Do you record your insulin doses?

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DancingStar

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Type 3c
How do you keep a record of your insulin doses? I'm still finger pricking so also need to keep a record of my blood glucose level. Do you note when/if you have hypos?
 
I don’t keep any records
 
Always been hopeless at keeping records, so never did on pens except when appointments were due, then it was only 1 weeks worth.

On pump now so that automatically stores such data.
 
DancingStar said:
How do you keep a record of your insulin doses? I'm still finger pricking so also need to keep a record of my blood glucose level. Do you note when/if you have hypos?
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I don't anymore. I used to and I also kept records for the DAFNE course I attended a few years ago.

One of the most beneficial things to keeping records is that it will become evident that eating the same food at different times of day usually requires different doses (different ratios). For me I take more insulin for breakfast carbs than I do for evening carbs.
 
Many glucose meters have apps that you can also record your insulin dose in. There are also numerous third party apps. Although getting that data back can be another matter!
 
Amity Island said:
I don't anymore. I used to and I also kept records for the DAFNE course I attended a few years ago.

One of the most beneficial things to keeping records is that it will become evident that eating the same food at different times of day usually requires different doses (different ratios). For me I take more insulin for breakfast carbs than I do for evening carbs.
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That's interesting, I assumed that wouldn't make any difference.
 
DancingStar said:
That's interesting, I assumed that wouldn't make any difference.
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Hi Dancing Star,

It makes a difference for many diabetics. I'm 2 units to 10g carb a.m, 2 units to 10g carb at lunch and 1:1 on evenings (after 3pm to be precise). Plus my usual morning basal dose of 19u tresiba.

It's amazing what you can learn by keeping records.

So for 2 slices of toast (40g of carb), I'd need 8 units of insulin in the morning, but 4 units in the evening for same 2 slices.
 
DancingStar said:
How do you keep a record of your insulin doses? I'm still finger pricking so also need to keep a record of my blood glucose level. Do you note when/if you have hypos?
Click to expand...

I don’t, but I do review them mentally afterwards sometimes to see if I had the right amount. I have different insulin to carb ratios for all three meals, but sometimes different foods need more/less insulin than the count would suggest.

In the early days, I did keep detailed written records.
 
Inka said:
sometimes different foods need more/less insulin than the count would suggest.
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Hi Inka,

Are we talking pizza? Or other?

For me, peanuts and chickpeas are a couple that need more insulin than some would suggest.
 
I use the Librelink app to record insulin doses, made easy now I can just scan the Novopen 6 after injecting.
 
Amity Island said:
Hi Inka,

Are we talking pizza? Or other?

For me, peanuts and chickpeas are a couple that need more insulin than some would suggest.
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Not pizza particularly, just some random meals and foods that don’t play by the rules 🙄
 
I keep written record so i can make a note of what i need to change, especially since my ratios vary through time...earlier this year it was 1 to 3.5 and now its 1 to 20...perhaps my pancreas has got better
 
I log all my insulin and some of my carbs and exercise on my Libre reader which downloads to LibreView and of course the Libre records all my hypos and some that weren't actually hypos (more's the pity as they ruin my stats! 🙄 ) I like to be able to look back in my log and see exactly when I injected and how much and what my reading was to give me an idea of how much active insulin is left and whether I need a correction or not and if so, how much, when I notice my levels are heading towards 10 a few hours later. I almost feel like I haven't done my homework if I don't record it all, but being consistent about recording everything does help me in the short term.... within a day or two. Beyond that I don't find it helpful, but say I have had a series of nocturnal hypos 4 weeks ago and at my next consultant appointment, he highlights it and asks what I did to prevent them after the first one. I can go back through the records and clearly see that I reduced my basal on consecutive nights and had some carbs before bed and that they were perhaps the result of exercise earlier in the day etc.
 
Prior to recoding everything on Libre, when I was relying on finger pricks I used MySugr and before that a different app.
I tried to use the DAFNE log books but they really didn't suit my lifestyle or way of eating (Low Carb) .... much as I loved the course itself, I have had to adapt a lot of the principles and their log book didn't really allow for recording of that, because I need to inject for protein after meals
 
I'm just over 3 yrs into this and I still record for carbs and insulin doses taken; plus anything extra that think might help me as a memory jogger- eg when the day has gone wrong and what I think might have been the cause. I was logging exercise / activity, but generally no longer do that.

All logging goes onto my LibreLink app. It's sometimes a faff, but overall I still find it a useful exercise. It particularly ensures I have a record for the moderately few occasions when I alter my Tresiba basal insulin, or decide to adjust one of my ratios.
 
DancingStar said:
How do you keep a record of your insulin doses? I'm still finger pricking so also need to keep a record of my blood glucose level. Do you note when/if you have hypos?
Click to expand...
I didn't record doses (except now and again, for example when I was doing the not-DAFNE course). Now it happens, but just because I have Novopen 6, and now and again I scan them so all the doses are uploaded. (Twice, for those before I changed phones.) And hypos are (now) recorded automatically from the Libre 2.

I never used to record the doses because they turned out to be never something I looked at. (Or virtually never.) And to be honest I basically never look now except when I think I may have forgotten a dose or something, but just looking on the pen is sufficient for that.
 
I get free diaries from Abbott which I use to write down all my blood sugar readings, doses, and anything like hypo treatments or snacks (old school, in writing, I don't have anything on which I could put an app!). I find this very useful as when I have a meal I can go back to the last time I had it and see whether the dose I had was right, as because I'm sensitive to insulin carb counting isn't an exact science for me, so I often have to round my doses up or down.
 
I don’t keep any records. I used to when I was first diagnosed - lots of little diaries - but after a while, I couldn’t be bothered. I found I rarely looked back at them. With so many things, affecting blood sugar, it also gave a false sense of ‘if I just do these three things, everything will work out right’, when actually blood sugar control is a moving target not a sitting duck.
 
My diabetes care team requires that I fill in a diary. I got tired of lugging the paper diary around with me, though, and the comment section was so tiny as to be of no use to me. So, since I worked as a software engineer for many years on factory decision-support systems, I decided to develop my own system for keeping records. So now, I have a web app installed on my iPhone, on which I log each bolus/basal injection. I also run the web app on an old iPad that I keep in the kitchen to help me plan my meals.

I still use it every day. I can see that past effect of any given meal. For example, I now have a much better idea of the effect of protein on my system and that I need to avoid certain foods. I used to love chilli and Thai curries, but I had to give them up because they cause huge spikes for me.

As to how long I will maintain the discipline of keeping a log, I cannot say - only time will tell.
 
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