Help how to balance what eating & injecting using app?

[honeybee]

Have been trying get my levels under better control, I’m t1. Looked at all the apps only one I like called nutracheck - it’s great u can log everything down u eat, really easy and inject accordingly. Only issue its Ok if your making individual meals - can’t rave about it enough but, when u dish up for a family I’m not actually eating everthing I’ve listed in the proportions I’ve listed. example, curry last night not a) everything was not eaten - we had a leftovers b) I probably didn’t dish myself out exactly quarter of what was made ie ( quarter tin of chickpeas as there are 4 of us and a whole tin went in).

Hence I ended up with a major hypo as I over injected?

Normally if I just guess my insulin need or use carbs & Cals and guess estimate. Most of my levels during day are in teens so was trying to tighten up. Seems I’ve gone too far the other way? So disappointed and not a clue where to go from here. Such a hypo from curry last night woke up on 25 this morning - complete disaster! Help!!!

if weighed and cooked my own individual meal alongside families would have been great but who goes that far to control diabeties???

 

[Schrodinger]

Hello Honneybee

Frustrating isn't it.

Thing is that although you may calculate x units for y carbs at the time, it does not take into account how long something take to digest.

So take curry, it has rice, fats, oils in it all of which slow the digestion down, its similar to pasta and breakfast cereals. It might be worth split dosing your injections.

So for example lets say your meal is 100gram of carb and you inject 1 unit for 10grams so its 10units you would stick in you at the time of eating 2 hours later you have a massive hypo and 6 hours later you have a massive high (one from hypo liver dump recovery the other from the food)
You could, for arguments sake, inject 5 units at the time of eating and then some 2 hours later inject another 5 units which might help level the curve out and prevent the bounce you experienced.

Its easier to watch if you have Dexcom of Libre as you can see things change. Its a bit of trail and error I'm afraid, something Im still doing after 5 decades with T1.

Also it might be worth talking to your diabetic team and see if they can suggest anything as well.

Take care and hope things sort out.

 

[Inka]

Hi @honeybee 🙂 Er......me! I weigh and measure things and lots of other Type 1s do too. It soon becomes second nature and is worth the few seconds it takes.

I don’t use any apps. I just use the carb values, most of which I know by heart. On recipes, I jot down the carbs per portion so I always know what to inject.

I weigh pasta, etc, I measure rice in spoonfuls, I divide recipes equally by spooning them out and counting the spoons. It honestly becomes second nature. It’s so much easier! Eg I had my cereal this morning (a nice big bowl) and I know my blood sugar will be good - because I weighed the cereal and so know how many carbs I had.

Get some good digital scales and the world’s your oyster!

 

[honeybee]

Hello Honneybee

Frustrating isn't it.

Thing is that although you may calculate x units for y carbs at the time, it does not take into account how long something take to digest.

So take curry, it has rice, fats, oils in it all of which slow the digestion down, its similar to pasta and breakfast cereals. It might be worth split dosing your injections.

So for example lets say your meal is 100gram of carb and you inject 1 unit for 10grams so its 10units you would stick in you at the time of eating 2 hours later you have a massive hypo and 6 hours later you have a massive high (one from hypo liver dump recovery the other from the food)
You could, for arguments sake, inject 5 units at the time of eating and then some 2 hours later inject another 5 units which might help level the curve out and prevent the bounce you experienced.

Its easier to watch if you have Dexcom of Libre as you can see things change. Its a bit of trail and error I'm afraid, something Im still doing after 5 decades with T1.

Also it might be worth talking to your diabetic team and see if they can suggest anything as well.

Take care and hope things sort out.

Thanks I’ll keep it in mind, I have been looking at dexcom.

 

[honeybee]

Hi @honeybee 🙂 Er......me! I weigh and measure things and lots of other Type 1s do too. It soon becomes second nature and is worth the few seconds it takes.

I don’t use any apps. I just use the carb values, most of which I know by heart. On recipes, I jot down the carbs per portion so I always know what to inject.

I weigh pasta, etc, I measure rice in spoonfuls, I divide recipes equally by spooning them out and counting the spoons. It honestly becomes second nature. It’s so much easier! Eg I had my cereal this morning (a nice big bowl) and I know my blood sugar will be good - because I weighed the cereal and so know how many carbs I had.

Get some good digital scales and the world’s your oyster!

The weighing out doesn’t seem to bad, I don’t spoon out like that - I have two growing teenage boys & hubby, they tend to eat a lot more than me so spooning out equally doesnt happen. Do u know carb values for everything put into a recipe or just the major bits ?

 

[Inka]

I know the carb values for most things because I’ve had Type 1 for years. I gradually remembered them 🙂 I occasionally need to look up unusual fruits or pulses nuts (because nuts are normally ‘free’ but when I use a substantial quantity the carbs need to be counted). In recipes, it’s usually the basic carbs like potatoes, rice, flour, etc so that makes adding up the total carbs fairly easy. I work Out the carbs per MY serving and write that down eg : 1/6 = 35g carbs.

If I make a high carb item like a cake, I usually choose how many carbs I think I should eat (rather than the enormous slab of cake I want!) and then work out what fraction of the cake or dessert I can have for those carbs eg 1/10= 40g carbs or whatever.

You don’t necessarily have to spoon out equally but it’s easier to do it that way. If you can’t spoon, then serving your portion first eg diving up a cottage pie so you can take 1/6 out for you, or weighing yours is best. For things like pasta where my ex had more than me, I’d weigh my pasta and put that on my plate first, then serve up his and the children's portions giving them whatever amount each needed.

It sounds a faff but it becomes a habit and is easy.

 

[trophywench]

For things such as rice or pasta or mashed spuds, I looked up the carb value of it (cooked) per 100g, then dolloped out my portion using whichever poon I normally use to serve it onto the plate I'd already weighed, so the difference was the weight of one spoonful of X. Then work out the carb value of one spoonful of it. Hence I can have 2.5 spoons of either pasta or rice, but less than 1 of mash, without overwhelming myself with carbs.

 

[Inka]

Interesting @trophywench Mashed potato is one of the very few foods I do by eye. I choose a 30, 40 or 50 (rare) g carb portion and dollop out the correct amount for my chosen carb portion, judging by eye. When I was pregnant, I craved enormous platefuls of mashed potato and it was a nuisance because a ‘proper’ serving always has more carbs than you’d think. I should have tried your method!

Rice I do 3 tablespoons (flattish) is 10g carbs. Pasta I weigh my portion as I’ve worked out how much cooked weight is how many carbs. I did this by cooking the 50g dry weight my leaflet told me was 35g carbs, then weighing its cooked weight (it just under doubles in weight). I then worked out how many grammes of cooked pasta equalled 5g carbs, which gave me the flexibility to vary my portion (although I generally just stick to the same amount).

We should all be mathematical geniuses with all this calculation!

 

[SB2015]

if weighed and cooked my own individual meal alongside families would have been great but who goes that far to control diabeties???

We weigh and calculate for each meal. But there are only two of us, and it is easy to estimate half the meal, or more often a quarter as we often cook double and freeze half, with a label stating the carbs. Each to our own.

You could inject a base amount before the meal which is a bit less than the share of the meal, and then add in a bit more insulin if you feel that you have exceeded this. I do this if it is my OH’s week to cook, as there is sometimes a bit of a delay, and some carbs get forgotten. I whack in enough insulin for 20g about 15 min before my meal (which allows a fudge of 15 min delay, and a probable extra 10g to add in after) and then add in the extra if needed with a reduction for the walk we usually do. I guess it sounds like a lot of hassle but I have just got used to it now and it works for me. You just have to decide how tight you want to be in carb calculations.

Just another thought, I have to deal with curry very differently. I split my dose for these as I know that the carbs will be released more slowly.

 

[honeybee]

I do hate maths. It took me 3 times to do GCSE, it’s never been my forte’this might take me some time to process!

 

[trophywench]

Most mobile phones have a calculator function on them somewhere, if you don't happen to have a forgotten old thing lurking in a drawer somewhere - I couldn't have managed without same, even though I can do long multiplication and division if I write it down, just takes too flippin long though when what you want is your dinner!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Another complication might be that you allowEd full carb value for pulses @honeybee - it’s hard to suggest rules of thumb, because people’s responses to food are very different, but a DSN once suggested that I only ever count pulses as half their carb value, because of the way the carbs are bound in pulses (I have a complicated link somewhere about exactly what is involved if you are interested!)

I used to really like ‘Cook and count carbs’ which is no longer available but allowed you to construct a recipe and divide it into portions with a carb count.

Most of my cooking is based on ‘total meal is approx’ as then dividing by 3, but to be honest I am not scrupulous with all the micro ingredients, and mostly only count major carb sources, then round up or down.

Plus there’s a good degree of guesstimating in my approach!

 

[trophywench]

Your level of guesstimation is obviously a damn sight better than mine Mike - I was utterly gobsmacked the first time I ever saw you publish your SD. This last week mine's been 3.6, Friday it was 5.6, another day 5.4 but two other days 2 or 2 point something - just always vague. Next week it'll be totally different - never ever in my whole life any partic flippin consistency.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I was utterly gobsmacked the first time I ever saw you publish your SD

Mostly ‘sensor augmented’... I cant take much credit!