Recent Posts by Garry
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328 posts found
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May 28, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / BG REACTIONS I normally try to start with a BG of 8 or 9 but playing after work sometimes find that difficult to acheive.Played last Monday and started at 6.4 but by the 4th I was already at 4.4 and had to resort to starting the sandwiches. I walk much further than other people on the course however...home course is 7,200 yards but I must walk 9000+...zig-zag...maybe you know the feeling! Regards Garry |
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May 28, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / BG REACTIONS I must eat on the way around the course alanG. I can need to have 5 CPs during a round. Slows me down a bit I have to say.I'm a lot less insulin sensitive than yourself however. Regards Garry |
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May 27, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / BG REACTIONS If I'm starting to doze off in the day my Wife gets me to go and check my BG.9 times out of 10 I'll be low and I'll get "I told you so". So I'm like you Warwick. Regards Garry |
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May 27, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Still not too confident 😕 Welcome Joanne80. With ongoing higher Blood Glucose results you may have an infection of some sort. Were your BGs good last week? If not, you may well need increase your BI to help control the situation. Please remember though that BI changes can take days to have any impact. I know you are concerned at the moment and want quick improvement, but you must accept that your body takes time to adjust to a changed BI. I'm on Lantus BI and it always takes me 3 days to see any real change in BGs. We are all physiologically different, but this rule seems to hold true for the vast majority of us. May be a little different when you use another BI however. So my advice is take it slowly, look at your results and analyse them. Try to think about how much exercise you get each day and note that in your diary too. In a few days you may see the BI kick in but try to be cautious. None of the BG results listed in your diary are too dire. Don't worry. You will get back on track in a few days. Regards Garry |
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May 23, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Pregnancy - what was HbA1c when you got the go-ahead Here is a copy/paste from an old discussion:A guide to the new values expressed as mmol/mol is: Current DCCT aligned HbA1c(%) New IFCC HbA1c (mmol/mol) 4.0 - 20 5.0 - 31 6.0 - 42 6.5 - 48 7.0 - 53 7.5 - 58 8.0 - 64 9.0 - 75 10.0 - 86 What are the targets in new units? The equivalent of the current DCCT HbA1c targets of 6.5% and 7.5% are 48mmol/mol and 58mmol/mol in the new units, with the non-diabetic reference range of 4.0% to 6.0% being 20 mmol/mol to 42 mmol/mol. End of Quote from diabetes.org.uk I would have thought that your HCPs would be talking to you and using the worldwide accepted IFCC HbA1c (mmol/mol) units now. Regards Garry |
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May 14, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Need advise Welcome and well done avanella.We will try and assist with the information supplied so far. You can show your BI injection sites too. This gives you the opportunity to review your distribution of injection sites for both QA and BI to plan how you can efficiently move them about in an effort to help good insulin dose absorbtion. Keep the results coming. Regards Garry |
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May 14, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / How to Remember If You've Done an Injection We are all in the same boat...memory like a sieve...that sounds familiar....but I can't remember where I've just read it!I Use Humalog QA and Lilly produce a memory pen, Humapen Memoir, which the displays date and time plus dose taken. So that's a help to me. The Lantus disposable pen is a different problem...as far as I know there are no memory pens out there for this BI. So my fix was...I forced myself into the habit of always writing my dose notes into my DAFNE diary AFTER I had taken them. That way I knew for sure that I had taken my BI. In times gone by, I would write up my doses in the diary before taking them. Then as mentioned above, go off and do something else..completely forgetting that I hadn't taken my insulin. 3 hours later check BG and see a 14, 15 or whatever! Only then would I realise my mistake and start trying to retrieve the situation...doing my best to try and avoid overlapping QA doses etc...often unsucessfully I have to say. So thats my fix. It reflects Sharon doodle's approach in a sense. As alturn mentions though...I always have my DAFNE diary with me and use that as an aide-memoir. Regards Garry |
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May 14, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Needles Good...Power to the people!Regards Garry |
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May 7, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Fevertree Tonic Water One fevertree is nearly 1 CP. Libby mentioned 200 ml/bottles and 3.9g/100 ml or 0.78 CP per bottle.I'm not a Health Care Professional but personally speaking I don't worry about 1 CP between meals as the beauty of DAFNE is...eat normally...live normally...and OK so I may need make an insulin adjustment at the next meal time, that's easy to do once familar with your individual response to QA. Regards Garry |
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May 6, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / Fevertree Tonic Water I wouldn't worry about it. Might be good policy to stop at 10 drinks though!Less than 1 CP between meals...just think of it as a snack. If any correction is needed - make it when you have checked your pre-meal BG and take suitable matching insulin dose. Take care not to overcompensate however. If you have a lot to drink, remember your liver is already occupied processing the drinks and is less able to release it's safety store of glucose into your blood stream to protect against hypoglycemia. Regards Garry |
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Apr 16, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Travelling Abroad Good point michaelj makes adamrea...as I forgot to mention how temperature can affect your BG meter and test strips.Might be 15 or 16 years ago...couldn't get my meter to work after several days of high temperatures in the south of France. The Pharmacist in the nearest large village was very helpful though, explaining that he had had lots of experience of test strip failures that summer and he supplied me with new strips off his air-conditioned pharmacy shelf. Don't remember the exact cost...but it was painful! Regards Garry |
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Apr 16, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Travelling Abroad Welcome adamrea You can take your medication with you on board. Declare your sharps at the desk when checking in though. Best carry a covering letter from your Health care Professionals too. I have killed my spare insulin in the past when travelling, through too high temperatures, so now use a Frio insulin wallet. Buy from Frio direct and it may be a little cheaper, as think it is VAT free. Boon is, the wallet just needs soaking in water to activate the cooling gel. Make sure it is not enclosed so the water can evaporate - the latent heat of evaporation does the cooling and will keep your pens cool enough in elevated temperatures. Good instructions with the product. Other makes out there also. If in a hotel with a drinks fridge in your room, you can keep spare insulins in there whilst out and about. Use caution however and satisfy yourself that the fridge will not overchill your pens/phials. Put a glass of water in there overnight as a check to make sure the temperature is suitable. Must be no lower than 3° C...so make sure no mushy water in the glass next morning. Use the top of the fridge which is normally the warmest. Almost sure that you will need alter doses whilst you are away, for lots of reasons...temperature, foods, exercise...or lack of it! Keep an eye on your bloods for sure, but most of all have a good time and enjoy yourself. Regards Garry |
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Apr 10, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Counting Carbohydrates Welcome celinep Lets focus on potatoes, as you mentioned them. Within your online Carb Counter list, which I think you have found by clicking the blue hyperlink near the top right of this page, there is a further hyperlink in the next list that appears for Potatoes. If we look at this table in isolation we are able to see lots of values listed, which might seem a bit confusing, but lets only look at the ones for potatoes only, prepared in different ways, which show in the list as 100g. So if we go to Potato(Raw) we see 1.5 CPs. Then compare that with mashed potato and boiled potato, further up the list, we see both contain 1.5 CPs...so the carbohydrate in the potato has not really changed even though it is cooked. OK so far? However if we then look at 100g values for jacket potato and chips in the list, we see both contain 3.0 CPs! how can that be...the carbohydrate in the potato cannot increase...and it doesn't. What has changed is that the amount of water remaining in the cooked potato has gone down during cooking. This effectively means that the 'carbohydrate density' has increased in the preparation of this food. Our 100g weight of finished chips have come from cooking 200g of raw potato...and going back to our first CP values...that is 2 x 100g or 2 x 1.5 CPs - 3 CPs...just what we see in the list. Our boiled potatoes, as they have had no water cooked out of them, are still 1.5 CPs. Now 100 g is the normal weight measurement shown that you can see on packaged food labelling, to demonstrate the carbohydrate value of the product inside. Say a packet shows that for every 100g of product we get 64g carbohydrate and the packet weighs 400g - we know we are buying 4 times our listed carbohydrate value so we need use 4 x 64g or 256g CHO...which is 256 divided by 10 or 25.6 CPs...an awful lot of carbohydrate...better not eat that on my own! Lot to take in I know, but as Vickyp mentioned we all get it wrong sometimes....but mostly it becomes second nature after a while. Don't worry. You will soon have it. Regards Garry |
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Apr 4, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Need to lower BI in the morning, is it a problem? Don't think that, not too good to be true - 9.0 is good. Progress toward sound HbA1c results evident.Strive on! Been doing this for 34+ years now...albeit only the last 4 under DAFNE guide lines! Here are April results so far........ Not too impressive Huh. Thanks for your reply. Regards Garry |
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Apr 4, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Need to lower BI in the morning, is it a problem? I think that in the 4+ years since DAFNE I have had 3 green days. Good progress Like to know what your bedtime BG was and look forward to congratulating you if it was another green. Regards Garry |
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Apr 1, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / my feet and hands shazell, welcome Talk to your GP and they can refer you to a local consultant for examination and, if they consider it appropriate, carry out nerve conduction tests to determine quite how affected you are. As HelenP mentions, the surgery is not dramatic. I've had both hands done...I'm afraid it is down to one of the effects of long term Type 1 as nerve and tendon sheaths thicken over time, constraining the nerve bundle. Regards Garry |
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Mar 25, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Alcohol, carb counting and insulin doses Bit vexing isn't it, that a beer bottle label doesn't have to tell you the carbohydrate content. May tell you alsorts of other useless stuff...but not the CHO value. I've moaned about this in the past.When I first became type 1....a few years ago...the only beer on the market at that time that made any claims to be low carbohydrate was Holsten Diet Pils and that was low, with as much sugar brewed out as the specialised yeast was capable of acheiving. Can't remember the value now though as it is over 30 years ago. But even then they gave you the CHO value on the label. I have discovered Marston's Resolution at 0.6g/100ml or 1.65g per 275 bottle. 6 bottles for 1 CP is good isn't it. My only problem is that I have to drive a 46 mile round trip to get it, as no one sells it in my area. I last bought 2 cases some months ago...did not last very long however  I'll try and cull some info from the net and post it on this thread if anyone has an interest. Regards Garry |
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Mar 20, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / BI and morning BG If you go back to your diary you can edit individual entries by clicking the time of the entry which gets you into an edit screen. Please take little notice of between meal BGs.These are good for information, as they may help you understand your normal QA uptake times, but if you compensate for these additional results you will stack up QA doses with the outcome that you see. Slowly, slowly. Wait until the meal time and compensate then, if necessary. Try not to make lots of changes. Change one thing at a time and see what happens over a few days and then decide whether or not the change is beneficial. The graphs produced by the diary can be helpful here. Keep up the Ketone checks too, if greater than 13 or 14 mmol/L. You can enter the actual value from your meter but your diary only shows true. Keep an eye on them as a run of high BGs, plus ketones, normally give me forewarning that I'm going to feel sick tomorrow or the day after. Regards Garry |
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Mar 20, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / BI and morning BG For me, a snack is normally less than 2 CPs and depending on my result immediately before would determine what to do.If normal, or little lower BG at time of snack, I'd usually let it ride to the next meal and if necessary compensate then. I do the pre-meal blood and...for me...pre-meal insulin. I find I need take my insulin before a meal in order to get the Humalog QA active enough in my system, to trim off post-meal spikes in BG. If high before, when contemplating a snack, I wouldn't have the snack. If taking an extra meal I would use the ratio appropriate for that time of day. My ratios currently are: - 2, 2.2 and 2:1, breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively, so not much varaition at the minute. In the past however they have been plenty of changes, the widest range used was 3, 2.5 and 1.5:1 across the day. You will find that you may need adapt and make many changes over time. As long as the results are good...that's fine. Bear in mind though that if you take matching QA for an extra meal and then eat your normal meal within 3 or 4 hours you have to expect an elevated BG. Don't add any compensation QA for the normal meal as you'll likely to be stacking QA doses up which may crash you later. Regards Garry |
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Mar 19, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / BI and morning BG Logically no. It wouldn't. Your BI is active and more or less...depending on your individual response to Lantus...in the middle of its delivery time. If you rise by say more than 1 or 2 mmol/L overnight it would be one of two things: - too little BI, or maybe or if you are like the majority of us on here, more insulin resistant on a morning. To wake us up, at some time during the early morning, our body secretes adrenalin or Epinephrine - it's proper name. This makes us insulin resistant, some of us more resistant than others and this slows the absorption and effect of the BI that you have taken. Once the BI is held back, your BG rises as a consequence.For a night check most of us look to use 3:00 am.......an unGodly hour I know. But this has been chosen, I guess, as it is probably before the start of the impact of any early morning adrenalin. I'll look out for your diary posting. You are able to share your diary with an individual too using the link at the top right of the diary page under Tools and click Shared Diaries. This also allows Health care Professionals to stay in touch with your ongoing results too. Regards Garry |
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Mar 19, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / BI and morning BG Welcome PVT1. Hope you find plenty good support here from your fellow diabetics. I've learnt many things, over the time that I have used the forum. Other people's postings on here can give us a supporting insight into how others deal with the joy of being a type 1. Like you, I used to take a single Lantus dose of something over 60 u....I looked back to my first diary entry on here 23/11/2009 to try and tell you an accurate number...but did not get the answer to my own question...as even then I was using split dose, as for me Lantus lasted 16 to 18 hours and not the claimed duration. My current split is 30u before breakfast and 26u before dinner as I find this usually keeps the BI doses about 12 hours apart. Please use your online Diary. It can provide you with plenty of help and you will be surprised how much information you can drag out of it to support your efforts. Regards Garry |
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Mar 19, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / Need to lower BI in the morning, is it a problem? Think of your ratios in another way. A dose of QA, produces an outcome - 4 or 5 hours later. It's the ratio before your high BGs start that needs sorting.Try and look at your breakfast QA ratio and change for 1.5:1 to 1:1 and spot the pattern over a few days. Your individual BI dose changes will take 3 days to show an understandable result as normally we respond very slowly to changed BI doses. You may well be right in that, on a morning your QA+BI acting together very rapidly change your BG, but fixing that is best done by QA alterations which you can see the result of straight away. May I suggest that you leave your BI alone for now at your original 10 + 11 and focus on QA ratios at meal times to try and get those right. Shame that on Saturday 15th 22:15 you had CHO and that affected the following mornings BG...or you would have had a good indication as to whether your daily BI dose was roughly right. Ideally most of us look to go to bed and get up on a result which is within 1 or 2 mmol/L of the previous night result. Stick with it dunkers7...and please take your time making changes. Too rapid...and if you are anything like me, I'll get confused. Doesn't take much to do that to me however Regards Garry |
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Mar 18, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: General Discussion / New to dafne Welcome Andy Watt Good outcome for you I'm pleased to see. Tackle the hypos as soon as possible. Take it steady. Ensure some consistant days worth of results between dose changes as most people find outcomes can be a little unpredictable over short time scales. When you get things under control you may feel confident enough to run a little high for three months to help try and re-establish your hypo warning symptoms. This tactic certainly worked for me. Regards Garry |
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Mar 10, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / How to avoid High glucose when travelling Welcome to the forum Justinjroberts May I ask which QA insulin you use? Regards Garry |
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Mar 5, 2014
Garry
328 posts
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Topic: Questions for HCPs / new to dafne Tuesday 04/03 - your corrections have not worked...as you may be insulin resistent at the moment.Do you have a cold coming on today? I personally find that two days before I get an infection, my BGs start to drift off. That may be what is happening for you too. Anyway, I see lots of green in your diary and that's good. OK a few bumps along the way...but if you use the graph facility after you have entered data it helps you see an averaged result for each time of day and assists in seeing the trends better. I notice that Thursday 27/02 and Friday 28/02 both show your BI dose. I take it only one 10u was taken? We need get the data right as in the background, the diary can help you total your daily intake of QA and BI using the Show Summary View hyperlink at the very top of the diary page. This is of help if you need apply sick day rules at any time. You are on the right track. Frustrating I know, for things not to pan out immediately, but that's the way it is. So many factors are in the mix in your body - hormones, food types and their associated GIs, exercise and hormone released during exercise, illness.....I could carry on! You are doing fine. Tuning in progress...until the temperature changes and then like a piano you are out of tune again! Just stick at it. Regards Garry |