Advice please

[Claire15]

Hello,

I am new to this website but would greatly appreciate some help.

I have been diabetic for 16 years, since I was 10, and have been using a pump for around 9 years now. I have recently got married, relocated and started a new job (some of the most stressful things in life apparently) and my new consultant has asked me to do basal tests over the next few weeks. I am a primary school teacher so fasting whilst at school is really hard and I have found it has effected me a lot more than I thought it would. My emotions are all over the place and my BMs are really low.

Does anyone have any tips on basal testing or just generally how to deal with stress and diabetes?

Thanks
Claire

 

[Milsey moo]

Hi I'm sort of new here but has helped me so much hope this helps u. What I normally do is to check my bloods every hour or two depending on what they were when I first woke up. If your having a busy day use long lasting setting and eat slow release foods. I like to have chocolate which keeps my bloods level on a busy day. Hope this is some help to u.

 

[trophywench]

Difficult to combine basal testing and ward off stress simultaneously. Still we're used to juggling whilst walking a tightrope without a safety net - so what's one more challenge? Harrumph.

Stress - do you go high or low? Firstly don't correct too often - definitely not more than once in a 4 hour period. And - only have half as much insulin to correct as you would for carbs. So eg 10g CHO increases my BG by 3.0, and 1u insulin reduces my BG by 3.0. However if I've bolused correctly but stress sends my BG up to 12.0 - I would only take a 1u correction - not a 2u one. The stress highs just don't follow the same rules as food ones.

This sounds bloody ridiculous - but it works usually, and also prevents over-correcting sending me on the HI/LO seesaw.

So - divide your basal tests into 6 hour slots as per normal - and only correct for stress or anything else at the end of the slot. (other than hypos obv LOL) The breakfast one - just have a late brekky when you get to work. Or do you have a morning break? You could eat something then if you need brekky. I'm fine just missing meals myself, as long as it's only one on any day and not every day. The test days don't even have to be consecutive. The lunch one - have an early brekky so the test starts mid morning and have a salad (ie carb free) at lunchtime, which shouldn't affect the test results. So that takes you to mid afternoon.

Just don't try to do more than one segment a day.

 

[SB2015]

I too was a teacher when diagnosed.
I did Fasting test whilst teaching and used this to set up a basal profile for work, realising that I also needed to do one for the weekends (or should that read Saturdays, since Sundays were still work days).

I did the basal rate testing in 6 hour blocks, missing just one meal each time. I tested every hour as I decided that if I was going to the trouble of going without food I might as well get as much info as possible. It still took me a whole week to get the day time tests done as I kept going too low. So I just abandoned, reviewed and adjusted then tried again.

Once I had a basal rate for the weekdays set, I then just used a TBR for Saturdays until that seemed to be working and then used this to work out the basal a rates for a weekend profile. I hope that that makes sense.
If not keep asking for clarification