Diabetes Before 11am.

01:46 Frank stirs in his sleep. Glancing at the alarm clock, he reaches for his meter so that he can check his blood sugar. 10.1. He grabs his iPhone, opens the RapidCalc app and calculates a 2 unit correction to bring his blood sugar back down to 5.5. He reaches for his insulin pen, primes half a unit, then dials up another 2 units and sticks it into his arm. His diabuddies are starting to rub off on him…

07:21 Frank rouses once again. Morning light is streaming in from behind the closed vertical blinds. Feeling guilty that he slept over opportunities to follow up on that high blood sugar during the night, Frank reaches for his meter once again. He’s not feeling too hopeful. Blood sugar 11.9. Facepalm.

07:30 Frank opens the RapidCalc app on his iPhone, which reminds him that his 3 unit dose of Lantus insulin is overdue. It’s now been a week since Frank disconnected from his insulin pump, and he’s wondering whether it’s time to reconnect. While it’s been a great week, he’s really missing the customised basal rates and ease of correcting high blood sugars. Ah decisions, decisions.

07:43 After much deliberation over what to do, Frank ends up giving his 3 unit morning dose of Lantus. He opens up the RapidCalc app on his iPhone, and works out a five and a half unit dose of insulin. 2 units to cover his morning coffee. Double what he would normally give for 8g of carbohydrate, but necessary to cover morning insulin resistance that’s returned without his pump. The other three and a half units to bring his blood sugar back down to 5.5. Again, he primes half a unit and then injects five and a half units into his arm.

08:00 Frank finishes his morning coffee. Considering the high blood sugar, Frank decides against breakfast until his levels come down a little. Plus, he’s not feeling particularly hungry at this moment.

09:06 Too soon to test? Bugger it. Frank grabs a fresh test strip, sticks the test strip into his meter, pricks his finger with the lancing device and places blood on test strip. Blood sugar 9.4. Phew! Finally heading in the right direction.

10:00 Blood sugar 7.4. RapidCalc tells Frank he has 2 units of rapid acting insulin left to act. Should be okay.

10:34 Blood sugar 6.3. 1.2 units of rapid acting insulin left to act. Stomach rumbles. Oh – that’s right! Frank remembers that he hasn’t eaten breakfast yet. He heads into the kitchen, and opens and closes the fridge and cupboards. A slice of toast? Wait! What about the leftover croissants in his bag from Friday?

10:43 Opens the RapidCalc app on his iPhone, and calculates a 4 unit dose of insulin to cover the croissants. Primes half a unit of insulin from his pen, and then dials up 4 units. Sticks needle into his arm, but ouch! Blunt needle. Frank toughens up and sticks it into his arm once again, injecting the 4 units and carefully holding it there so that all of the insulin goes in.

10:50 With the criossants heating up in the microwave, Frank decides that he needs another coffee. It’s been one of those days. He heads back to his insulin pen and swaps out the blunt needle for a new one. Primes half a unit, dials up another unit to cover the coffee and injects it into his arm.

11:05 Frank is sitting in front of his computer, and satisfactory pre bolus time has elapsed. Frank decides that he needs to be a bit more disciplined with his pre bolusing to avoid stubborn high blood sugars like last night’s, and sticking with injections for another week will probably help him with that.

11:10 Frank decides he had better start eating those croissants before he goes low.

11.25 Frank thinks that this would make for the most boring blog post ever, and then decides that writing it in third person might make it a little less boring.

So many diabetes decisions before 11am! Time for a drink yet?

8 Comments

  1. Simon

    Hey Frank, I like your blog, but I use PredictBGL. It has a proper Active Insulin calculation, and it tells me how long to pre bolus for based on my blood sugars.

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