Insulin Pumps

Mystery of the Varying Overnight Basals

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Last week was an exhausting week for many reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with diabetes.

Yet surprisingly, my blood sugars have been cruising along at the best they’ve been in weeks.

I’ve been struggling with my overnight basal rates in recent weeks. There have been some uncomfortable overnight lows, and then there have been other mornings where I’ve woken up frustratingly high. Alarms have been going off 2 or 3 times each night, instead of the usual one.

Things have felt rather inconsistent of late, so I decided to slap on a new FreeStyle Libre sensor last week to try and nut things out. I think I have finally cracked the mystery of the varying overnight basal needs.

If I go to bed sitting in the 7s or 8s, my overnights look something like this.


Looking at the gradual rise from around 4am, I’d be ready to make a basal change.

But when I go to bed sitting in the 5s or 6s on the same basal rate, my nights end up looking like this.

So it seems that my insulin sensitivity is far better when I go to bed in the 5s and 6s. I cruise along much more smoothly during the night, and my blood sugars get off to a much better start when my day begins in range.

So I’m now trying to be a little more bolder with my corrections at bedtime, in the hopes that I can replicate these levels and a decent night’s sleep more often.

Diabetes has so many little intricacies. It always keeps me on my toes, and I’m still learning new things about it after seven years.

One Year Pumping!

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I’ve now officially passed the one year mark since I began using an insulin pump! It was a huge leap of faith at the time, but one that I knew I had to make for the sake of lower and more stable blood sugar levels.

The biggest reason I switched was because I never felt I could get my background insulin dose quite right. Some nights, particularly if I ate more than normal, my Lantus dose wouldn’t be enough to keep my levels steady. Other nights, it would be too much and send me low.

Today, that problem is all but gone. The pump delivers a basal rate of insulin that can be customised to the time of day. I have a higher rate running from 1am to mid morning to offset dawn phenomenon, and a flat rate running through the remainder of the day. Night time basals have been the most challenging, with upward tweaks needed every month or two. But thankfully, the remainder of my basal rates have remained unchanged since I first figured them out last year.

Before I started pumping, I was guesstimating a lot of my insulin doses. I guess I wasn’t very motivated to do otherwise. I wasn’t really thinking too hard about what I was putting into my mouth, and there were a lot of emotionally exhausting highs and lows.

I began diligently counting carbohydrates and weighing my food since starting on the pump, and surprisingly I haven’t slacked off since! With a properly tuned basal rate, insulin just worked when I bolused to cover meals, rather than staying frustratingly high. The pump’s bolus calculator was extremely helpful, and of course having the pump attached to me made bolusing a lot more convenient when out and about.

As anticipated, the pump was a huge learning curve. My biggest hurdle in those first few months was site failures. The 90 degree insets that I was using at the time continually failed on me, causing regular bruising and bleeding on the stomach. I’ll always remember one tumultuous night where I ripped out my infusion site to discover the cannula had kinked on the way in. I eventually switched to the comforts which sit on an angle and have a manual insertion. Today, site failures are rarely an issue. 

The insulin pump is hands down more work than injections. Infusion sites need changing every three days, insulin cartridges need to be refilled, pump lines need to be inspected for air bubbles, batteries need changing, and basal rates need adjusting for activity. You really need to be on top of your game with a pump, and that might not be a commitment everyone is able to make.

The insulin pump definitely gave me a renewed drive to better focus on what was some very lousy diabetes management.

From there, the rest of what I’ve achieved is down to my dedication to observing and learning more about my diabetes and the different variables that affect my blood sugar. So in this regard, I feel that I could just as easily have reached this level of management on Multiple Daily Injections as well.

I can’t express just how much of an investment this was – and I’m not sure I would have been able to do this if I were still at uni or had a more demanding job. But overall I now feel more knowledgeable, equipped and experienced to navigate my way through different scenarios. This level of management no longer feels like such a stretch.

While I don’t talk numbers on this blog, I will share that it took me six months to get my hba1c to where I wanted it to be. When I first hit that target in November, I really felt like I had squeezed everything out of myself to get that number. Today, I’ve been able to comfortably maintain that number – and hopefully even better it going forward.

It’s been a huge year for my diabetes, and one that I feel is definitely worth celebrating.

Happy pump-aversary to me!

(And here’s hoping diabetes is a bit easier on me this coming year)

That Damn Clip

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What’s the worst thing about wearing an insulin pump?

It’s not the feeling of attachment all the time.

It’s not the constant attention required towards infusion sites, batteries, pump lines and insulin cartridges.

I’m not even bothered that the pump is still not a freaking cure for diabetes.

What bothers me the most about my pump is that damn clip.


It wobbles. All. The. Bloody. Time.

Despite my many repeated attempts to tighten that tiny screw that holds both parts of the clip together, I’m lucky if I’m rewarded with a week free from wobbliness.

It doesn’t stay clipped to my clothes properly unless I actually thread the fabric inbetween those two bits of plastic.

It’s a bloody pain to pull apart from my clothes when I want to have a glance at it. Which, let me tell you, is quite a lot. Not to mention having to thread it back on again when I’m finished.

My affection for this delightful clip escalated yesterday when the two parts of my clip, held together by a screw, snapped apart.

When I called the Animas helpline to see about getting it replaced, I learned that this clip is only covered under warranty for six months. Yet the $9,000 pump is covered for four years, despite it already looking quite tired after one.

I can’t say I’m keen to waste another 30 or more dollars on a new clip that I don’t like, and which I know won’t last.

I’d love to buy one of those awesome clips on eBay that I could simply stick to the back of the pump. But of course then I’d be blocking the little infrared patch, which I need access to when I upload my pump data to diasend.

So last night, I went out to the shed and attempted a little DIY repair on my pump clip.

I’ve put the clip back together with a putty called Knead It, that dries like cement.

Cement will hold better than screws, right?

All About That Basal, ‘Bout That Basal

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I remember those inflatable beach balls that I used to get as a kid. The kind that often came in showbags. Inflatable hammers, mascots, and giant fingers for that matter, too.

They were so much fun. I would muck around, and have such a good time with them for a while.

Then they would begin to deflate. They would get these tiny little punctures that you can’t see, and the air began to escape them. Even though I tried to blow them up again, playing with them just didn’t compare to an unpunctured one. No sooner than I had patched up one of those holes, I would discover another. And another.

At the moment, I feel like one of those inflatable beach balls. I feel like I’m trying to patch up these little flaws in my basal rates, and try to stop my blood sugar levels from spiralling out of control.

Since starting out on an insulin pump, I can quite honestly say that my basal requirements in the early hours before waking have been subject to the most fluctuation. I can recall having to make subtle changes every month, or every second month at the very least. It’s been a steady upward trend, which I usually pick up from my FreeStyle Libre, or when my levels stop responding to corrections during the night.

After steady upward adjustments in recent months, I’ve now found myself waking to a few lows in the early hours. Looking over my Diasend history, the downward trend seems to start out at the 4am mark, so I’ve made some subtle changes again.

I am still struggling to grasp the fact that a basal rate that once held me steady through the night, no longer does. One theory that has been hanging over my head in recent days, is the early morning light coming in through my window. Over the past few months, the earlier morning light could have enhanced my dawn phenomenon before waking. But with the mornings now getting darker, could my insulin needs be heading on a downward trend? Time will tell…

I’ve also noticed changes in my morning basal requirements after I wake up. I usually run a higher basal rate for the first 2-3 hours to combat dawn phenomenon, and I’ve had to jack this rate up by 0.1 units per hour. While the new rate gives me much better coverage, this basal rate still needs some more perfecting. Basal testing, particularly morning basal testing, is hard work. There are days where I deviate from my routine, days where my levels might not be ideal for a basal test, days where I can’t handle more failure, and simply days where no coffee is too hard.

Unlike my last problem, I feel like this one has been triggered by a shift in routine. Which brings me to another theory. I think basal rates are a little bit like a cog in a wheel. When you change something here, it might provoke subtle changes somewhere else in the wheel. I don’t know…I’m just thinking aloud here.

My biggest gripe about diabetes is that it is always changing.

But I truly believe that a well tuned basal, and bolus regimen, is the key to success with an insulin pump.

March on…

How I Manage My Blood Sugar During Exercise

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I’ve learned a fair bit about physical activity, and how to manage my diabetes around it in the past year. I guess having my job and my income depend on it, is a big motivation.

I am physically active at work every day, which means that I am more sensitive to insulin and more prone to going low through the day. Combine this with trying to offset dawn phenomenon when I wake up each morning, and you’re left with one very tricky equation.

One positive of combining work and exercise, is that every day is Groundhog Day. There is no shortage of opportunities to experiment. And when something does go wrong, I get to repeat it the following day in almost identical conditions. Not to mention that I don’t need to feel guilty about telling my doctor that I don’t go to the gym!

The negative is that at times, diabetes has felt very gruelling to manage while I am at work. The motivation to basal test, or to conduct experiments, isn’t always there. There have been days where I’ve literally been juggling highs and lows with insulin and food, respectively. There have been weeks where I felt like I haven’t gotten anywhere, and it’s often hard to pick myself back up and carry on.

Your diabetes, and the kind of physical activity that you undertake, will likely be different to mine. However, here are a few of the strategies that have worked for me while I have been physically active in recent months.

I would class my level of activity as mild – being on my feet, lots of walking around, some climbing up and down ladders and lifting. There are some days where it is more intense than usual – particularly if we are busy. But I find that most days, my level of activity is identical.

I find that for this mild level of physical activity, I need 30% less basal insulin compared to when I am vegging out at home. The 30% reduction in basal insulin needs a lead time of around half an hour before I start work. Most would suggest an hour’s lead time, however I don’t feel that my level of activity is at full speed until half an hour into my work day. I.e. I’m spending too much time chatting to people in the morning!

Mealtime boluses are still a work in progress. I’m currently sitting on 1 unit for every 8 grams of carbohydrate. At breakfast, my full insulin dose does its job, as I’m not on my feet for another hour and there’s probably some dawn phenomenon in play. I’ve tried reducing my insulin dose for meals during my work day with mixed results. At morning coffee time, I’m dosing insulin or snacking while I’m on my feet. Whereas at lunch time, I’m dosing insulin at the start of my break and not going back out to work for another hour. I’m working with a 30% bolus reduction with morning tea, and 15% with lunch.

I’m probably about two thirds of the way there. My overnight, and morning BGLs are looking fantastic. I just need to focus on getting some more green numbers into the afternoons, so that I’m not going home and snacking or eating dinner on higher numbers. It’s been an ongoing issue.

Work has been a gruelling journey, but I have finally began seeing results in recent months. Putting the hard work into fine tuning my basal rates and mealtime boluses has been invaluable towards a productive day, free from the stress of highs and lows.

I’m not so terrified of going to work without wearing a Libre sensor anymore, and I can comfortably go for two or three hours without needing to check my blood sugar. When I uploaded my meter data to Diasend on the weekend, I realised that I had only had three lows in the last fortnight. Freaking awesome. I finally feel a level of confidence in what I’m doing. 

Another piece of advice that I never gave myself: give yourself a break. When I was on injections I would often come home with exhausting lows, crash on the couch and eat my way out of it with junk food. I failed. Constantly. The task of fine tuning insulin felt overwhelming, and the motivation was never there. After my pump start, I was under the illusion that I’d have everything down pat in a number of weeks. In hindsight that was such an unrealistic goal. Give yourself some room to breathe. Maybe basal test every second day. Or have a few days off from your experiments if they’re feeling overwhelming. Set small goals.

As with any element of managing diabetes, it takes a lot of time and patience. You won’t necessarily get it right the first time. Or even the tenth. Goal posts are always moving, because diabetes is always changing. You’re always learning, and putting two and two together.

But with time, you pick up these valuable little skills that will make fine tuning your next diabetes scenario a little easier.