Comment by acidrock23 on September 22, 2012 at 8:51am

I disassociate myself from "being good." I had a really good Nietzsche (along with Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx and some other guys...) professor, Richard Schacht, when I was in college and I think that it made me think about that a bit differently, or maybe gave me a more organized framework for how I felt. "Beyond Good and Evil" is an important concept, in a addition to a catchy title and is extremely useful to try to break the habit of thinking that you are bad if your number isn't where you want it to be. Every number isn't just a number. A lot of times, they are moving (if you've eaten, are exercising, are stressed, Jupiter is in line with Mars, etc.) or are going to move (if your're going to eat, going to exercise, going to be stressed, Mars moves away from Jupiter...) so even a "104" (ok, I'll admit, that's a happy number most of the time for me, unless I've just eaten, in which case I would have a shade of concern about it going up more than that? I run a pretty tight ship though...) may be doing something that requires you to think about it and decide whether or not to exercise your "Will to Power" to anticipate future events and fix things before they happen.

Comment by Chris Miller on September 22, 2012 at 8:49pm

First, I'm coming from a Canadian perspective. Therefore your perfect 104 = 5.8 mmol/l for me. I like that number too. My perfect is at the higher end, what you would call 188.

If I was consistently 188, I'd consider myself perfect. I won't get into the philosophical stuff (Jupiter, Nietzche, et al) but I've had Type 1 diabetes since 1974 and being to the high end of perfect has served me well. If I can avoid lows and not be crazy high, that's good enough for me. I have no long-term complications after 38+ years on insulin, so 188 is my ideal :)

Comment by pancreaswanted on September 23, 2012 at 1:09am

double digits from 80-100. thats the awesome zone for me.

Comment by Holger Schmeken on September 23, 2012 at 9:58am

Well, a 110 is great for me but it depends on the context. 110 with an IOB of 3 units is more a prophecy of trouble ahead.

Like Acidrock I try to look at my numbers like it is a remote scientific experiment. Oh, 250 mg/dl that is interesting! What happened? What can be learned? Ok, sometimes I get angry about stupid mistakes I made but does it help? No! You are good what ever the numbers says and what ever the history of A1c's said. Tomorrow is a new day and this time you just make it better.

Comment by Don on September 23, 2012 at 8:19pm

My magical # is whatever makes me completely stop for a moment and realize I feel really good and the thought pops in my head that I feel the way I used to before dx. Often 120-130. Always surprises me that my feel good # is slightly high.

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