Am i like the only person who doesn't carb count?

[novorapidboi26]

Try for DAFNE, 5 days of your time and you will leave with all the tools you need, it fits around your lifestyle........I rarely cook, the wife does it, and she has the carbs value ready for me when I get in from work, she is c**p at maths but picked it up easily.........tell your parents they need to do it, for your health, guilt trip 'know.........

Do you have a lot of carbs in your diet? I have carb free dinner 2/3 times a week, fish, vegetables, salad..........so no insulin, eating this stuff could make the move over to carb counting easier.....

 

[Urbansoulpie]

Wow, I'm surprised that so many don't carb count!
Maybe people are doing it but not realising?

I can't talk for type 2's but for type 1's I can't see how to get good control without carb counting.

Carb counting is a must for people using a pump and my consultant won't give anyone a pump without being sure they are on track with carb counting.

Even simple carb counting such as reading labels can greatly improve control, there are many food items that carbs very so much in, e.g yoghurts (pots of the same weight) and cereal bars.

I would reccommend any type 1 that doesn't carb cout to give it a go, once you've got going, it really is quite easy and the effort is well worth the rewards in better control.

Good luck all!

 

[Estellaa]

i think the way i deal with my diabetes is because it was how i was brought up and i find it easiest for example today my levels have been below 7 all day? and this is for most days.

 

[Phil65]

i think the way i deal with my diabetes is because it was how i was brought up and i find it easiest for example today my levels have been below 7 all day? and this is for most days.

mmmm.....so why isn't your HbA1c then?

 

[scotty]

I have just started to carb count myself, the question I ask is what is everyone's ratio and how do you find out what ratio suits you I am going on 1 unit per 10 grams is this about right ?...

 

[MaryPlain]

I have just started to carb count myself, the question I ask is what is everyone's ratio and how do you find out what ratio suits you I am going on 1 unit per 10 grams is this about right ?...

This is a fairly typical starting point but you may find it will vary at different times of day. The way to check it that I was taught on DAFNE is (having first made sure your basal levels are right - there's a sticky post somewhere about this on the forum). Then write down in a table each day what your pre-meal blood sugar reading is, how much carb you ate, and what insulin you gave yourself. This allows you to begin to see patterns and decide whether you need to adjust your ratios.

For example, if you regularly find that your pre-lunch reading is higher by more than about 1 than your pre-breakfast, this tells you that your breakfast ratio is too low, so you might try 1 unit to 8g, say. If the pre-lunch was regularly lower than the pre-breakfast, then you could try 1:12.

The key things to remember (others will say if I've forgotten anything):

- don't make big changes - go slowly and re-test to check the effects
- only change one thing at once so you can clearly see the effect
- don't be too hard on yourself - there are many variables that affect blood sugar and it isn't always easy to get things right straight away. Some of the things that can throw out the results are stress, hormones, exercise and illness so it's easiest to try and isolate these effects if you can.

Good luck and ask if you have any questions as I'm sure others will chip in with good advice!

 

[Clarkey]

I always carb count now. i don't really cook myself, but when I buy things from the shops I look at the carb content before I eat it so i know how much insulin to take.

My readings for the past few days:

Lunch - 6.2
Dinner - 6.3
Bed - 4.2
Breakfast - 6.3
Lunch - 5.3
Dinner - 10.6
Bed - 5.4
Breakfast - 6.2
Lunch - 6.5
Dinner - 7.2

Besides the odd drop and spike I have kept my levels really well and that's all down to knowing what carbs are in my food. This is before i've even been on DAFNE.

I couldn't imagine having levels like that without carb counting unless I ate the same thing each day. I see carb counting the same as testing your BG's. You need to test your BG's to know if you require any insulin correction. Both of them, in my mind, are essential to good control.

 

[Estellaa]

i dunno what my hba1c is lately i'll find out on tues.

 

[Estellaa]

so had my hba1c results they are 8.8! which is brilliant considering about 3 months ago they were in the high nines apparently!

 

[DeusXM]

It's a move in the right direction, definitely, so well done.

But it is still pretty high - the NHS maximum recommended is 7.5%, and that recommendation is far too high anyway. I don't want to sound like a depressing monster of doom, but if you go by my rough-and-ready A1c complication calculation, an A1C of 8.8% means you could expect to see serious complications in just 22 years following your initial diagnosis. If you've had diabetes for 11 years already, that is not a lot of time left.

The great news is all of that can be completely avoided with a bit more work. I think you would benefit massively from doing some formal carb counting. I think you could easily get your A1c into the 6s in just three months. It really won't be that hard (literally just an extra 10 seconds though before each meal) but it will add years onto your life and transform the quality of your life too.

 

[astbury1]

Glad you said this as about to do the carb counting and going to Thailand in April so was slightly concerned! lol🙂

The maths is the easy part - if your insulin ratio is 1:10, then a sandwich with 50g of carbs is 5u. The hard part is knowing how many carbs there are in the first place!

The trick is balancing things out. There are people who meticulously weigh everything and freak out whenever someone cooks them a meal or they go to a restaurant. A better option if you want to minimise the effect on your lifestyle is to get really good at eyeballing the amount of carbs in food, but this does take practice. It is the best and most valuable skill you can pick up when you have diabetes and you'll be amazed at how much more freedom it gives you. No more feeling c**p because of high or low blood sugar and no more worrying over whether you've taken the right amount of insulin. If it wasn't for carb-counting (or more precisely, guestimating carbs), I'd never have been able to climb to the top of a mountain in Thailand and get smashed on whiskey and fried rice with a bunch of tribal people and some French and German tourists. Ok, that's not everyone's idea of a good time but the point is when you get good at this stuff, you can do whatever you like without worrying or compromising.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

so had my hba1c results they are 8.8! which is brilliant considering about 3 months ago they were in the high nines apparently!

Well done on your drop from 9's to 8.8 Estellaa. Onward and downward

 

[DeusXM]

Glad you said this as about to do the carb counting and going to Thailand in April so was slightly concerned!

I'm off there again in 8 weeks so drop me a line if you've any burning questions before you go. The hardest part actually is adjusting your basal jab time so you're not having to take it at some insane hour of the day, but once you know the secret, it's actually pretty easy as long as you think carefully about the time difference.

 

[astbury1]

Thanks! Yes I can see me having to take it 3:30am ha ha! I think judging the rice and noddles will be the difficult one!🙂

I'm off there again in 8 weeks so drop me a line if you've any burning questions before you go. The hardest part actually is adjusting your basal jab time so you're not having to take it at some insane hour of the day, but once you know the secret, it's actually pretty easy as long as you think carefully about the time difference.

 

[redrevis]

Congrats on getting down from high 9s to high 8s. Now just have to keep going down. Using the HbA1c to Blood Sugar Level Converter your average BG level is 13.1mmol. I agree with DeusXM. If you carb counted I'm sure you could get that down a lot further and the extra bit of effort carb counting takes will be definitely be worth it in the long run. I hope you consider giving carb counting another try.

p.s. astbury1 - You need a bit more blank space adding to your posts 😛