Carb counting

[ella01]

Hi I have been diabetic for 30 years and in the last 3-4 years I have a few bad experiences in my life, whereby my diabetes has been up and down to say the least. High blood sugars and lows, I was rushed into hospital as i nearly went into a comma (thank god for my best friend). The Hospital changed my lantus from night to am, and has reduced the amount of novarapid, this has eased the problem somewhat.

I have been recommended to the dafne course, this is not the problem. I went on the course I liked it. However, as i am self taught diabetic and dyslexic. I got home to calculate the carbs and felt highly confused. Looking back I am not sure what I should be calculating. Has anyone got the basics of what I should be calculating. Yes I tried ringing the diabetic nurse/dietician no response. I looked back at my paperwork and to the least I am confused as what I should be doing. Can anyone help me, as I have noone to talk to about my diabetes.

 

[novorapidboi26]

With DAFNE you start off with the rule 1 unit for every 10grams of carbohydrate.....

After testing and trial and error, you can adjust this rule either up or down.....

So if your consistently high at lunch time, and you are confident with the carb count, you can move your breakfast dose up to 1.5 units to every 10grams.....

Can you interpret the labeling of foods..........?

 

[Ellie Jones]

I'm also Dyslexic and using a pump..

Going on DAFNE is a good idea as most of the teaching is done verbally with a small amount of backup written information... And I had no problems coping and was actually surprised that when we all put our previous BG's onto acetate and it was projected onto the large screen, I could see number patterns a lot easier than written down in my book🙂

It sounds that you have a pretty good friend, and it might actually pay to see if you can enrole their help... In translating written information into verbal to help you out..

When learning carb counting, it's better to get the basal (background) insulin correct otherwise all your other working out for insulin/carb ratio's will all be out.

To do a basal test, you arm yourself with Hypo kit, plenty of test strips then...

You do a fasting test testing your BG every hour, but do remeber if you have a hypo stop the testing and treat, also if your BG's become too high.. You can split the day into 3 parts, overnight. morning and eveing...

Avoid eating slow adsorbing foods before fast testing, as you need this and bolus/quick acting insulin out of the system.. If you get hungar pangs, snack on something like sugar free Jelly, as eating foods that are carb free but contain high protien such as cheese or meat can impact on your levels, distorting your data.. Also avoid Alcohol, as this will also distort data..

From this data you will be able to tell if you need to reduce or increase your basal insulin or whether you might fair better by splitting your dose into 2 injections..

Then you work on your carb insulin/ratio's..

When doing this it is easier if you keep to similar types of meals.. So say you have a couple slices of toast for brekkie, keep to this same with dinners etc.. I would say here avoid high fat/pasta type meals as these are slow adsorbers..

Good luck with it all, and just ask any question you need.