Mealtime times for insulin:carb ratios

[mum2westiesGill]

I'm hopeless at wording things so I hope someone can make sense of the following....
When you're setting times for insulin:carb ratios for breakfast, lunch or tea - in my case it will be just for breakfast - what times before and after the meal would you put the ratio with? I usually ie on work days have my breakfast anything from 9am ish to 10:30am ish - at weekends or holidays this time might change slightly so what do I do then?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I usually ie on work days have my breakfast anything from 9am ish to 10:30am ish - at weekends or holidays this time might change slightly so what do I do then?

None of this is exact science.

Just take something that's reasonable, so if your breakfast is moving by an hour or so that's still breakfast.

And maybe you need to correct a bit at lunch, or have a small snack between if you go a bit low. And (over time), if you tend to eat similar things and you notice you're a bit high at lunch at the weekend, add half a unit or a unit for breakfast and see if that works. (Or subtract a bit if you're low, or leave the insulin alone and eat a little more.)

 

[Sally71]

I can’t remember exactly what ours are set up as, but it was based on what are the earliest and latest likely times for each meal. So e.g. the breakfast period goes from approx 7am until about 11.30 (she eats much earlier on school days than on weekends and holidays), after about 11.30 you’re getting into lunch time though and that goes until about 4pm and then tea time after. Of course it can happen that she eats a particular meal a few minutes early or late and gets the wrong ratio, but ho hum, you can’t account for everything all the time! (Unless you want to do the maths in your head and override the bolus calculator, but we can’t be bothered with that, life’s too short to be worrying about every tiny detail all the time)

 

[mum2westiesGill]

I can’t remember exactly what ours are set up as, but it was based on what are the earliest and latest likely times for each meal. So e.g. the breakfast period goes from approx 7am until about 11.30 (she eats much earlier on school days than on weekends and holidays), after about 11.30 you’re getting into lunch time though and that goes until about 4pm and then tea time after. Of course it can happen that she eats a particular meal a few minutes early or late and gets the wrong ratio, but ho hum, you can’t account for everything all the time! (Unless you want to do the maths in your head and override the bolus calculator, but we can’t be bothered with that, life’s too short to be worrying about every tiny detail all the time)

Thank you and by the looks of it does it look like mine are set to the right times for me for breakfast time?



Like you say and I can believe it can happen sometimes where you can eat earlier or later and end up with the wrong ratio so then you could end up probably hypo or hyper and have to put it right but like you say again hey ho you can't account for every little thing and no definitely no way would I like doing all this kind of maths in my head!!

 

[Sally71]

Yes if that’s the whole possible range when you might have breakfast that looks fine.
The other thing to consider is, I’m pretty sure your body doesn’t suddenly decide it needs more or less insulin at 11.30 on the dot, so it’s all just an estimate again anyway, and if you’re eating breakfast so late that it’s nearly lunchtime then how do you know you don’t need the lunch time ratio?! It’s all guesswork so if you do ever eat a meal that just goes over the border into the wrong ratio, it might not matter much anyway 🙂

 

[mum2westiesGill]

Yes if that’s the whole possible range when you might have breakfast that looks fine.
The other thing to consider is, I’m pretty sure your body doesn’t suddenly decide it needs more or less insulin at 11.30 on the dot, so it’s all just an estimate again anyway, and if you’re eating breakfast so late that it’s nearly lunchtime then how do you know you don’t need the lunch time ratio?! It’s all guesswork so if you do ever eat a meal that just goes over the border into the wrong ratio, it might not matter much anyway 🙂

Thank you 🙂