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Permalink Reply by Clare on July 20, 2012 at 3:42pm

I usually try to go to bed at or around 100. The CDE and Doc say get it over 100 but I'm ok with it being a bit lower. As for snacks if I am low I will have a cereal bar or some peanut butter crackers or cheese and crackers another option is a small glass of milk. Basically what you are looking for is a slow digesting carb. Depending on how low, 15 grams of carbs usually will correct it for me. If I am high, obviously I would not eat, but depending upon how high I was, I would correct with the appropriate amount of fast acting insulin. I understand your boyfriends' frustration there are some diabetics who get Dawn Phenomenon or people here just refer to it as DP. This is an early morning high blood sugar. It's probably hormonal, probably not something you can really do a lot about but it can be really frustrating to think that you are doing everything right and still end up high. For most of us, diabetes is a "work in progress", just so long as you can see progress, regardless of how small, it's a victory.

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Permalink Reply by librarychick on July 20, 2012 at 4:07pm

Thanks Clare, I have a question for you though. You said you go to bed around 100...if I'm converting that right that would be about 5.5? I know that Scott tries to go to bed quite a bit higher than that. I think he prefers to be as high as 8-9 (144-162)? Is my conversion off? I know he's been right around 5-6 and he doesn't feel comfortable going to bed with his BG there.

It's very possible that you're just more stable than he is, and that could cause the different attitude. I'm just trying to 'get' as much of this info as possible :)

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Permalink Reply by Clare on July 20, 2012 at 4:41pm

Absolutely that is entirely possible. I have been doing this a lot longer than Scott. But your math is correct, I'm sorry I don't do metric, except at work where I do chemistry. At home everything is set American style, no metric involved. But as we have said before, everyone is different. Since I have been doing this for 37+ years I can be fairly sure if I go to bed at 100 or so I will wake up at 100 or so. Scott has no idea yet what will happen if he goes to bed at 100, and I am sure that has to be very scary for him. If he feels more comfortable at 8-9 and his doctors or CDE are ok with it then that's the target you work toward. At least that is the target for now while he's still hopefully learning. Then you move toward a more normal blood sugar. The problem though with a trial and error approach to blood sugars is the error part can kill you.

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Permalink Reply by librarychick on July 20, 2012 at 5:01pm

That's what we're worried about right now, trying to get his BG to level out. I think part of the problem is that the more weird his levels are the more frustrated and stressed out he's getting...which makes his BG harder to control (so I've heard...).

We're hoping to get some help with this pretty soon, but in the meantime...*shrug*

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on July 20, 2012 at 4:25pm

I don't worry about being safe as I sort of have things set to be "flat" most of the time? It's a constant chore, keeping an eye on it and adjusting for drifting of the numbers and all of that. I have a pump and a CGM which I find makes it easier.

If a number that I haven't consumed messed up carbs near is off for a few days, I fix things to put it more where I want it? In many cases, if a number gets out of whack, a very small adjustment (easier to do with a pump...) will get it back where I want it fairly quickly. If his BG is dropping regularly at night, with little food, or even some food "on board", perhps cutting the basal back would help? Depending on how many units, even a small adjustment, maybe 5-10% will stop the nosediving? If I eat before bed, I bolus because I don't want it to run up but, if he's eating to "cover" excess basal insulin, it might be problematic to cut it out.

Protein is good to have too and I like milk like Clare since it's supposed to make you sleepy! Then again, I like beer for the same reason. I try to keep different varieties of beer (low carb, medium carb, high carb...) around for nighttime snacks? I've laid off that for a while to see if it might be a shortcut to getting studlier but I haven't decided if it works or not yet?

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Permalink Reply by Clare on July 20, 2012 at 4:45pm

Way to put a wrench in the works there AR. I like beer for the same reason, but I only have the low carb around so I don't use it for a long acting carb before bed. There are no shortcuts to studlieness, you either are or you aren't.

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Permalink Reply by MossDog on July 20, 2012 at 4:56pm

Maybe not a shortcut as people think of shortcuts but for me anyway, cutting out the couple beers before bed has dropped the pant size undoubtedly. Regular beer = 150 kcal x 2 is a good 300 kcal a night (on a good night- who just drinks 2 eh?). Cut that out without eating extra food and well you get the picture.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on July 20, 2012 at 5:11pm

LOL, the ultra light ones are like 60 calories but I like the thicker ones that are probably more like 300?

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on July 20, 2012 at 4:57pm

"Studlier", huh? I would think that would be something more appropriate to AR than to Clare! (Sorry, the wordsmith in me couldn't resist!)

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Permalink Reply by Brian (bsc) on July 20, 2012 at 4:40pm

A goal of tight control is to wake with a reading that is 10-20 mg/dl of your reading of when you go to bed. While it may not seem a concern to bed high and waking low and vice versa, the nightmare is to go to bed low and wake really, really low.

A goal in managing your blood sugar is to maintain good normal numbers, but in many situations, it is just as important to keep your variations limited and predicatble.

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Permalink Reply by librarychick on July 20, 2012 at 4:59pm

I think I'm getting the jist of what you're saying...but I'm not sure. This is the part that is confusing me "A goal of tight control is to wake with a reading that is 10-20 mg/dl of your reading of when you go to bed." Would you mind explaining the '10-20 mg/dl' part a bit more in depth?

He's very worried about going to bed low and waking up really, really low...so am I! However on the othr hand he's trying to get his overall BG (forgotten what it's called...sorry) to be lower as well as trying to prevent himself from going as high as he has been.

I finally got in touch with a useful group yesterday, so we'll be getting a refresher on a lot of thing pretty soon I hope. But in the meantime I'm trying to cram as much info as possible into my brain all at once so I can help him figure out why he's on this BG rollercoaster.

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Permalink Reply by MossDog on July 20, 2012 at 5:08pm

The idea is that if the basal is correct if he goes to bed at 100 mg/dl (sorry no metric here) he would wake up 80-120 (no more than 10-20 mg/dl away from the 100 mg/dl he went to bed with).
Also, once you get the roller coaster a little more flat ALL of this becomes more predictable and easier to manage. For me anyway.

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