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Permalink Reply by Capin101 on January 10, 2013 at 6:36am

Sounds like some variable dawn phenomena might be at play? I have found that one tick on my basals can affect my BG from 20-40 points. Your one tick is more signifigant than that, but I can easily believe it.

I would target the areas that you are having trouble and leave the other areas alone. I have about 15 different basal rates on my pump and if I start bottoming out at a certain time I will make an adjustment to help compensate.

If you are going hypo at 2 and 7 am, then I would look at adjusting your basals at midnight and 5 am down one tick. This is assuming that your insulin peaks in activity at 2 hours. I would lower the basals one tick from midnight to 1 am and from 5 am to 6 am. Then re-assess after 2-3 days so that you have a little bit of data to use, unless it is very obvious that you need further adjustments.

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Permalink Reply by Terry on January 10, 2013 at 6:45am

Did your CGM report normal BGs between 10 p.m. bedtime and midnight? Was your CGM tracking your fingerstick BGs well? A hypo between 10 p.m. and midnight could have led to a liver dump that drove up your overnight BGs.

Other than that, I would encourage you to maintain your new overnight basal rates and see what happens over the next few nights. Sometimes it takes a day or two for the change to normalize. Changing basals based on one episode, I have found, is not a good idea.

For your overall safety, you might want to set an alarm to wake you to test. At least then, if you are ranging high, you can take corrective doses. If you do take a correction, say at midnight, I would set another alarm for 2-2:30 a.m. to check.

Your situation does seem mysterious. I encourage you to gather more data before making any other changes. A CGM that is tracking well is a great tool for this. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Spock on January 10, 2013 at 10:15am

Yes. Readings from dinner time to bedtime were steady between 70 and 100, and the 10 pm to 2am were all in that CGM. I calibrated at 5:30, checked the comparison of a finger stick about 8 and then calibrated at 71 at bedtime.

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Permalink Reply by Black Llama on January 10, 2013 at 7:13am

Don't jump the gun on one night of data :D

I'm still getting my settings in order after a month on the pump and 2 months on the CGM. I try not to treat when I'm trending down unless I'm at an unsafe number. Like 50 and trending down = eat now. 80 and trending down is a wait and see. Though I usually shoot for @110 pre bed time.

Give it a few more nights and see how it works out. I was similar where I would wake up at 3am nightly with hypo's and I ended up adding a high protein snack an hour before bedtime to help out with it.

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on January 10, 2013 at 8:24am

I agree with everyone not to make another change based on one night's data. If it continues, though I would do exactly what Capn suggests: break it down into smaller "time zones" and target those low spots, rather than increase it over the whole period. I'm always surprised what a small amount of basal change can do.

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Permalink Reply by Howie767 on January 10, 2013 at 11:12am

I break my 24 hours into 8 times slices of 3 hours each. My basal rate maxes at 3am-6am and then goes down at each of the 7 times slices following. So my 12am-3am slot has the lowest basal rate. This is possibly THE best feature of the pump. You can nuke the dawn phenomenon without risking a bad low at 2 am.

I can't think of a better way of starting a roller-coaster than having to over-treat a nocturnal low.

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Permalink Reply by Spock on January 10, 2013 at 12:31pm

My highest is from 7 am to 12 pm at .7. My total basal per day is 9.95 units.

I am also getting ready for a five day road trip. My son is moving to Colorado and I am riding out with him. Now that I think about it, this is a pretty stressful time, as I saw my grandbabies for the last time before they move 1700 miles away last night. Did not consider stress as a factor. Should have. MAN, THERE ARE TOO MANY VARIABLES IN THIS (INSERT EXPLETIVE) DISEASE! It is hard to think of everything.

I just want to seem as normal as possible (and stay safe) on this trip.

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Permalink Reply by Spock on January 10, 2013 at 10:16am

OK. I will try it at the lower rate tonight and tomorrow and see what happens. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by S Woodward on January 10, 2013 at 7:36pm

Quick note about Basel changes. It will take ~48-72 hrs for a Basel adjustment to stabilize. Also, a lowered Basel from 12-3am may impact Basel and active insulin from ~12-9 am. This is dependent on how long your insulin remains active. For example, my temp Basel adjustments impact my I:C ratio for ~6 hours. So, if I use a lower temp Basel, I will add extra insulin to meal dosage to occomodate the reduced active Basel insulin for that time slot.

If you set different Basel dosages for <4-6 hrs, you may find that you are masking the incorrect Basel settings an may never find the appropriate Basel for that block of time..

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Permalink Reply by Spock on January 11, 2013 at 5:22am

Thanks! I understand the effects and timing of making basal changes. I only use 4 basal rates over 24 hours: 12am-7am, 7am to 12pm, 12pm to 6pm and 6pm to 12am. All four of them are within .025 of each other, except the morning rate, which is about .3 units higher. My activity time for insulin is pretty consistent at 4 hours.

I am on the 3rd 24 hours of the lower rates, but still had higher readings (with CGM and meter)this morning and overnight that I like. We will see what happens tonight.

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Permalink Reply by S Woodward on January 11, 2013 at 7:10am

It takes some tweaking for sure. I run different patterns depending on my daily physical activity and the shape I'm in. Now I'm less active and not working out regularly so I am using .525 from 12am to 5am, and .925 the rest of the day. I sit at a keyboard most of the day. On weekends I use lower temp Basels. When I am in shape I use .5 from 11 - 5am, .75 from 5-10am and .7 the rest of the day. I worked these numbers out by doing 5-10 hour Basel test, with no food and normal activity and work schedule. It takes up to a week or two to get it adjusted sometimes.

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on January 11, 2013 at 9:55am

I would definitely suggest breaking those time periods down a bit so that you target only the problem times when you go low and avoid becoming high.

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