Pasta

[Tony R]

My son has had a lot of problems with his readings going up during the night and not particularly coming down with a correction. He went on a pump 4 months ago so initially I put the problems down to issues with the cannula or tube blockages but it's dawned on me that the majority of the problems seem to coincide with him having eaten pasta earlier.

Sure enough he tried some pasta for supper yesterday and his reading readings were 12.3BG at 10.30pm, then went down to 9.BG by 12.30am after a correction, but went back up again to 12.4BG when he woke up.

I just wonder whether other people have experienced similar problems with pasta.

 

[Cleo]

Hi TonyR,
Do you know what your son's insulin to carb ratio is at dinner?, and does he weigh out his pasta?.......I'm just trying to figure out what his method is 🙂

thanks
C.

 

[Redkite]

Hi Tony,

Yes we've always found pasta tricky, even after 8 years of diabetes and 5 of those on a pump! Dual waves are helpful in preventing a low within an hour or two of eating, followed by a high hours later. BUT the same dual wave split never seems to work twice! The type of pasta sauce is important too, as creamy ones high in fat will also cause a delayed rise in BGs. The other problem we get (not sure how old your son is?) is when the meal hasn't digested before bedtime - everything seems to slow down. We find we get much better results with pasta meals that are eaten at lunchtime than those eaten at dinner time, even with doing the same things bolus-wise! The exception to this is when he's had a day with lots of exercise, e.g. long walk or bike ride - on those nights we would normally set a reduced temp basal for a few hours, but if he's had pasta we don't need to reduce the basal.

 

[Tony R]

Hi TonyR,
Do you know what your son's insulin to carb ratio is at dinner?, and does he weigh out his pasta?.......I'm just trying to figure out what his method is 🙂

thanks
C.

It's 1 unit per 10g carbs which seems to be pretty accurate for most foods and he does weigh the pasta using digital scales. My thinking is also if it were just a case of miscounting the carbs, then a correction a couple hours later should bring his reading down to within his target, it does bring it down a bit but then it goes up again.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi Tony

I replied on your other thread in the pumping section - but pasta does have a bit of a reputation for slow release.

Something about the way the starches change during its manufacture makes them release slowly (HelenM explained it to me once, but I forget the details).

You may find that not all pasta is the same. Wholewheat shapes are 'normal' for me and take a standard bolus 'up front' (portion size usually 50-60g CHO), but oddly white spaghetti/tagliatelle needs a much more delayed/Dual Wave approach, with only 40% of the dose 'up front' and the rest coming in over 2-3 hours. Other people seem to need to extent delivery over much longer - I've seen accounts of 5-6hr dual waves!

You may even find (as I have with some DW meals) thst you need a slightly different ratio, so that you have a small amount of 'extra' insulin to stretch over those extra hours.

 

[Redkite]

Hi Tony,

Just replied on your other thread! Pasta has continued to be tricky for us after 8 years of practice, 5 of them on a pump - dual waves are needed to prevent a low in the hour or two after eating, followed by high levels hours later. BUT the same split never works twice😉. The type of sauce is important too, as creamy ones with a high fat content cause a delayed rise in BGs. I don't know how old your son is, but early bedtimes caused us no end of problems, as pasta would still be digesting and this would all be slowed down once asleep. Even now, with more of a gap between tea and bed, we still find we get better BGs after a pasta meal at lunchtime than one eaten in the evening (using the same bolus approach). Also, if he's been out for a long walk or bike ride and we would usually reduce his basal for a few hours overnight, we don't have to if he's eaten pasta.