Hi, All,
No matter how much quality of your control over your version of diabetes; there are always times that you get surprised, shocked - times that shake you and makes you stop and ask: what is happening here? why the hell am I getting these crazy numbers. I am controlling all inputs and following the recommended process.
What is the heck happening here !!!
No matter how much you think that you know well about yourself, your disease pattern and your treatment system; crazy numbers of BG is still here for you, sometimes, if you do not understand that the whole process is like an Octopus with one head but with 8 legs at the mean time.
For example; I was in a business trip to India this past week, where I had to skip some of my correct eating habits and surrender to sudden business dinners or lunches and I have to let go my exercise program for couple of days for being so busy running behind meetings and inconsiderate schedule , adding to that; travel over nights and as a result skip sleeping, moreover building stress coming from being pushed on edge all the time and being away from home..
All the above mentioned along with hectic schedule are making it hard for me to control my numbers, calculate my needed insulin doses, estimate the exact time to inject myself with insulin.
That is also happening to you, even when you are home. For example; if you do not consider what time of the day you are in; before start injecting insulin - you will end up with BG numbers different than what you expected - as your insulin to Carb ratio differs in the morning than it is in the afternoon or even at evening, sensitivity to insulin is usually worst in the morning and getting better afterwards during the day.
Another example: Before you inject insulin you need to see whether you going to exercise after a little while or no; as insulin to Carb ratio becomes improves a lot during and after exercise than it is while being idle, for example in my case it could reach 1 to 40 right after exercise although it is normally 1 to 6 or so.
You also need to make sure that whether or not you still have residual fast or short acting insulin from previous shot that you took for a snack or so, if yes, you need to consider that residual portion of insulin in your body before you inject any extra insulin to cover an upcoming food.
You also need to see whether you will eat Protein Fat, simple Carb or complex Carb..you need to consider what you will eat and inject accordingly. Let's say that you will eat complex carb , where sugar is released in a much gradual and non sudden way to your blood, then you need to inject your fast acting insulin a little bit after you eat; so you can cover the slow and gradual rise in your blood sugar due to eating this kind of food.
Unlike if you ate simple Carb, where sugar is to be released once it reacts with your saliva and it is all sugar in your blood within 45 min, here you need to inject your fast acting insulin right or a little bit before eating to match that with the food you intend to consume.
Some diabetic are very sensitive to refined and simple carbohydrates, just like me, and some have little tolerance and some have big tolerance to such food, you need to know where are you exactly and until you know that, there is no real control over your disease.
you need to be aware here that these timings differ from one diabetic person to another; but the guidelines of prediction and guessing are almost closer in patterns among most patients.
Another very important point to be mentioned here is that you need to test your BG continuously after eating from day to day and see what is the effect of different injection timing on you, considering different kind of food you consuming...
You need to check your own numbers, food, doses, time of exercise and log all that in a log book or excel sheet until you reach a special tailored pattern for yourself and from there, go on and enjoy the close and right control of your diabetes.
Doctors will not tell you these information, they do not have the time privilege to give you that- BUT YOU AND ONLY YOU - HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT with a series of non stop experiments through trials and trials until you reach your pattern and know your specials facts.
Bottom line, if you use insulin, you need to invest time to be your own pancreas.
Respect the insulin in order for him to respect you back, help him doing better job by facilitating things to him, by knowing the right timing, right dose needed and by also increasing your cells' sensitivity to him with the right eating and daily commitment to exercise.
This way of self educating, learning, self exploration, trying, measuring, continuous monitoring and unstoppable logging- you will be an educated diabetic who is willing to pay off the learning process dues and as a results deserves good testing numbers and better control of the disease.....
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