I regret taking my diabeties teams advice about experimenting with my food

[Sara Grice]

I told my diabeties team that I was getting sick of the same food all the time but feel discouraged from trying new things due to be still being on a set amount of insulin. So this morning, i made myself scrambled egg on toast, in place of my other healthy protein go-toos (smoke salmon, avacardo, turkey)

I kinda assumed cos egg is like the main thing people think about other than meat in terms of protein that it would blunt the spikes maybe more than the others...so I stupidly gave myself 1 less unit of insulin than I normally do

It did not go well and I feel like I'm gonna get an earful from my diabeties team when I speak to them next even though it's what they recommended doing. And there just gonna make me use more and more insulin instead of helping me to blunt the spikes in other ways... I already feel bad enough about this myself

Since this photo was taken I have done some hoovering around the house and had some water. Things are coming down..just annpyt

I already feel upset and irritable cos of this and my mom is visiting today..gotta try to make myself less snappy

 

[Sara Grice]

Looking a but better just wish this hadn't happend at all.
I'm so worried about the damage I may have done

 

[saffron15]

From what I've seen of your posts you are still new to type 1 and have had difficulties coping with stress. Eggs should be great for breakfast and I assume you know how many carbs are in the slice of toast. As I understand it you aim to be in a good range for say 70% of the time . I don't know whether your decision to take less insulin was sensible or bold. Today it is very hot and you must be worrying about your Mum's visit, which I'm sure will be fine. Those two variables may have caused the spike plus people often speak of the insulin spike as your liver gets you ready for the day

I'm sure there will be type 1 contributors who will give you more technical advice. I'd just say have a cool drink listen to some music and when you feel calmer enjoy your mum's visit. Don't tell your team you made a mistake because you may not have done. You are learning each day how your body reacts and every now and then it says "gotcha"

 

[Leadinglights]

I wonder why you reduced your dose of insulin when you added carbs to your meal with the toast which you hadn't had in the usual meal.
You may have been fine with the same dose or may have even needed slightly more.

 

[Sara Grice]

I wonder why you reduced your dose of insulin when you added carbs to your meal with the toast which you hadn't had in the usual meal.
You may have been fine with the same dose or may have even needed slightly more.

I mean correct from what I understood eggs had very miniscule amount of carbs in it...I definitely wasn't expecting that small amount of eggs. It's mostly healthy-ish fats and protein right?

 

[Inka]

You can swap your breakfasts around @Sara Grice but if you’re not carb counting and adjusting your mealtime insulin, then just stick to the same amount of carbs per meal. You can eat a variety of foods 🙂

You could look at the timing of your bolus maybe as that can help reduce spikes.

 

[Inka]

Looking a but better just wish this hadn't happend at all.
I'm so worried about the damage I may have done

A shortlived spike isn’t going to do damage. If your blood sugar is coming down ok then if you had been fingerpricking, you might not even have noticed this spike, which would have been fine.

Type 1 is a pain in the bottom anyway. Try not to torture yourself with extra worries and guilt x You’d probably have been fine with the food if you hadn’t chosen to reduce your insulin. That’s not your team’s fault or the food’s fault. It’s all about the insulin - amount and timing.

 

[Drummer]

I mean correct from what I understood eggs had very miniscule amount of carbs in it...I definitely wasn't expecting that small amount of eggs. It's mostly healthy-ish fats and protein right?

Do you usually have bread at breakfast?
I can't see why you are concerned about the eggs when you have eaten them with bread, a high carb food.

 

[Inka]

Bread is a sensible choice for someone on fixed doses of insulin. Carbs are fine for Type 1s and they don’t need to ‘worry’ about them any more than the usual Type 1 stuff.

 

[Sara Grice]

Do you usually have bread at breakfast?
I can't see why you are concerned about the eggs when you have eaten them with bread, a high carb food.

Bread is a sensible choice for someone on fixed doses of insulin. Carbs are fine for Type 1s and they don’t need to ‘worry’ about them any more than the usual Type 1 stuff.

Yeah my thoughts where adding healthy stuff to the carbs sort of lessen the severity of the spikes I guess got my bread, hense the avacardo and salmon ect with it. It worked for awhile but I dunno..started still going up to around 13..sometimes 14.. I'm working on it but just keeping upping my insulin just dosnet feel like the answer cos eventually it feels like I'm just gonna crash...maybe I should try to work on my timings which I know it individual and very meal specific so I'm not realy sure how to go about figuring that stuff out..i just worry if I leave eating to long (over the 15 mins recommend) after Injecting and my levels just start dropping to fast.. how do you go about finding that out???

 

[helli]

@Sara Grice I think it is great for you to experiment a little as you are.
As mentioned above, a short term spike will not do you damage. That is caused by prolonger high BG.

Remember that CGMs can exaggerate highs so you may not have been as high as the spike.
The other thing to look at is how long did it take for your BG to return to the pre-injection level. It look like you were coming nicely back down which suggests to me (with no medical training) that your dose was not far off.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Have your clinic given you an amount of carbohydrates to aim for at each meal to match with your doses @Sara Grice ?

Or if they haven’t have you worked out what you would roughly normally have?

Getting a feel for the normal meal size that seems to be working reasonably well with your doses might reassure you to vary the foods you are having within that standard amount of carbs (x much for breakfast, y for lunch, z for evening meal etc)

That’s how I started out when I was on set doses. I could have whatever carbs I likes within each allocation.

 

[Woodywoodpecker]

Looking a but better just wish this hadn't happend at all.
I'm so worried about the damage I may have done

Hi Sara I used to spike really high in the morning after breakfast, was only waiting 10 minutes before i ate. Was suggested on here that try waiting a bit longer, so tried adding 5 minutes at a time every few days, I now wait 25 minutes seems to work for me but everyone is different. I can eat the same breakfast each day, some days can spike other days it’s fine, it used to bother me when had a spike thinking something I had done wrong, now I know it will come down and not stress myself out. I was on fixed dose for couple off weeks, then had to start counting carbs and working dose out myself, I was frightened I took to much or to little. I was also frightened to try new foods, and keeping my carbs as low as I could so not to take much insulin, as terrified off going low. But hospital told me I wasn’t eating enough carbs to put weight on, slowly I have let go and once again I am enjoying my food. I’ve just been out for lunch something I thought I would never do again, took me a good few months before I did. I was diagnosed april last year, and I feel I’m just getting my life back

 

[Karen999]

Hi Sara
Being told off is for the school play ground, the way I see it is were all learning. And need advice not lectures.
I'm new to being a type 1.5 the heat has really effected my readings. I've just done a fab carbs insulin course well worth getting on one if you can. As far as I can tell even those of us that have been insulin dependent for years don't have perfect readings all the time.
My diabetic nurse keeps reminding me that as long as the spike comes down again it's not such a big problem.

 

[Sara Grice]

Hi Sara
Being told off is for the school play ground, the way I see it is were all learning. And need advice not lectures.
I'm new to being a type 1.5 the heat has really effected my readings. I've just done a fab carbs insulin course well worth getting on one if you can. As far as I can tell even those of us that have been insulin dependent for years don't have perfect readings all the time.
My diabetic nurse keeps reminding me that as long as the spike comes down again it's not such a big problem.

I have asked to go on a carb counting course but they won't let me. Its so annoying but what can I do??

 

[Woodywoodpecker]

I have asked to go on a carb counting course but they won't let me. Its so annoying but what can I do??

I went to hospital one day a week for 6 weeks, to learn about it al, then every 3 months appointment with doctor for a year

 

[Inka]

🙂 I have asked to go on a carb counting course but they won't let me. Its so annoying but what can I do??

Your choices are to ignore them and do an online course, or stick to the fixed doses and set amount of carbs. Fixed doses are fine. That’s what we did for many years.

First, think about the reasons your team won’t let you go on a carb counting course, then consider whether it would make you more anxious. I assume your team think it will. So, it might be sensible to stick to fixed doses and just vary the non-carb items as you did today. You’re doing ok

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

First, think about the reasons your team won’t let you go on a carb counting course, then consider whether it would make you more anxious. I assume your team think it will. So, it might be sensible to stick to fixed doses and just vary the non-carb items as you did today. You’re doing ok

I think this could well be the reason. Fixed carb and insulin amounts (and varying the foods that make up the carb amounts) worked really well for me for probably 15 years.

Trying to calculate a meal-by-meal dose with constantly varying carb amounts and sources adds so many more variables into the mix, that it can feel overwhelming and stressful - you can end up second-guessing everything.

Especially if you find (as many of us here do) that carb ratios and insulin doses don’t necessarily scale in a completely linear fashion. And that you need to make adjustments when you eat above a certain amount of carbs per meal.

It is more flexible to be dose adjusting and carb counting, but it can be more stressful too.

In fact I still use (pretty much) fixed doses and carb amounts for nearly 70% of my meals, because I find it SO much easier to reduce the number of variables to try to get more consistent results (or know that if a dose doesn’t behave as expected that it is *something else* that has changed, not that the carb count was wrong.

 

[Inka]

Good point @everydayupsanddowns I use fixed doses for many of my meals as it’s less thought and just easier, as I know I’ve removed one variable. It’s less stressful too.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Good point @everydayupsanddowns I use fixed doses for many of my meals as it less thought and just easier, as I know I’ve removed one variable. It’s less stressful too.

After a bit of a rethink I’ve had to increase the estimated percentage. It’s basically almost every breakfast (2 variations) and lunch (very rare exceptions). And several evening meals too!