How often do people review blood glucose levels?

[mum2westiesGill]

How often and also when do people review their blood glucose levels to see if any changes with background insulin or insulin to carb ratios need to be made?

Update
How can you get a pattern of blood glucose levels if you've eaten meals closer than 4 hours apart?

 

[Inka]

Never basically. If I see a persistent issue eg always high after lunch, I confirm it and react. I don’t just review my levels for no reason.

 

[khskel]

Pretty much constantly. I.e. if I get a strange reading , I'll see what happens tomorrow and if it happens the day after as well do something about it. I work on the principle that once could be a fluke, second a coincidence but third time action required.

 

[mikeyB]

All the time, because of changes in the weather and I use the Libre to inform changes in basal, much less in carb ratios because of long experience.

 

[mum2westiesGill]

The last change I made with my background was 10th July because I was waking up in the 4s and sometimes hypo

The last time I made a change to my insulin to carb ratios was 21st July because of lunchtime highs

I'm not too sure where to go from here apart from maybe sharing my bgls once again on the forum and see if anyone can spot any patterns

 

[rebrascora]

I don't have any formal routine. It is more a case of subconsciously assessing it on a day by day basis using my Libre. If I am having to do multiple corrections on a daily basis over a couple of days or hypoing too frequently, then that triggers a more conscious response and I know I need to look at adjusting my basal in some way. Scanning frequently with my Libre shows me very easily when my basal is trending too far in one direction or the other, so 2 days of seeing the same trend is enough for me to make the decision and then watch it the next day after basal adjustment to see if it is fixed or needs further adjustment. Having a shorter acting basal insulin like Levemir enables me to see results the next day which makes things so much easier.

My basal insulin doses can get changed on an almost daily basis sometimes, depending on the nature of my daily activity, weather, stress levels etc and other times they can go for weeks or months without needing any adjustment.
So far I have not seen any need to change my carb ratios from the 1:10 basic initial guidance. I eat low carb so it is usually just 2 or 3 units anyway so there would have to be a pretty radical change in my body's response to carbs to warrant a change in ratio. If I need an extra 1.5 units at breakfast for DP/FOTF then I just add it on because to me that is a correction in advance, not a change of ratio, in that I will still need that 1.5 units for FOTF even if I don't eat any breakfast. Thankfully I am not seeing any FOTF or DP at the moment and not missing it at all! 😎

 

[CivicFreak]

How often and also when do people review their blood glucose levels to see if any changes with background insulin or insulin to carb ratios need to be made?

Update
How can you get a pattern of blood glucose levels if you've eaten meals closer than 4 hours apart?

Although I was diagnosed in 2017 that was as type 2, I was re-diagnosed last year as type 1 and as such I'm still making sure that I test frequently so I can understand the effects different foods have on my blood sugar.

Basically, I test first thing in morning before breakfast, then again before dinner (lunch), before tea and then again before bed as a general rule. I count carbs so I need to make sure I know what my levels are so I can make take the right amoint of novorapid. I very rarely need to take correction doses, although I have miscalculated a couple of times and ended up with a hypo a couple of hours after meal.

I may test more frequently if I don't feel right, or if I've done something outside of my normal routine just to make sure I'm on the right track.

Given I was only diagnosed as type 1 in December last year I have slowly made some changes to my basal over the last 6-7 months. I started off on 8 units, which increased to 10 units and now I'm taking 12 units a day. Waking BG averages around 7.2 and estimated A1c according to MySugr is around 49. I keep a food diary also, and record my BG in this so I can see patterns.