high blood AGAIN

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lo123

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Type 1
ok this is my question.. how can a toasted sandwich, handful of crisps and an apple cause my blood to go to 14!!!! I feel so angry when im trying to watch what i eat and still get a 14 :( my blood was an 8 before i ate.
 
lo123 said:
ok this is my question.. how can a toasted sandwich, handful of crisps and an apple cause my blood to go to 14!!!! I feel so angry when im trying to watch what i eat and still get a 14 :( my blood was an 8 before i ate.
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What was in the toasty? There's carbs in the bread, carbs, fat and salt in the crisps. Also possibly too much sugar in the apple depending on the variety (a Cox's will be sweeter than a Golden Delicious).
 
im T2 and have found sadly that fruit causes havooc with me xx:(
 
An apple is 10 -20grams, crisps easily up to 40grams, a sandwich is easily 40 grams, so although I'm not an accurate carb counter you've easily got 100grams of carbs, so getting to 14 is easy if you didn't inject!

I was told any more than 10grams of carbs and you should inject.

Hope you get some control soon.
 
Maybe your insulin/carb ratio calculation wasn't quite right?
 
it was white bread with ham cheese and a sauce thing, the apple was fairly big and sweet. I had 6 units of insulin. This might be a dumb question but would toasted bread rise blood more than non toasted??? or is it the same??
 
lo123 said:
it was white bread with ham cheese and a sauce thing, the apple was fairly big and sweet. I had 6 units of insulin. This might be a dumb question but would toasted bread rise blood more than non toasted??? or is it the same??
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White bread will certainly shoot up your levels very quickly, shouldn't make any difference toasted. I suspect that the food shot you up before the insulin got chance to act - how long after eating did you test?
 
i tested nearly 2 hours after eating. i took 4 correction units about half an hour ago and its now 12 so coming down. Its so hard to find stuff to eat when i cant eat bread - i will feel hungry otherwise.
 
Keep an checking your levels and make sure you dont end up going too low. I find I always have a peak after eating which then returns back to normal about 4 hours later.
 
Bread can vary a lot in carbs. If it's bread from a wrapper, the carbs will be shown on the back of the pack - per slice and per 100g if you prefer.

A simple slice of bread can vary from 9g to 35g depending on what it is . Personally, i always go for a brown or malted loaf from a pack where the carbs are clearly stated, then i know exactly what i'm eating. Some white breads have a lot of salt content and will make sugars rise quite fast.
Everyone is different but i always found it better to take a little more insulin than i expected to need then test regularly after and eat a bit more if needed. Others prefer to take a little less and adjust upwards the next time.

Good luck whatever you do.
 
i never read carb content etc - i usually guess which is wrong i suppose, i was told to take 6 units for a meal and adjust accordingly which i do... maybe i should try to carb count properly.
 
ooh yes! I can't recommend it enough. I was so surprised by how the carbs in different foods vary, and it suddenly made sense why say one day I could have toast for breakfast and be fine, and the next day I could have porridge and have really high readings - turns out that my porridge portions have about twice as many carbs as 2 slices of toast, so that was why! Does your clinic run any courses, e.g. DAFNE?
 
i dont think they do any dafne courses - they might further up the country but not in my area. i have a book which explains it but i never read it - maybe i should!!
 
Cheese and white bread together - nightmare! Eat brown bread its much better as its slow release. Also, its much better if you learn to carb count as i dont understand why people are told by their teams that 6 units will cover a meal? It matters what the meal is! A plate of cheesy pasta needs a lot more insulin than an omelette and salad for example.🙂Bev
 
Carb counting is a long way from perfect but it does give you a very good insight into the type of food you can and cannot get away with and the adjustments needed.
Not sure how long you've had type1 but i have found it very useful. For me a lunchtime or evening meal would have to be approximately 60g and i would inject 12-14 novorapid for this. However, if i was going to eat say 100g i would probably need approximately 16-17 units.

I would also find my sugars would go higher than normal an hour or so after eating but then i would probably need extra carbs after about 2 hours as the novorapid did its work around this snacktime. The extra insulin i had to cover me for the lunchtime carbs would send my sugars falling disproportionately.
Armed with this information and plenty of testing, it is possible to get pretty good at judging.
 
It's worth bearing in mind that standard wholemeal bread has approximately the same GI index as white bread and will raise the BG levels quite quickly.
When choosing bread it's much better to go for wholegrain and nutty type breads as opposed to standard wholemeal.
Also, you shouldn't expect you BG to be back down to normal levels until two hours after eating as it would normally take this long for your insulin to work. I'm currently experimenting with different sites for my pump cannula as I am finding that it sometimes takes three hours for my levels to come back down.
There was an interesting thread on this site recently that had a link to a graph of BG levels in non-diabetics, that showed that some non-diabetics had a rise in BG from around 4mmol to 8mmol after eating carbs.
 
Red Pumper said:
It's worth bearing in mind that standard wholemeal bread has approximately the same GI index as white bread and will raise the BG levels quite quickly.
When choosing bread it's much better to go for wholegrain and nutty type breads as opposed to standard wholemeal.
Also, you shouldn't expect you BG to be back down to normal levels until two hours after eating as it would normally take this long for your insulin to work. I'm currently experimenting with different sites for my pump cannula as I am finding that it sometimes takes three hours for my levels to come back down.
There was an interesting thread on this site recently that had a link to a graph of BG levels in non-diabetics, that showed that some non-diabetics had a rise in BG from around 4mmol to 8mmol after eating carbs.
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Hi there!,
Where do you have the canula at the moment? I only ask because Alex used to have his on his bottom - but not very practical when he was at school and wanted to take the pump off for P.E. etc - so I moved it to his tummy - and ALL his basals and his ratios needed changing! Apparently if its in the tummy you get much quicker and better absorption than in a fatty area like the bottom.
Also, it could possibly be your ratio rather than the canula site, have you tried upping the ratio?🙂Bev
 
Hi bev,

it's in my tummy at the moment. I'm trying a different cannula to see if that makes any difference.
I've tried upping my ratio and that helps a little for the two hour reading but brings a sharper drop after three or four hours which needs treating with carbs.
I go to see the DSN next week so I'll be having a chat to her about it. It may be that I have to try to stick to lower GI foods.
The situation is better in the evening as my evening meal tends to be made up of more complex carbs and more protein and fat which slows the release of the carbs.
 
The golden 'rule of thumb' that we have been told is that if your levels are high/low at the 2 to 3 hour period after eating, then its your ratio that is out. If your levels are high/low at after the 3 hour period after eating (and still out until you next eat) - then its your basals that are out.

How many basals do you have set? We have 8 at the moment as I think children seem to be all over the place regarding basals as their needs change such a lot. If your evening meal levels are fine then you probably have both your ratio and your basals just right.

When you have the sharp drop after the 2 hour period on the different ratio, you could change your basal for that period of time, so if for example you eat at 1pm and your levels are dropping after the 3pm period, then you put in an extra basal at approx 1.30pm (for some people it takes 2 hours to notice any real change for others its 1.5 hours) which is lower than the one you have now and this should help to stop the drop for the period after 3pm - does that makes sense? I am rubbish at explaining things!🙂Bev
 
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