Levemir v/s Tresiba

[Purls of Wisdom]

Do you mean you aren’t counting the carbs in lentils or lentil pasta when you do your carb count? I certainly need to count carbs in pulses like lentils and beans when they are the main part of the meal, and your bg going high after them suggests that you do too.

No, not of course. I weigh and count everything. I am told not to count carbs in veg cos they are little hence negligible.

 

[rebrascora]

@Purls of Wisdom Can you talk us through how you calculate your lentil pasta.... and lentils in other things too. I get the impression that they feature quite often on your menu with dahl etc and if you are calculating them wrong that could be one of the main reasons why your levels are so erratic. I find dried foods like this challenging to calculate because the carb info is usually for the cooked weight, but of course you are more likely to weight it out dry and then in something like a dahl which is cooked with other ingredients, it is hard to know how much is in your portion. It would be much more helpful if they gave the carb count for the dry ingredient with these things in my opinion.

As regards a cup of tea spiking your levels, unless it is made with lots of milk and sugar, then it is more likely that something else is causing the rise than the tea and you need to look back at what you did or ate before that or even, what you were doing. For instance were you watching a stressful film or documentary at the time which pushed your levels up. I get stressed very easily. When I went to watch Top Gun at the cinema with my friend, my levels hit 17 during the stressful peak of the film. There are a lot of programs/films, even sport, like an important match if I have aI have a vested interest in the result, that I simply can't watch anymore because I get so wound up and stressed and my BG levels go through the roof. So there are lots of things that can cause your levels to spike, but a cup of tea is unlikely to be the culprit.

Yes, continue to keep records until you understand what is going on and how to manage it better.
I always record my insulin and exercise and all my hypo treatments and most of my carb estimations, just so that I can keep track of things.

Yesterday we had a long social meal with several courses and I bolused many times throughout the afternoon. starting with a correction when I left the house to get my levels down into range before I arrived at my sisters for the meal....

This is my log for yesterday.... I use roughly a 1:10 ratio....

1325 7.1 but it was rising slightly as I left the house to drive to my sisters. I injected 1.5 units to bring me down to about 4 before the meal... The journey takes about 45mins so I am unlikely to drop below 5 during that time.
14.22 6.1 when I arrived at my sisters house....Perfect if I say so myself! 😉 😎
14.52 4.1 and meal not quite ready so I had a few crisps (literally 3-4 just to stop my levels dropping any lower and I am very disciplined with this) that were out on the coffee table as nibbles to have with drinks. I also had low carb dips like celery with sour cream and chive dip.
15.00 4.3 (Delighted as this is exactly where I wanted my levels to be to start the meal) and I injected 4 units for soup and bread which I ate more of less immediately (ie only a few minutes prebolus) because my levels were low, so isulin will work quicker. This was why I corrected before i left the house so that my levels were as low as possible at the start of the meal so that I didn't need prebolus time.
After the soup course, I helped my sister finish off the main meal preparation and dish up and I kept a close eye on my levels during that time.
15.33 5.7 and I injected another 5 units for the main course (roast turkey dinner)
We had a cheese board after that but I didn't inject for that as I just had a few slices of apple and a few grapes with my cheese, no crackers and I knew I had been generous with my insulin for the coup and main course.
16.51 6.2 I injected another 3units for a small wedge of lemon cheesecake with cream.
21.23 7.5 I injected my evening Levemir. I decided on 2 units as I hadn't been out for a walk that day or done much physical activity and knew I would need more than the zero dose I had been not injecting the last few days.
21.55 9.2 I had a coffee in preparation for my drive home. It was milky and creamy so I gave it 2 units (1 for the coffee and 1 correction unit because I wanted to be about 6 at bedtime)
2335 8.7 Arrived home. This is where I made the mistake because I injected 1 unit for another coffee to keep me awake whilst I went out to feed my horses.... very late because I had been out all day. That exercise on top of the active insulin and previous correction, dropped my levels very quickly.
0101 3.1 HYPO Totally my own fault because I didn't factor in that exercise 😡..... but it had been a long day and I was tired. Ate 2 JBs to treat it but then I decided that I needed some chocolate and peanut butter (hypo hunger 🙄) which I justified as not having had any chocolate all Easter but half a square soon led to a whole square and then another whole square.... so then my levels went too high...
02.32 10.1 with a sloping upwards arrow, so I jabbed 2.5 units to cope with the chocolate and peanut butter and correct a bit and this morning I woke up on 8.0 which is higher than I would like but not desperately bad and easily corrected.

I am not saying that this is what you should do but I think this shows that you can inject for what you are about to eat at each stage of a meal. If you can also plan your levels so that you are quite low (but not hypo) at the start of the meal, that really helps, so thinking a couple of hours ahead of the meal if your levels are running high and injecting any correction ahead of time can make things a lot better.
There is a lot of thought goes into managing BG levels and a lot of things to consider. I probably manage my levels a lot more closely than some other people but the more I scan and see what my levels are doing and experiment, the easier it is to make decisions about what is likely to work for me in that situation and my brain starts to estimate things without me having to consciously think about it.

I would like to add that I had an absolutely fab time and never stopped laughing because the company and atmosphere was so good, but the afternoon/evening involved 5 or 6 injections and lots of scanning (Libre is wonderful for this.... gotta love it), however it takes seconds to scan and seconds to jab insulin, so a very minimal amount of time in reality managing my diabetes compared to the time I spent eating and laughing and talking and helping dish up the meal and clear away and wash up and play the quiz game, which is a tradition after the meal.

Hopefully that gives you a bit of an insight into how you can manage your special event, but important to keep track of insulin injected and a rough idea of carbs eaten and keep hypo treatment near to hand in case you need it and a close eye on your Libre and if it shows your levels in the 4s or 5s and dropping, then have a small hypo treatment to slow down the drop and ideally before you go hypo...... and monitor closely after you catch your levels dropping fast to check that it steadies and comes back up in the next half hour afterwards. Just 1 or 2 dextrose tablets can usually easily turn things around but it will probably take Libre 20-30 mins to show their impact, so try not to eat anymore during that time unless you feel hypo and then finger prick to check. .

 

[Leadinglights]

No, not of course. I weigh and count everything. I am told not to count carbs in veg cos they are little hence negligible.

Are you counting the carbs in the lentils? there will be some vegetables that you may be wise to count. If I remember correctly you are vegetarian so it may be some vegetables are having more effect than if they were accompanying meat or fish

 

[rebrascora]

I would usually need to count a tomato, onion and pepper based sauce as about 20g carbs. If it came out of a jar you can obviously check the jar nutritional info, but lentils and pasta etc., the info is usually given as cooked weight I believe, so if you are weighing it dry and and using that info, that might be where you are regularly going wrong.

 

[Leadinglights]

I would usually need to count a tomato, onion and pepper based sauce as about 20g carbs. If it came out of a jar you can obviously check the jar nutritional info, but lentils and pasta etc., the info is usually given as cooked weight I believe, so if you are weighing it dry and and using that info, that might be where you are regularly going wrong.

There is confusion about things like pasta, I occasionally have edamame bean pasta which says on the packet 15g carbs per 100g which I assume is dry weight, so I weight 25g for a portion and cook that so I take that as being about 4g carb for my portion. But whenever you see the pictures of normal wheat pasta it always shows cooked pasta where about 10 penne tubes are 30g and 10g carbs.

 

[Purls of Wisdom]

This topic is growing out of proportion. I always weigh the lentils and grains or consult Cals and Carbs book. If not in the book i use myfitnesspal app. If weighed raw. Once cooked I measure the portions in order to get things right. For example, I will weigh every ingredient before making soup. Add. Portion the finished product and the devide the total amongst how many members of family are going to eat it. It usually works out alright for me.

I have my tea with less than a teaspoon of semi skimmed milk and a sweetener. Not too many cups in a day too.

 

[rebrascora]

@Leadinglights Usually with pasta and rice and lentils there is an asterisk and at the bottom of the info box it will say the asterisk relates to cooked weight.
One packet of pasta I found in the back of the cupboard....

See where it says Nutrition just above the table of data, then underneath it says (as consumed).... that means cooked weight including water, so if you weighed out 100g of this dry pasta, it is going to contain at least 60g carbs, probably a bit more. If you look at the other nutrients on the list (ie protein fat and fibre) and add them up, you don't get anywhere close to 100%, so that tells you the info on this product is because it contains a lot of water.... which the dry ingredient of course doesn't.

My bag of red lentils indicates 56g carbs per 100g of dry ingredient. Wheat flour is about 65g carbs per 100g, I believe, so red lentil pasta is not going to be significantly lower than wheat pasta, but I don't have any to look at the packet and see how the info is displayed and I don't have edamame pasta either to check that, but I suspect it will be 15g carbs per 100g cooked weight, not dry weight, so probably twice as many carbs as you are calculating.

 

[42istheanswer]

@Leadinglights Usually with pasta and ice and lentils there is an asterisk and at the bottom of the info box it will say the asterisk relates to cooked weight.
One packet of pasta I found in the back of the cupboard....
View attachment 25291
See where it says Nutrition just above the table of data, then underneath it says (as consumed).... that means cooked weight including water, so if you weighed out 100g of this dry pasta, it is going to contain at least 60g carbs, probably a bit more. If you look at the other nutrients on the list (ie protein fat and fibre) and add them up, you don't get anywhere close to 100%, so that tells you the info on this product is because it contains a lot of water.... which the dry ingredient of course doesn't.

My bag of red lentils indicates 56g carbs per 100g of dry ingredient. Wheat flour is about 65g carbs per 100g, I believe, so red lentil pasta is not going to be significantly lower than wheat pasta, but I don't have any to look at the packet and see how the info is displayed and I don't have edamame pasta either to check that, but I suspect it will be 15g carbs per 100g cooked weight, not dry weight, so probably twice as many carbs as you are calculating.

Nope, it is dry weight. It says allow 50g per person, and then beside the 100g it shows "per serving (50g)".

Also your label that you showed does tell you the conversion factor for dry to cooked on the portion section, so if you have a different amount than 75g dry weight you can still calculate it fairly easily

 

[rebrascora]

@Purls of Wisdom I am sorry if you feel like we at going off at a tangent with your thread but understanding the carb content of foods like this is really important and may be where you are going wrong and why things are going haywire and levels are going high overnight. Just to clarify, some people consider lentils as vegetables so were wondering if you had not counted the lentil pasta or lentils, which of course absolutely do need counting, but these foods are not at all straight forwards to understand.
Can you tell us exactly how you calculated your 49g carbs for your red lentil pasta meal on the Saturday night? How much you weighed out and was that dry weight or did you just cook a lot of pasta and then weigh it out to portion it up before adding to the sauce and eating.

 

[Lucyr]

Also your label that you showed does tell you the conversion factor for dry to cooked on the portion section, so if you have a different amount than 75g dry weight you can still calculate it fairly easily

I find fractions of the cooked amount easiest to work with too as I always have 50g dry weight so I just take two thirds of the cooked carbs per portion.

Lentil pasta in Tesco is 52.8g carbs for 75g dry /170g cooked

 

[Purls of Wisdom]

@Purls of Wisdom I am sorry if you feel like we at going off at a tangent with your thread but understanding the carb content of foods like this is really important and may be where you are going wrong and why things are going haywire and levels are going high overnight.

i fully understand and appreciate all the varying views and advice. If it weren't for you all, I would ve seriously crumbled by now.

Just to clarify, some people consider lentils as vegetables so were wondering if you had not counted the lentil pasta or lentils, which of course absolutely do need counting, but these foods are not at all straight forwards to understand.

Don't I know about it. What gave this notion that I am unaware of carb contents? I am a little more clued in than I come across and know my vegetables from the lentils and pulses, been cooking for over 40 years. But at the same time, I also admit that I need to be a lot more carb conscious now. I unknowingly took things on their face value which did not do any favours.

Can you tell us exactly how you calculated your 49g carbs for your red lentil pasta meal on the Saturday
night? How much you weighed out and was that dry weight or did you just cook a lot of pasta and then weigh it out to portion it up before adding to the sauce and eating.

The pasta I cooked was 60g ZENB yellow lentils. It said 80g per portion. I worked out the carbs. I know now that vegetables cooked in store bought sauce were not carbs free. KAVARG and popcorn added to an already miscalculated meal. Another important lesson learnt in my journey with diabetes.

I have started seeing some patterns, with your help and support, I am going to learn and accept much more.

Thanking you sincerely.

 

[helli]

What to do when this is the case? The reason I need to understand is, there is a family wedding coming up. There will be diabetes unfriendly food and at different and more times of the day.

I am confused.
Are you asking about correcting a high without food (correction dose) or taking as second bolus because you have eaten within the 4 hours that your last dose was taken?
If you are talking about the family wedding, I assume you mean the latter. In that scenario, when bolusing for additional food (not the first bolus), I pay little attention to my current blood sugars until 4 hours after my last bolus. I do not include a correction dose as it is probably be included in the currently active bolus insulin in my body (insulin on board - iob).

 

[Purls of Wisdom]

I am confused.
Are you asking about correcting a high without food (correction dose) or taking as second bolus because you have eaten within the 4 hours that your last dose was taken?
If you are talking about the family wedding, I assume you mean the latter. In that scenario, when bolusing for additional food (not the first bolus), I pay little attention to my current blood sugars until 4 hours after my last bolus. I do not include a correction dose as it is probably be included in the currently active bolus insulin in my body (insulin on board - iob).

Yes, you ve got it correct. It is the latter one. I have so many events this month and the outcome will be same if I do not act promptly and properly.
Thanks.