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Permalink Reply by Terry on November 25, 2012 at 2:11pm

Today I had two slices of Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese and 1 ounce of barbeque pork jerky. Total carbs = 9 grams.

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Permalink Reply by Karen on November 25, 2012 at 2:19pm

are you starving?

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Permalink Reply by Terry on November 25, 2012 at 3:15pm

No, not in the least. I eat a low carb, medium protein and high fat diet. I rarely feel hungry. I ate lunch four hours ago and I still feel satiated.

I recently spent some time on vacation with a few of my siblings. I was surprised at their appetites just two hours after breakfast, but they don't have diabetes. They eat the typical high carb diet. I could skip most meals and still feel satisfied.

That being said, today's lunch was minimal. I could have added a Wasa cracker and tomatoes or instead, half of an avocado with tuna fish and mayo.

When I went on this diet last May, I was truly surprised how my in-between meal food cravings just dropped away.

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Permalink Reply by jims on November 25, 2012 at 1:55pm

my experience that has helped is this:

a) the bad lows occur because the external insulin circulating in your blood system lasts longer than the glucose output from gut so that if gut/intestine runs out eralier, the body is driven lower than needed. Disturbances in gut/intestine from food/pests can disrupt the glucose output cauasing a bad low. Here the CGMS is handy watching for glitches in process and jumping in with the glucose tablets - been there done that.

b) dosing is a trick art requiring one to dose not for the peak glucose levels but down from peak and watch the time to live of that insulin. CGMS is great help here watching the digestion cycles and their cycle times.

Basically, one has to balance digestion/glucose ouput cycle time with the time to live absorption rate of the insulin so that when digestion cycle time over, there is not much insulin left either to drive one nuts.

c) insulin really does not get consumed in the reactions but keeps circulating kicking butt until yanked out by liver/kidneys. This is why most critical to track injection times, dose and to live time on your body of a particular fast acting insulin.

d) basil/slow acting insulins are there to keep some positive pressure on the insulin/glucose storage cycle and balance out the regular liver low level glucose output cycle otherwise it creeps getting higher on the blood glucose level.

e) amazingly , the body no better guesses the meal bolus size than a human does externally, neither have a spectrometer to accuartely get the carbs. The body does not care since when body working correctly will if it was over guessing carbs - kick the liver into action or if not enough shoot in more insulin. Diabetic has no choice but to manually adjust and pray ok.

Good luck and best wishes.

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Permalink Reply by Karen on November 25, 2012 at 1:58pm

okay, praying :)

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Permalink Reply by nel on November 25, 2012 at 5:48pm

jimms ...does Gastroparesis get into the picture at all ?????? ...just asking

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Permalink Reply by jims on November 26, 2012 at 1:02am

Anything like what you describe and I looked up would result in delay to see glucose production startup and while not an expert, seems to suggest to me you have insulin hotted up/injected at start or before eating meal and be out of sink with digestion in intestine to see glucose out.

I have seen weird crap whereby pasta on me cranks in, starts some digestion and see some glucose out then the whole process stalls for an hour and blood sugar droops low till gut/intestine back up.

Have watched that riot on cgms and I am forced to load some glucose tablets till digestion gets rip snorting again on the pasta.

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Permalink Reply by MegaMinxX on November 25, 2012 at 3:35pm

Gene - sweaty shaky and cranky are not the only signs. I rarely get that, and only when I'm really low, <40. It might seem odd, but my symptom is a tingling in my tongue or lips, and/or a numbness in the tip of my right hand middle finger ! I'm usually between 60-70 at that point. Happened today, and it was 68 on meter, CGMS said 85, so at first I didn't believe it. Within 10 minutes, my CGMS showed 70. Another early symptom for me is feeling lightheaded, and I'll check the CGMS, then BG test, and sometimes confirm a 70-80. I'll then have a couple crackers or cheese stick that helps from dropping further, and levels out 90-100. If there is a pattern of going low around the same time (for me it's 5pm ), then test more often to see if you can catch it before going too low.

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Permalink Reply by JohnG on November 26, 2012 at 5:03am

First I would like to say that in the past most of my Hypos where caused by mistakes and after many years of trial by fire I finally decided to take the time to study my habits and how my body reacts to food, activity, illness, and insulin. Raising my BG targets would have covered up  most of my mistakes but just as soon as I lowered my targets back to 70-140 my Hypos would have come back,  that's not a fix...JMHO

 

I started pumping insulin because of Hypo unawareness and low BG events, shortly after that I started using a (CCMS  5 years). I have maybe 1/2 doz hypo events in a year. Sometimes I catch them and other times I'm completely oblivious, clueless, and get down to -30mg/dL without any warning , it really depends on what I am doing at the time . My pump and CGMS have changed the way I manage my BG and I feel safe but I cannot say with any certainty that my Hypo awareness is any better after eliminating most of my Hypos, it's certainly not fixed.

I would rather take my chances with a occasional low blood glucose event...I'm sure that if I raised my BG targets that my body would quickly start falling apart.....

I will just "slap the bull" and take my chances, I believe the payoff out weighs the risk....JMHO

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