to get my head around the Android SDK.

May 3, 2011 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Id cards I've used Medicalert - you pay an annual fee but they maintain your medical information on a database, and you get an ID card with basic info, then medical professionals can call the number on the card to get your full profile. You can also get ID bracelets/necklaces from them (I always forgot to put my bracelet on though...)

May 3, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high Im glad your sugars have came down................... It may just be a case of upping your BI dose whenever symptoms occur and your on medication, just the same as fighting virus or infection only you are providing the ingredients/fuel orally instead of automatically by the body........

May 3, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Id cards Your clinic can provide cards, they just say that your an insulin dependent diabetic..........if you are looking for something more personal a Google search will give you some routes to go down........

May 2, 2011 JayBee 587 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Help 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!

May 2, 2011 grace080919 2 posts	Topic: Questions for HCPs / Blood Glucose range whilst pregnant Caroline, i had my baby 8 months ago and i'm pretty sure bg should be no more than 7.9 before bed. I will try and find my diaries as i did record it! You will probably find that your insulin doses re quire more frequent adjustments, i was doing mine every week in the last trimester. I remember the hospital were particulary focussed on preventing a hypo as it takes a lot for the baby to recover from. I also remember my insulin requirements were nearly treble towards the end of my pregnancy and it took several monhs before i got them partially stable again. Good luck

May 2, 2011 grace080919 2 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Id cards Hello Does anyone where you can obtain diabetic id cards please?

May 2, 2011 DFH_17 22 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high Thanks to both of you to replying to this. I did wonder if the tiny amount of lactose would have an effect or not. It seems to have taken 4 days of taking these tablets for an effect to occur. I decided to stop taking the tablets this morning and already my BG's have gone back to normal but that may have coincided with me upping my BI insulin. I've looked at the various antihistimine medication and all of them seem to contain lactose. so it makes it pretty difficult for GP's to sort out us diabetics on this issue by the looks of things. Thanks again. I'll check on the lactose content in the Loratadine.

May 2, 2011 grandma carol 61 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon glad I could help. I have been a lot better with the 0.5 at dinner times but as you I sometimes need the 1-1 so I do change it now and them. It dose take a bit of getting useto but think I am getting there been diabetic for 36 years and just would have the same injectons everyday but now with the different ratios and the carb counting I dont seem to hypo like I did the big drop in the BI was the thing I could not get my head around and even now I still want to put it up when I am high in the mornings but dont. And things seem to settle down and I go back to having good days . Hope things work out for you soon it did take me from last September till now to get my BGs down and in single figers but not to bad now good look with the 0.5 unit

May 2, 2011 Alan 49 284 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high I think the word 'lactose' is derived from 2 Latin (I think) words meaning 'milk' and 'sugar', so it looks as if it's bound to have some effect. I wouldn't have thought there would be much in 10mg tablets. Your GP should have spotted this.

May 2, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / porridge as others have said, if your happy with your weighing of the oats, and the negligible milk count, and you consistantly get above target readings at lunch, the step wise approach would indicate your ratio is not enough, so crank it up and see how it goes..........

May 2, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Help 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..................

May 2, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high I would definetly try and find out whats in these tablets, amounts if possible, even though they may be small, there may be a cumulitive effect if your taking them regularly.......... i dont actually know the active process of antihistimine medication but it may also be effecting the livers normal production of energy............

May 2, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / latest figures Neil Brown said: Thanks for all the advice . When I was on 1:1 ratios BG was usually high I would recommend investigating your BI doses in that case.......

May 2, 2011 novorapidboi26 1,819 posts	Topic: General Discussion / carb counting Apps I havent heard any of any apart from the carbs and cals book version, might need to google some now...................probably wont use it though as the longer you carb count the more self able you become at counting them, its always a stab at the dark when eating out, but an app would help in these situations.....

May 1, 2011 derekh1965 95 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Help 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

May 1, 2011 HelenP 218 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon Davie.. You could try a 0.75:1 also. It sounds daunting but it maybe better than just halving the dose. I am assuming you have a demipen. Helen

May 1, 2011 DFH_17 22 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Hay fever - BG's gone high Hi, I dont know if anyone else is suffering from hayfever at the moment? Unfortunately my hay fever kicked from the Friday before last - have been prescribed with Loratadine 10mg tablets which contain lactose. I've been taking these tablets since last Tuesday and initially my BG's were fine but since Friday my BG's keep going high - I've been correcting and the correcting unfortunately isn't working. I've increased my BI last night so am hoping that'll over the next few days my BG will calm down. My question is - would the Loratadine affect my BG's - due to the lactose in the tablet? Am asking as its putting me off taking the tablets. Any thoughts/help would be really welcome.

May 1, 2011 daviebear 19 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon Thanks Trudi and grandma carol.Am fairly sure I'm not hypoing at 4am.But may ask for the CGMS,I have the first follow up to dafne on wednesday,so will give it a shot.Grandma Carol,you have answered another query I was going to put up here.I hypo evry working day(not on days off as ratio is different then),at 2pm then again at 4pm.I have reduced my BI and am on a 1to 1 ratio at lunchtime.I was going to ask if you could do a 0.5 to 1 ratio.Seeing as you're doing it,I will go ahead and do it too,and agin let them know on wednesday.That's been a great help.Thanks a lot.

May 1, 2011 JayBee 587 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Help 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!

Apr 30, 2011 grandma carol 61 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon I was the same and just would put my BI up to try to bring BGs down in the mornings tests at 3.00 were fine. Got the use of a CGMS and found out that I was hypoing at the 4.00. I have now drooped my BG down from 20 to 10 and if I am high through night then I give a extra QA things still not quite right yet but getting better. Would never have known about the night hypos if it haddent been gor the CGM so if you can get one for a week take it. I am on a 3.5 to1 ratio in the mornings but at dinner time just 0.5.

Apr 30, 2011 Trudi 8 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Dawn Phenomenon My neice has been having highs in the morning with good readings at 3am. My sister decided to try a CGMS to see if there was anything going on - turned out she was hypoing at 4am so they were missing it with the 3am test. Do you have the option for a CGMS - if only for a week, it can give you some fantastic feedback and provide patterns you might otherwise miss. Trudi

Apr 29, 2011 Caroline 29 posts	Topic: Questions for HCPs / Blood Glucose range whilst pregnant Hello Lil, sorry to hear of your miscarrriage. Miscarriages can happen for many reasons and not just because you are a diabetic. I do agree that your blood glucose control needs to be tightly monitored, however you and me both know it can seem like an impossibility at times. My advice to you is to keep on trying to conceive and continue to follow what you have learnt from the Dafne course. My blood glucose range wasnt exactly good when I fell pregnant with my first child. In fact I only got diagnosed as diabetic 3 weeks before I found out I was pregnant. Education was poor then and to be honest I did not have a clue what I was doing! However, she was born 3 weeks early than due and weighed 9.4! With my second child, my education was obviously better understood and I ate the same carbs each day and he weighed 7.9 (born by induction at 38 weeks). Now carrying my third child (6 months pregnant now) my blood sugars have been ok but I wouldnt say brilliant. Some times they are high... so I adjust my insulin accordingly. Then some times im low... again I follow the dafne way and adjust if necessary. Since doing Dafne in Sept 2010, I feel pregnant in November 2010. They say it bests to have good control before you plan, but in my experience that could take forever. Keeping a closer eye on my blood glucose control enables me to correct if necessary. Its up to me and now not the speciailists and I very rarely need their input in my montioring. My last HBA1C was 6.6 (miracle) however I expect it has risen lately due to frequent highs (2 trimester requires more insulin). My HBA1Cs were not great before becoming pregnant. Anyway, I hope my comments help you, and I wish you all the best.