Tis the season........

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Amity Island

Amity Island

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi everyone,

I have just found out from starting to use the Libre that my Basal dose was too high (only by 1 unit which makes a huge difference in terms of direction of background readings).

I was just wondering how often does everyone change their insulin(s) basal/bolus doses across the year/seasons/ weather changes? How much do you need to adjust them by? Are the patterns the same every year? Say you always need 10% more basal from November to March etc, or is there no pattern at all?

Thanks
 
No specific patterns for us at all really, occasionally find we have to drop things a bit in the spring and put them back up in the autumn, but usually it's just a tweak here and a tweak there for no obvious reason!
 
My general trend is to need more in winter, less in summer, and less again if I'm on holiday, but I think this has more to do with the amount of exercise I take rather than temperature. This autumn I’ve been sticking my night time basal up and down like a yo-yo, because every time the weather turns mild, I have a few days of heavy gardening, or walking ( or both). Night time is when I tend to see lower numbers if I’ve been exercising, (I only take 2 - 2.5 units of levemir at night anyway, because my liver tends to go to sleep) so I tend to leave my daytime dose alone.
 
This year I seem to have been tweaking a bit more than previous years, maybe because I have the extra info from the Libre. The last few weeks have been a bit up and down for no obvious reasons. Daytime basal needing to go up (quite dramatically) when the cooler weather started, just got sorted for a couple of weeks, then down again, back up again and seems be settled for now (a couple of units higher than in the summer), so hopefully no more basal testing for a while. Nighttime recently seems to be going down and down..at this rate I'll be on hardly anything...but I have been reassured as I see the same has been happening to @Robin.

This is where the Libre is so great...and if your insulin needs tweaking, well then it just does...we're all different and it's all part of the game I guess.🙂
 
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Robin said:
My general trend is to need more in winter, less in summer, and less again if I'm on holiday, but I think this has more to do with the amount of exercise I take rather than temperature. This autumn I’ve been sticking my night time basal up and down like a yo-yo, because every time the weather turns mild, I have a few days of heavy gardening, or walking ( or both). Night time is when I tend to see lower numbers if I’ve been exercising, (I only take 2 - 2.5 units of levemir at night anyway, because my liver tends to go to sleep) so I tend to leave my daytime dose alone.
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Thanks Robin, I enjoyed reading that, really useful.
 
Lisa66 said:
This year I seem to have been tweaking a bit more than previous years, maybe because I have the extra info from the Libre. The last few weeks have been a bit up and down for no obvious reasons. Daytime basal needing to go up (quite dramatically) when the cooler whether started, just got sorted for a couple of weeks, then down again, back up again and seems be settled for now (a couple of units higher than in the summer), so hopefully no more basal testing for a while. Nighttime recently seems to be going down and down..at this rate I'll be on hardly anything...but I have been reassured as I see the same has been happening to @Robin.

This is where the Libre is so great...and if your insulin needs tweaking, well then it just does...we're all different and it's all part of the game I guess.🙂
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Thanks Lisa, plenty of info there. Very interesting.
 
I’m tweaking away like mad, both due to the change in seasons, and my rapidly deteriorating mobility. My insulin requirement are up and down, but I certainly don’t need to eat as much to keep body and soul together, that’s for sure. :confused:
 
I've been tweaking away over the last few weeks. Just had to decrease my night time basal after having to increase it a couple of weeks ago.
 
Lisa66 said:
Nighttime recently seems to be going down and down..at this rate I'll be on hardly anything...but I have been reassured as I see the same has been happening to @Robin.
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I threw caution to the wind last night and didn’t inject any basal! I’d done a load of heavy gardening yesterday and that’s a sure fire way to an overnight hypo. I went to bed on 5.3 ( normally i’d have eaten something to bring me up to 7.5-8) had a flat line in the 4s til 4 am then rose sharply to 7.1 by 7.30.
 
I generally make small adjustments to my basal profile somewhere between 2 and 4 times a month. So fortnightly or weekly for me.
 
Robin said:
I threw caution to the wind last night and didn’t inject any basal! I’d done a load of heavy gardening yesterday and that’s a sure fire way to an overnight hypo. I went to bed on 5.3 ( normally i’d have eaten something to bring me up to 7.5-8) had a flat line in the 4s til 4 am then rose sharply to 7.1 by 7.30.
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Ooh, I've been tempted to try this a couple of times, but chickened out, maybe I'll give it a go at the weekend, as long as levels haven't decided to play silly wotsits and go up again🙂

It's interesting to see how others are also constantly making adjustments, it's reassuring to see it's not just me. Whilst I guess I do know this, and DSN assures me so, I sometimes feel, that others toddle along with steady numbers, only changing spring and autumn and no corrections. Thank you for starting this thread.🙂
 
Lisa66 said:
Ooh, I've been tempted to try this a couple of times, but chickened out, maybe I'll give it a go at the weekend, as long as levels haven't decided to play silly wotsits and go up again
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I think what last night taught me was that it was fine to do in a situation where I was likely to drop more than usual, it certainly kept me out of the red, but I paid for it this morning, when my levels continued rising until my morning basal and bonus kicked in. It really surprises me that 2 units overnight could make such a difference, but they certainly seem to!
(Btw, it was Amityisland who started this thread, not me!)
 
Well we had a really weird day yesterday - it was one of our granddaughter's 21st birthday. She now lives in Milton Keynes with boyfriend and baby, and Simon had booked the day off work. They drove up to Doncaster to see his parents on Friday night, came down to Rugby to her parents Sunday night, and because dad works weekends and both mum and brother were at work on Sunday, the celebration meal was at the pub at 3pm yesterday so that Tim could go too in his break between his split shift yesterday.

So a 'one meal' day - not good really for anyone.

Anyway, good lunch but of course I 'forgot' the birthday cake, ooops. Hence in the teens and still correcting pre bed -
and I awake today to a lovely 5.0!

Absolutely potty. Do everything I shouldn't do - and get a perfect FBG.

Still the picture of Lily (10 months) covered in chocolate makes it worthwhile!
 
Sorry Robin, I did realise this...thought I'd put Amityisland after the thank you....

Although, thank you to you too for sharing, all very interesting 🙂. It's certainly thrown out the window what I thought I knew about levemir🙂
 
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