Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by karen on January 28, 2012 at 3:51pm

I think Leo said "correcting to 100" not correcting at 100. I have the same range goals, and don't pay so much attention to the SD or the A1c numbers. I pay attention to the bg numbers. Those are the numbers that matter. You need to determine and maintain the best goal for your self TheOneType, and congratulations for the improvements you are making!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on January 29, 2012 at 8:55am

I clearly need to get a Dexcom so I can see the fancier reports?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Grace on January 31, 2012 at 7:49am

Leo2, How did you get your SD down? What were some of your daily habits that helped? My SD has been 80 for 8 years, and I can't figure out what works. Thank you! Grace

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Leo2 on February 3, 2012 at 9:00am

Sorry I didn't see your question til today.
About 6 years ago I used a CGM to track exactly what the foods I was eating for each meal, individually, did to my BG. Then I eliminated the foods that spiked.
I recognize that for others some of the foods do not cause spiking, but I'm 105 lbs and a lot spiked me, and I couldn't eat 15 grams of some foods without 300+. With the CGM I could track very closely what one unit, & 1.5 units did to bring down my BG and in what time. I could control other factors so there was nothing else causing fluctuations when I studied myself.
To test out how many grams I could really eat without spiking, I did repeat meals of certain foods, and again trimmed how much I could eat of various substances. I gave myself one year with the CGM to do it, and if my BGs ever get wild again, I will spend the money and get one again.
I do not follow Bernstein strictly, but he was certainly an inspiration. My carbs do not include breakfast cereals unless I'm stuck somewhere. At the UW, Madison, I stick to their scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast, their salads for lunch, and only their ugly meats and squashes at supper. Their food assortment at supper is not for diabetics. When I eat at Perkins, I eat their salmon or tilapia with double veggies, no rice, one bite of someone's roll.
At home, breakfast includes cream cheeses, diabetic friendly yogurt, I am not a profound cook, so I eat squashes and carrots, and double those on the plate portion, rather than a potato or pasta. Happily the Chicago area has a low calorie bread available, and I definitely use that for toast and sandwiches. I think pitted dates are marvelous as snacks. At birthdays, I can carve 2 bites of the cake out of a piece and eat that and consider it 20 g, and my BG doesn't show a rise because when I give insulin for 20 g, it covers it well. Not even a fluctuation. Of course I cannot eat cake of 20 g on top of another 20 g supper. I decrease the supper to about 10 g, then eat the cake. Does that give you any ideas?
What works is very individual, and it takes a long time to figure it out. Perseverance, Heart, & Determination, the essence of researching oneself.
Leo, :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Grace on February 8, 2012 at 6:20pm

Leo, This is marvelous info, thank you for sharing. What I really take away from this is the intense scrutiny you put your meals and blood sugars through, at least in the testing period. You also seem to have amazing discipline, but I love is that it came from trial and error CGMS testing for post prandial spikes, not "just cause." I have never met a food that doesn't spike. Except perhaps the Elvis diet. Out of curiosity, don't carrots spike you? They spike me! What do you think your daily total grams of fat and protein are if you eat so few carbs? They must be up around 100 each?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Laddie on January 28, 2012 at 4:20pm

Thanks for bringing up this topic. It inspired me to download both my pump and Dexcom and that's something I haven't done in a long time. It turns out that my standard deviation on my meter for the last 3 months is 40. For the same period with my Dexcom it is 39. So although my meter and Dex are not usually the exact same number, there is no doubt that they trend the same and have approximately the same values.

The Dexcom seems to emphasize the mean more than the average and never really gives me an average of all readings for 3 months. However, if I total the averages for each hour and then divide by 24, it gives me an average of 111 which is the same as the mean. So maybe they use the term interchangeably. If I understand it correctly, then when the Dex says my mean (average?) is 111, then 68% of my readings are from 72 to 150.

If that is correct, I'm pretty happy with that.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FHS on January 28, 2012 at 4:38pm

The "mean" and "average" are, indeed, the same thing.

And, well, yes and no.

Both your pump and your Dex have calculated a standard deviation of, roughly, 40, so, based on that, you would, indeed, expect 68% of your BG readings to fall between 71 and 151.

The problem is that expectation is based on the assumption that your BGs are "normally distributed". That just means that you would expect to see a bell shaped curve of evenly distributed BGs around your average. In reality, there's no reason to assume that they are, and if they aren't, that standard deviation doesn't really represent your BGs.

They very well may be, but you have to check to see. It's been awhile since I've downloaded my Dex data but I believe it does show you, graphically, how your BGs are distributed.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FHS on January 28, 2012 at 4:46pm

Yeah, checked my own Dex data.

Just go to Glucose Distribution and you can see, exactly, how your BGs are distributed, which is what your standard deviation is trying to estimate.

I love the Dex software for really being able to dig into the data and see actualy trends over however many days I want to look at. The only problem is that I could never get my Dex to read accurately with enough consistency to really make the data analysis meaningful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cindy on January 29, 2012 at 9:07am

bsc nailed it for me.
our gadgets strictly use data collected from our blood tests.
I test myself at times when the result will be meaningful to me in terms of action possibilities. I routinely test 1 & 2 hrs pp to determine if I need a correction. I test fasting and premeal for the same reason. I test before, during and after exercise, for instance, to possibly take action to prevent/treat hypos. etc etc etc
I don't like to use strips when, hours after boluses, I "know" I'm coasting just fine until the next meal.
Doesn't that translate into the pump receiving more highs and lows to calculate with as opposed to non-receiving my on-target "coasting" numbers? Am I making any sense?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on January 29, 2012 at 9:26am

...unless you have a CGM, in which case it's more of a stream of data, although the accuracy seems to be a bit questionable?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cindy on January 29, 2012 at 9:34am

interesting about questionable data............
another factoid to support my not-ready-to-jump-into-a-CGM position!

but am I making sense re my attempt at logic considering that these are fingersticks?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FHS on January 29, 2012 at 11:36am

Well, just accuracy in terms of your BGs is an issue with CGMs. I love mine, but haven't used it in months. It was great to look at trends that i couldn't see because I wasn't testing at those times.

I'll break it out of mothballs again to see what, if anything has changed in my BG profile over the last few months.

I bring up the issue of standard deviations because of the nature of the calculation. That's all it is, a calculation, but the meaning of the number depends so much on the assumptions that have to be made about the data, first, before the standard deviation can tell you anything.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next ›
• Page