keeping track of diabetes

[trophywench]

I've found it frustrating when hospital consultants have asked me - what happened then? to a hypo or high on X date. Well hang on, when was that? What's so special about that one to make you query it ? Did it last all day and no sign I'd noticed it and corrected it or summat? Aaarrgghh - as long as whatever any of these Apps and graphs and gidgets do not reveal anything YOU did not know about or could not handle and solve, why on earth do any of us need that info?

I just kind of give em a slightly more than cursory look, just in case there should be anything that I need to tackle that I haven't already, like eg dips (or increases) in BG during the night requiring an alteration in basal rate between the hours of X or Y - usually just after I do the download. Or, ditto during my waking hours. The next week or so might well be up and down cos we're away for 10 days and the weather is set to be 'variable' and it's a new venue, where we'll be doing different things so that's variable as well as mealtimes being a bit variable hence it would be rather strange, surely, if my BG remained doggedly stable! - but I don't need any App or anyone with medical training to explain that to me.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I just kind of give em a slightly more than cursory look, just in case there should be anything that I need to tackle that I haven't already, like eg dips (or increases) in BG during the night requiring an alteration in basal rate between the hours of X or Y - usually just after I do the download. Or, ditto during my waking hours.

Yes, I agree. Occasionally I look at yesterday's graph, or the graph exactly a week ago. One thing that I find really helpful is the daily patterns view (where it shows a graph of patterns, so an average with ranges).

All of those are made vastly more valuable by being entirely automatic so not requiring me to remember to do anything except have a look at them when I want.

 

[trophywench]

The daily patterns none of which bear much resemblance to each other you mean! They show that I must have eaten and BG goes up a bit then show the BG comes down again cos I bolused but just never show any surprises LOL but I just look at em in case they do! Here we are it's 11pm and I really don't remember if I jabbed for my dinner, cos I seem to be thirsty. Oopsie. Oh I did though - 4.1u at 19.03. BG 8.8 now and told me to have a correction, so I have. (and the other side of the room since about 3pm my husband is still trying to sort out the blooming paypal account so I'm getting a running commentary on that so is it any wonder when I burn the spuds/omit a bolus or whatever - aaagghh. Look mate, you volunteered to do this - I didn't volunteer to have diabetes)

 

[Bruce Stephens]

The daily patterns none of which bear much resemblance to each other you mean!

The one that shows the days averaged. So (sometimes) it shows something helpful, like I rarely go high between breakfast and lunch, but quite often do late afternoon. Usually the patterns are pretty obvious and I know them anyway, but it can still be useful to have them confirmed.

And (now I think about it) a really important value of the automatically collected statistics is that they remind me that I'm really not doing too badly, on average. So even when I have a few bad days I can look at the time in range over weeks and see that most of the time I do OK.

 

[nonethewiser]

Manage condition day by day, never could be bothered keeping records & looking back at them.

Libre been so handy for someone like myself, most data recorded & diabetes clinic can access that data. Might seem odd attitude to some but got this far with very few issues.

 

[Elizabethe]

Hi

I was just wanted to know how others keep track of their diabetes day by day, I am sure everyone has their own methods. Mainly would be interested to know the following:

• any apps used and for what
• if not using apps, any particular kind of physical log
• the sort of info being recorded
• how well this has worked for you
• have you always kept track of your diabetes this way

I'd like to see if there is anything that I could be doing differently.

Thank you

I started to use a notebook but now just use the Libre app. I find it easy to use and informative for my purposes .And quick.

 

[Docb]

As I have said before, I put together an Access database to do what I wanted. Three inputs, time, date and blood glucose reading. Outputs are graphs of long term blood glucose, last 60 and last 30 days together with means and standard deviations. Also plots average level through the day. I record the info in a notebook and feed the database every week or to see the trends and get the stats.

That does what I need to keep tabs on what is going on.