MCH
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have attended the first day of the CHO counting course. It was extremely interesting and useful and both the DSN and dietician are very knowledgeable and have a very realistic notion of what being diabetic is like.
We have all been given a way of calculating the carbohydrate content of various foods ?based on the BDEC stuff AND a free copy of the GEM Calorie counting book ? which apparently is better than some of the other versions because it has the values per 100g of food ? AND a free calculator (courtesy of a drug company) which I have now discovered is small enough to fit inside my blood testing machine holder! 😉
We also have been given individual initial CHO to insulin ratios to use once we have worked out how much CHO we are eating as well as a correction ratio to use. For the time being, we are to try to correct ONLY if our level is greater than 10 and only to try to correct down to 8 ? though I think these values will change next week once we begin (hopefully) to get to grips with what we are trying to do. (Our initial ratio was worked out by dividing 500 by the TOTAL amount of both long and short acting insulin that we usually take, and our correction dose, by dividing 100 by the total amount of insulin).
We were also told/reminded that we should pinch when we inject and keep it pinched until the needle is taken out, we should use a new needle every time and remove it immediately, we should not be injecting through our clothes, that we should wash our hands before every blood test and that you need to be careful what you wash your hands with as some of the liquid soaps, can have sugar in them! From the silence when some of these were mentioned, I can only assume that I wasn?t the only one not exactly doing things correctly 😱? I now consider my hands firmly slapped (in a nice way mind you!)
Between now and next week, we are to try to check our basal levels -overnight is easy as we can do this by checking our level before going to bed and again first thing in the morning, though during the day is a little more difficult as we will need to test before our usual lunchtime, postpone lunch for a coupe of hours ? or not have any at all ? and then test to see whether or not our ?during the day? level is stable ? whether is not difficulty trying to work out whether it has been affected by food or short acting insulin. The slightly disconcerting bit is that next week, we are to bring along our results and the food we have eaten to be looked at and discussed by the rest of our group 😱 ? apparently we do this every week so I am hoping that the first time will be the worst!
I have thoroughly enjoyed getting together with other diabetics and at the moment am feeling extremely positive about the whole CHO counting thing ? even though I am aware that the chances of it being easy are non- existent -but then who said things that are worthwhile are easy?
One comment I must share with your all from the dietician is ?the only difference between us is that I have automatic insulin and you are all on manual? ? what a great way of describing it!
We have all been given a way of calculating the carbohydrate content of various foods ?based on the BDEC stuff AND a free copy of the GEM Calorie counting book ? which apparently is better than some of the other versions because it has the values per 100g of food ? AND a free calculator (courtesy of a drug company) which I have now discovered is small enough to fit inside my blood testing machine holder! 😉
We also have been given individual initial CHO to insulin ratios to use once we have worked out how much CHO we are eating as well as a correction ratio to use. For the time being, we are to try to correct ONLY if our level is greater than 10 and only to try to correct down to 8 ? though I think these values will change next week once we begin (hopefully) to get to grips with what we are trying to do. (Our initial ratio was worked out by dividing 500 by the TOTAL amount of both long and short acting insulin that we usually take, and our correction dose, by dividing 100 by the total amount of insulin).
We were also told/reminded that we should pinch when we inject and keep it pinched until the needle is taken out, we should use a new needle every time and remove it immediately, we should not be injecting through our clothes, that we should wash our hands before every blood test and that you need to be careful what you wash your hands with as some of the liquid soaps, can have sugar in them! From the silence when some of these were mentioned, I can only assume that I wasn?t the only one not exactly doing things correctly 😱? I now consider my hands firmly slapped (in a nice way mind you!)
Between now and next week, we are to try to check our basal levels -overnight is easy as we can do this by checking our level before going to bed and again first thing in the morning, though during the day is a little more difficult as we will need to test before our usual lunchtime, postpone lunch for a coupe of hours ? or not have any at all ? and then test to see whether or not our ?during the day? level is stable ? whether is not difficulty trying to work out whether it has been affected by food or short acting insulin. The slightly disconcerting bit is that next week, we are to bring along our results and the food we have eaten to be looked at and discussed by the rest of our group 😱 ? apparently we do this every week so I am hoping that the first time will be the worst!
I have thoroughly enjoyed getting together with other diabetics and at the moment am feeling extremely positive about the whole CHO counting thing ? even though I am aware that the chances of it being easy are non- existent -but then who said things that are worthwhile are easy?
One comment I must share with your all from the dietician is ?the only difference between us is that I have automatic insulin and you are all on manual? ? what a great way of describing it!
