Eating Times

[katie]

so you give yourself a correction dose at your next meal? the thing is my carb ratio changes depending time of month and activity so it would be hard to guess what correction dose to put in.. I never knew you could use novorapid for a snack! i think the diebetic nurses at the hospital and at my clinic have just scared me to even try that coz of too many hypo's etc

It all depends on how much insulin you personally need. You might be able to get away with having a snack without insulin, but if I want perfect levels I have to inject for snacks. So it's best to try having a snack without insulin and seeing how it effects your levels. Have you been on a DAFNE course? They tell you how to work out correction doses, sorry I dont know how, I just guess how much I need from experience x

 

[Northerner]

so you give yourself a correction dose at your next meal? the thing is my carb ratio changes depending time of month and activity so it would be hard to guess what correction dose to put in.. I never knew you could use novorapid for a snack! i think the diebetic nurses at the hospital and at my clinic have just scared me to even try that coz of too many hypo's etc

The thing you have to bear in mind if you are injecting between meals is 'insulin on board' - that is, the insulin that is still in your system from your last meal that might not have all been used up.

For example, if you eat and inject for lunch then decide to have a snack two hours later, test and are prhaps 6.0, then you eat a snack and inject to cover it, you now have some lunchtime novorapid (it lasts up to 5 hours) and some 'snack' novorapid. This means that your doses are now overlapping and can make it harder to work out what your levels are doing.

This might be why the nurses advise against it until you are more confident about calculating your doses and knowing what effect they have.

 

[chezpez]

I see what you mean about overlapping!
I've not been on DAFNE course - i've just been taught by the hospital diabetic nurses to count carbs and try and work out ratio.. is that what a DAFNE course will tell you or i'm i missing something new??

 

[aymes]

I see what you mean about overlapping!
I've not been on DAFNE course - i've just been taught by the hospital diabetic nurses to count carbs and try and work out ratio.. is that what a DAFNE course will tell you or i'm i missing something new??

The general aim of the dafne course is to teach accurate carb counting, but I and I know many others would say there is so much more to it than that.

They pretty much take you back to the very beginning so you're learning with a clean slate regardless of what you may or may not already know. So they'll help you get your basal levels right, and learn the skills to adjust it when you need to. Then you'll learn how to work out and adjust your carb ratios for your bolus insulin. I know most people on my course (incluing me) have different ratios for different times of the day and some I know have different week day and weekend ones, ones for different times of the month etc. Then there are sessions on carb counting, working out your correction doses, info on snacking, hypos, alcohol, exercise, accounting for what insulin is workign when etc etc!

I think what most people get out of it (and I know I can start to sound like I'm selling the course!) is that it helps you to be able to work out what changes you need to make yourself rather than being told what to do. I feel I have so much better control and more freedom since doing dafne so if it is something available to you I reckon you'd get loads out of it.

 

[chezpez]

thankyou soo much.. will look into it! xx