• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Would you make any changes to your basal?

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
AJLang

AJLang

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I appreciate that no-one can give me any medical advice but your views would be appreciated - I'm not sure whether to keep my basal steady or increase it. My DSN is away until Thursday and I'm fed up with feeling yucky
For the evening meal it is multiwave with 2.5 of the units up front. Otherwise it is normal bolus. I'm on a pump so my basal can be changed at hourly intervals Apart from my evening meal the only carbs that I've eaten each day is 20g for lunch. I go to bed at 9pm.
Sunday
4pm 9.6
5pm 8.8
6pm 10.2
7pm 10.9 64g carbs 8 units insulin (multiwave)
8pm
9pm 12.1

Monday
5am 14.3
6am 13.7 2.7 unit correction
7am 11.4
8am 8.2
9am 7.6
10am 8.4
11am 7.5
12pm 8.0 20g carb 2.6 bolus
2pm 10.8
4pm 8.6
5pm 7.3
6pm 6.9
7pm 6.9
8pm 7.1 74g carbs 7.6 units insulin (multiwavw)
9pm 6.0
10pm 6.0

Tuesday
1am 5.7
3am 9.7
6pm 15.8 3.4 unit correction
7am 15.5
8am 9.4
9am 7.4
10am 9.0
11am 10.5
12pm 11.6 20g carb 39 units insulin
2pm 9.3 (2 hours after lunch)

Am I missing any patterns? It is up each morning but is not following the same pattern during the night.
My DSN has told me not to basal test at the moment. I'm having exactly the same food for lunch each day i.e. 1 crumpet with butter.
 
For me personally those levels would be totally unacceptable, so if they were my basals then yes I would change them.
The fact you feel yuck must also tell you something as well. 🙂
What level do you normally run at or put another way what is your target?
 
I usually run between 5-7 and rarely over 10. We changed the basal because I suddenly started getting loads of low sugars for no reason. However I'm having problems now with finding patterns so that I know which Basals to change. My DSN does not want me to do any basal testing at the moment because the BGs are so erratic hence why I chose to eat the same thing each day to see if that showed patterns. But I can't see what the patterns are.
 
I've never been given a target so I aim to average 7.8 to give me a HBA1C of 6.8.
 
I should also have asked in the heading, based on these results how and where would you change the basal?
 
AJLang said:
Am I missing any patterns? It is up each morning but is not following the same pattern during the night.
My DSN has told me not to basal test at the moment. I'm having exactly the same food for lunch each day i.e. 1 crumpet with butter.
Click to expand...


Quick look...
Sun night - Mon morning
Rose slightly (2ish) between 9pm and 6am

Monday night - Tues morning
Level-ish until 1am, really steep rise until 6am then only levels off at 7am despite hefty correction

So the pattern overnight to me seeems to suggest a shortfall of sorts between 1am and 6 or 7am, possibly with a bit of a 'kick' after 3am.

If those were my numbers I'd probably push my pattern up 'a notch' between 1am and 3am and then up 'two notches' between 3am and 7am. Then retest a couple of times to see what effect that has.
 
Thanks Mike that makes complete sense. Before I make any changes, based on your experience

how much is a notch please?
Would you put the overall basal up to 80% or leave it at 70%?

I know what my instinct is telling me but would very much appreciate another view
 
Just answered my own question about basal as I'm now at 6.4 with IOB so I've changed the basal back to 70%

I'm assuming that one notch would, for example, be an increase from .7 to .8 and two notches would be, for example .7 to .9 but please tell me if I've misinterpreted that
 
Mike a great big and massive thank you - what you've suggested sounds good 🙂
 
Hi Amanda

Sorry! 'One notch' is my own internal shorthand. Of course no one else understands what I mean!! 🙄

These days I often seem to make fairly ad-hoc changes to my patterns. If I have tested an overall shift with a % TBR (eg I have run 90% or 110% over the time period and I can see that that works) I would look at my hourly rates and make that % change. So 0.5u/hr might become 0.45u/hr or 0.55u/hr respectively, but 0.8u/hr would become 0.725u/hr or 0.875u/hr (so the changes are incrementally bigger where basal rates are higher)

More often though, I'm FAR too lazy (oops!) and just nudge it up or down by the smallest increment. On the Veo this would mean that one notch up would increase that period by 0.025u/hour and two notches by 0.050u/hour for the affected 'blocks'.

Does that make any sense? Or am I still talking nonsense?
 
I think that makese sense 🙂. Thank you🙂. I've done .1 for each notch which would be too much for the smaller numbers so I will re-revise to each notch being .05 for those that are under 1 and .1 change for those that are over 1.
 
Last edited:
And DO enter it as basal pattern 2, so if it's a disaster you still have the original!
 
good suggestion Jenny. I wrote the numbers down but didn't set it up as a new basal rate. This will make it basal rate 4.

11.1 at 1am which is strange because yesterday it was 5.9 at same time:confused:

However it only went from 11.1 at 1am to 12.4 at 7am which I would think is an acceptable rise??
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top