Combo and insulin to carb ratios

[PattiEvans]

On another, rather serious, thread someone mentioned that you were only able to have one Insulin to Carb ratio on the pump they use (which I happen to know is the Combo). I didn't want to derail the other thread so I am posting here. I've been on the combo for 8 years and, despite it being old-fashioned tech you can have up to five different insulin to carb ratios on it during five different time blocks.

Turn on your pump handset and choose the option "Settings", on the next screen choose "Bolus Advice" and then choose "Time Blocks". You will see 5 time block settings... choose any one and you can alter the times of the blocks and also alter the ratio in each time block. e.g. from 05:30 to 11:30 I have my ratio set as 1u for 6g carb. For me the rest of the day is set at 1u for 10g, but say you needed a lower or higher ratio for your piece of cake at teatime you could set a time block for say 3 - 5pm and whatever ratio you wanted within that time.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sally71]

What used to annoy me though, is that you can have up to 5 basal patterns which are stored on the pump (we use 2), but the carb and correction ratios are stored on the handset, so whilst you can vary these through the day they are the same every day regardless of which basal pattern you are using. Pretty sure my daughter needed different ratios at the weekend than she did at school, and the basal patterns correspond to school/not school days, too much faff to keep changing the ratios though!
Now we have the Tandem pump and you set your ratios at the same time as setting the basal patterns, which means you can have a completely different set of ratios to go with different basal patterns if you need to, and whilst we still swap between two basal patterns, we seem to work perfectly well with just one set of ratios now!! Typical

 

[PattiEvans]

I see your point @Sally71 - especially with an active child.