133

Parties always wreck havoc on my bloodsugars. I try to guestimate carbs, but I usually loose track or underestimate the amount of carbs and then end up around 300. Always. I don't really get why, because I try every single time to make it better than last time, but it doesn't work out. So in this respect, parties are no fun for me.

Yesterday I came back from a birthday party at around 2 a.m. and tested before I got to bed. 133. And half a unit of IOB to bring me right back to my target of 100.

I'm speechless. This is huge! I'm still dancing through the flat singing "133! 133!" :D

Plan of Action needed

My A1c has been in the high sevens for quite a while now and while I am overall satisfied with my "compliance" and control, I'm eager to get to the next level of blood glucose control. Especially with my eye doctor appointment coming up in January, I want to be able to say "I really am doing everything that's possible". Because in case of a discouraging result I don't want to have to start working on my control when I am scared and frustrated already.

I think that a large part of my A1c has to be accounted to post-prandial spikes as those high's are the ones I don't catch. Unfortunately, before I can get started on tuning the distance of the space-time events "bolusing" and "eating" to give my insulin a head start, I have to guarantee that my basals are ok and that my bolus factors and correction factors are ok. (I think they are, but I need to check.)
My next blood work is scheduled for mid November. I guess I can figure out the prerequisites until than although I hate basal testing.

So the plan of action is as follows:

1. Check your basals. Check your factors. Tweak if necessary. Complete task until November 16 (date of blood test).
2. Vary time delay between bolusing and eating until post-prandials are in range. Complete task until January 26.

But this planning is of course the easy part. Everything's easy in theory. The hard part is: Start logging again. Be disciplined. Don't guestimate. Eat regularly. Try again, every day. Start now.

Hopefully this decleration of my goals will help to keep me accountable. I'd like to have smaller steps in my plan, like things to do or to improve for every week or so, but I'm not sure how to do that.

By the way, does any of you have experiences with fat-protein units? Is it worth the effort?

Success

If I had a CGM (which I don't) yesterday would have been a no-hitter, I am sure. My bloodsugar read 90, 121, 96 and 74. Ok, I now it's only four readings (I usually take more readings per day, I swear!) so there was a lot of time when I don't really now what was going on. But it was a slow day where nothing out of the ordinary happend and my basals seemed to be quite ok the last time I checked.

The biggest hassle for me are meals out. I'm a big SWAG boluser. And as those things usually go - I end up not in range. Sometimes not anywhere near range. But I have really gotten better during the last year. Yesterday I also had a meal out, and it seems I guestimated it correctly for once. Woohoo!

So for me yesterday was a success. I painted a WOW! into my log, as a little reward. Yes, I log. Yes, it's a pain in the butt, but for some weird reason it helps me to gain better controll. Fact is, without my log I never would have realized that yesterday was a good diabetes day. And I think it's important to see little successes like this once in a while, because they show that all the work we put into our diabetes management is not in vain but indeed does make a difference.

On a completely unrelated subject, I realized that the term diabetic, which I used, is officially political uncorrect. I understand why, but personally was never offended by the term. I'm a physicist but that doesn't mean I am defined solely by that. The same goes for being a daughter, sister, girlfriend, collegue, for being an agnostic, for being gothic or for being diabetic. But I also do see that recreational dancing doesn't make my a dancer. So I'll try to remember to use "person with diabetes" (PWD) instead.