Wrong or right thing to do

[mum2westiesGill]

For tea tonight we had tesco finest lemon & herb chicken, tesco finest potato dauphinoise, green beans and tesco finest belgian chocolate & orange pot.

I wasn't sure if my chicken was cooked properly so ended up leaving it. The chicken was 19g of carbs so to make up for it a bit I had a digestive with choc chips which was 10.6g of carbs.

I don't know if I did the wrong or right thing here - please can someone advise?

 

[Inka]

If you bolused for the 19g carbs and didn’t eat them, then yes, you can make them up with other carbs. You should have had enough biscuits to add up to 19g carbs ideally.

 

[leonS]

There is no such thing as the "right thing" in the treatment of diabetes. The only test is did I get back (near enough) to my target glucose level. If the answer is yes then is was the right thing. And the nearer you got the more "righter" was what ever you did.

 

[mum2westiesGill]

There is no such thing as the "right thing" in the treatment of diabetes. The only test is did I get back (near enough) to my target glucose level. If the answer is yes then is was the right thing. And the nearer you got the more "righter" was what ever you did.

Well at bedtime I was 4.8 which is a tiny bit under target

 

[Sally71]

4.8 and 5.0 are the same in my opinion, blood glucose meters are not that accurate and that’s close enough not to consider it out of range! So you did excellently there, well done!
A difference of 0.2 from where you want to be is nothing at all. Meters only have to be accurate to within 15% so that 4.8 could be anywhere between 4.0 and 5.5, you can’t possibly know. Which is why we keep telling you that you worry too much about trying to be exactly in range all the time, it can’t be done! As long as you do your best, that’s all you can do, and your numbers are pretty good most of the time. You realised that you needed to eat a few more carbs and you did so and have a number that’s pretty much perfect afterwards so job well done 🙂

 

[mum2westiesGill]

4.8 and 5.0 are the same in my opinion, blood glucose meters are not that accurate and that’s close enough not to consider it out of range! So you did excellently there, well done!
A difference of 0.2 from where you want to be is nothing at all. Meters only have to be accurate to within 15% so that 4.8 could be anywhere between 4.0 and 5.5, you can’t possibly know. Which is why we keep telling you that you worry too much about trying to be exactly in range all the time, it can’t be done! As long as you do your best, that’s all you can do, and your numbers are pretty good most of the time. You realised that you needed to eat a few more carbs and you did so and have a number that’s pretty much perfect afterwards so job well done 🙂

Thank you so much for your extremely encouraging reply.
I got it back to the 4.8 (5.0) then because it was bedtime and below 8mmol I went and had 2 (more) tesco chocolate chip digestive biscuits 20g of carbs altogether but clearly with the 17.1 waking the following morning should've either only had 1 or I should've taken humalog and reduced the carb amount maybe to 10-15g.

 

[leonS]

This shows the point that I was tryng to make. You found that your BG before bed was too low su you corrected if. Right! You wanted to be at 7 and finished at 17 not very right.

Perhaps you did not know that you can use a correction factor to do this. You can discover that 10 gm carb will raise GG by X mmol/l. For most people X is between 3 and 7. A few attempts will soon tell you what it is in your case. You will then have a nuch better idea of how much carb to take.

Would I have done what you did - no. I would have attempted to net my BG upto my bed time level after the meal, if I got this right then no correction would have been needed. Which of us would be doing the right thing? Both of us!

 

[mum2westiesGill]

You found that your BG before bed was too low su you corrected if. Right! You wanted to be at 7 and finished at 17 not very right.

Before bed I was 4.8 so because it was below 8mmol for bed I had a couple of digestive biscuits 20g of carbs to see me through the night. I didn't do any insulin corrections. I'm not a fan of doing fast acting insulin before going to bed.

My BG the next morning was 17 but probably because I had been awake all night because my husband and son had to dash off to my in laws apartment because my mother in law had passed away.

 

[leonS]

I know that you were under stress which is why I did not suggest that you use the figures that you presented to calculate the factor thst can be used to calculate the carbs required.

If you accept the figures that I gave (and you do not have to accept them) then 20 gms would raise your BG by at least 6 mmol/l to at least 11 and almost certainly higher. I suggest that 10 gms would have been better. I would not wish to raise my BG above 10 if I could avoid it.

 

[mum2westiesGill]

If you accept the figures that I gave (and you do not have to accept them) then 20 gms would raise your BG by at least 6 mmol/l to at least 11 and almost certainly higher. I suggest that 10 gms would have been better. I would not wish to raise my BG above 10 if I could avoid it.

Working out how many grams of carbs will raise BG by is something I've never been taught or even heard of.

Just recently my DSN said that if my BG was below 8mmol at bedtime to have 10-20g of carbs to see me through the night.