Little by little...

Third day in and I can't believe how much more sensitive I am to my insulin/how effective my insulin is now I am on the pump.

I have cracked the latter part of the day (I think!) Two evenings running I have had steady blood sugars from my evening meals to waking in the morning. I have been weighing my food and referring to my carbs book just to make sure I can get everything accurate. It's the rest of the day that's the problem! 

I am still going a little too low for comfort, like this morning when I got out of the shower I tested and I was 3.9, so it was jelly babies pre-breakfast, then some more pre-lunch...good job they are on buy one get one free in Tescos at the moment.

The first challenge for the next couple of days is going to be working out what I need to take at breakfast, today I did 0.5 units for 10g carbs, not enough I had to correct. But 1 unit for 10g carbs would have been too much as the amount I corrected by plus the bolus I took with my breakfast was less than the total amount I would of taken if I had done 1 unit to 10g carbs. Get it?!

It's going to be a case of tweaking each day and seeing what happens, a bit like a science experiment, just a very long one, but hopefully a very beneficial one!

(Picture credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2798315677)

Up and Pumping!

So as you can see I am all connected and into my first 24 hours of pumping! I had a bit of an information overload yesterday so decided to steer away from an update till this morning. Although now I fear I am about to give you an information overload...

The pump training took about 4.5 hours yesterday and by the end of that I was all set up and on the bus back home. One of my first jobs was to find a spare cupboard for all my pump paraphernalia, my flat was getting over taken by boxes of infusion sets...

My pump is an Animas 2020 (in silver), filled with Novorapid and I'm currently using the Inset II 60 mm infusion set. My trainer advised to stick to the basics for now, so one basal rate, one insulin sensitivity factor and one carb to insulin ratio. It's kind of like starting again and if you go in with all different rates and ratios and don't get it correct (I think it would be a miracle if you did!) it's harder to work out what factor you need to change. So here's my set-up:

Basal: 0.600U/HR (a 20-25% reduction on my basal rates with injections)

Insulin Sensitivity Factor (ISF): 1 unit lowers 3mmol/l

Insulin to Carbs Ratio (I:C): 1 unit = 10g carbs

Target: 7.5mmol/l

I doubted that these settings would be suitable for me for the entire day, but I was willing to try it and see what happened.

I rang my nurse, Amy, before she left the hospital for the day to update her on my blood glucose (7.6) she had previously told me that I would probably run a bit high for the first few days so I was surprised I was getting lower readings. She recommended that with my evening meal bolus I override what the pump suggested if I felt it was too much. Which I ended up doing, in fact I halved my insulin to carb ratio. Despite the lows my results are looking good, my blood glucose already feels more steady, although I don't know if this is completely the effects of the pump or just because I am concentrating so much on it at the moment!

(all results in mmol/l)

16:45 - 7.6

18.15 - 2.3

18.30 - 3.2 

19.55 - 5.4

20.35 - 7.3 

22.50 - 7.8

01:00 - 8.7

04:30 - 12.3 

08:15 - 7.1

09:25 - 10.2

11:20 - 10.8

Don't worry I won't be letting you know every single result every hour of the day...

I'm going to see what this afternoon brings now, see if we have a repeat episode of yesterday and if we do I have evidence to suggest introducing another setting. I stocked up on supplies last night just in case, cupboards full of juice and jelly babies!