Hello all. New to this and very confused!

[Lily123]

That can cause all sorts of issues, a friends parents lived in a different county from the GP surgery as the border ran through the middle of the village and it was a nightmare when they needed to organise home care for them. There was a chasm in the road.

A chasm in the road quite scary then. The hospital is the specialist centre for literally everything medical in that county and the reason I go there is the nearest hospital in this county most of it closed in about 2007

 

[helli]

Each of us have our own ratios that we work out, but 1 unit of insulin to 10g of carbs is a common starting place.

I don't want to derail or confuse this thread but given doses tend to be much smaller for children, is this the starting point for a 4 year old?
I have no idea but wondered if it was appropriate in this case.

I am smaller than most adults and my ratio is more like 1 to 15 (I started on 1 to 20 as an adult) so I wondered if it was my size or just another example of my weirdness.

 

[SB2015]

I don't want to derail or confuse this thread but given doses tend to be much smaller for children, is this the starting point for a 4 year old?
I have no idea but wondered if it was appropriate in this case.

I am smaller than most adults and my ratio is more like 1 to 15 (I started on 1 to 20 as an adult) so I wondered if it was my size or just another example of my weirdness.

Good point HellI, and doses will indeed be smaller for smaller people. Thanks

@Tom1982 it is really important to work with your team, and they will work with you to work out what your daughter needs. None of us can take other people’s figures as we are all different, and our doses may change through the year as well as year by year.

 

[trophywench]

I live in Warwickshire but both GP and hospital are in Coventry, ie West Midlands. Was awkward to begin with as Roche kept sending the pump consumables bills to Warks county council who unsurprisingly wouldn't pay em! It is all governed by where your GP surgery is, round here.

 

[Lily123]

I live in Warwickshire but both GP and hospital are in Coventry, ie West Midlands. Was awkward to begin with as Roche kept sending the pump consumables bills to Warks county council who unsurprisingly wouldn't pay em! It is all governed by where your GP surgery is, round here.

Bit awkward with Roche sending the bills to the wrong council!

 

[Sally71]

Bit awkward with Roche sending the bills to the wrong council!

We live in Derbyshire but are under a Nottingham hospital and it hasn’t caused any problems with pumping. You need the hospital team to set up the account with the pump company so they will tell them where to send the bill. If you’re lucky and your hospital is pro pump like ours it might be easier than you think to get one, good luck!

 

[Lily123]

We live in Derbyshire but are under a Nottingham hospital and it hasn’t caused any problems with pumping. You need the hospital team to set up the account with the pump company so they will tell them where to send the bill. If you’re lucky and your hospital is pro pump like ours it might be easier than you think to get one, good luck!

I live in Hertfordshire but the hospital is in Buckinghamshire.

 

[Sally71]

@Tom1982 i'm a bit late to this one but welcome to the forum! Please don’t get hung up about how much insulin your daughter needs, she needs however much works for her and as she grows and her honeymoon period ends her doses will increase, certainly when she hits puberty they will! I hope you can start carb counting as that will give your daughter much more freedom to eat whatever she likes. As a guide, at age 6 my daughter's ratio was 1:18 and she was only using a total of 20 units of insulin in the whole 24 hours (basal and bolus) Now she's 15 and is on a ratio of 1:8 and uses anywhere between 55 and 70 units in 24 hours I think. Which is a lot compared to some type 1s but it's what works for her. You do whatever you have to do to try to keep the numbers in range. Also don’t be afraid of hypos - most of them are not bad as long as you deal with them straight away. Our DSN once said that if you never have a hypo you are probably running the blood sugars too high, but at the same time if you're having them every day then that probably means some adjustments need to be made. It's a very fine balance and impossible to get right all the time! Good luck🙂

 

[trophywench]

In my case, it was the DSN's fault - because she knew I lived in Warks she made the cabinet decision the answer must be Warks council and told Roche that, instead of bothering to check my medical record. Utterly ridiculous, because had my GP been in Warwickshire I would never have been referred to the D clinic at Coventry hospital - it would either have been Nuneaton hosp or Warwick hosp.

 

[Lily123]

In my case, it was the DSN's fault - because she knew I lived in Warks she made the cabinet decision the answer must be Warks council and told Roche that, instead of bothering to check my medical record. Utterly ridiculous, because had my GP been in Warwickshire I would never have been referred to the D clinic at Coventry hospital - it would either have been Nuneaton hosp or Warwick hosp.

I thought they had to check the medical record?

 

[trophywench]

You would have assumed so - but since I've never worked for the NHS I really wouldn't know!! It was just a mistake, anyway.

 

[Lily123]

You would have assumed so - but since I've never worked for the NHS I really wouldn't know!! It was just a mistake, anyway.

I hope it didn’t take them too long to sort it?

 

[Tom1982]

@Tom1982 i'm a bit late to this one but welcome to the forum! Please don’t get hung up about how much insulin your daughter needs, she needs however much works for her and as she grows and her honeymoon period ends her doses will increase, certainly when she hits puberty they will! I hope you can start carb counting as that will give your daughter much more freedom to eat whatever she likes. As a guide, at age 6 my daughter's ratio was 1:18 and she was only using a total of 20 units of insulin in the whole 24 hours (basal and bolus) Now she's 15 and is on a ratio of 1:8 and uses anywhere between 55 and 70 units in 24 hours I think. Which is a lot compared to some type 1s but it's what works for her. You do whatever you have to do to try to keep the numbers in range. Also don’t be afraid of hypos - most of them are not bad as long as you deal with them straight away. Our DSN once said that if you never have a hypo you are probably running the blood sugars too high, but at the same time if you're having them every day then that probably means some adjustments need to be made. It's a very fine balance and impossible to get right all the time! Good luck🙂

Thank you very much for the reassurance. I think we are doing okay. Well, the missus and daughter are. Not so sure about me! We have been practicing carb counting and it’s a bit more work but it’s not too bad at all. Hopefully they’ll let us crack on with that soon. One step closer to getting a pump which I think she’ll be happy with

 

[Lily123]

Thank you very much for the reassurance. I think we are doing okay. Well, the missus and daughter are. Not so sure about me! We have been practicing carb counting and it’s a bit more work but it’s not too bad at all. Hopefully they’ll let us crack on with that soon. One step closer to getting a pump which I think she’ll be happy with

Do you know which pump she’ll be getting?

 

[Tom1982]

G

Do you know which pump she’ll be getting?

ot a meeting with a consultant next week. I assume that’s the kinda time that’s all discussed? Well I hope so. Poor sod is not enjoying the jabs a my all.

 

[Lily123]

G

ot a meeting with a consultant next week. I assume that’s the kinda time that’s all discussed? Well I hope so. Poor sod is not enjoying the jabs a my all.

I hope being on the pump helps your daughter,some hospitals will only have one or two pump choices or others will have 5 or 6 pump choices.I think we all have days when we think negatively about having to do injections.

 

[Tom1982]

I hope being on the pump helps your daughter,some hospitals will only have one or two pump choices or others will have 5 or 6 pump choices.I think we all have days when we think negatively about having to do injections.

Is there a mental aspect to all this? Didn’t even think of that side of it. Does it get you down over time?

 

[Lily123]

Is there a mental aspect to all this? Didn’t even think of that side of it. Does it get you down over time?

I think it’s more that after a while it becomes second nature but everyone must have at least one moment where they think why it was them and not someone else. It’s normal.If your daughter ever struggles their will be a psychologist as part of her diabetes team

 

[Sally71]

Is there a mental aspect to all this? Didn’t even think of that side of it. Does it get you down over time?

The relentlessness of it can be hard sometimes, you can never ever have a day off and you do sometimes wish you could just sit down and eat and not have to do sums and insulin all the time! It gets better though, we have been doing this for 9 years now and it’s second nature most of the time, the days where you can’t be bothered/can’t think any more get less often.

Be aware that pumps are not a magic fix - they take a lot of hard work. But they do have many advantages, one cannula insertion every 2-3 days instead of 4 injections per day and you can fine tune things much better than with injections so hopefully achieve better control. I hope you and your family find the right solution for you.