and i thought you were positively crazy. 120 seemed completely unattainable.
and PS: just to toot my own horn, i actually got in the pool at 65 ! 
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Make no mistake DM, I am actually crazy.
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i know you are; i just didnt want to bite the hand that feeds me. 
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despite having my TB on 90%, i am still crashing. i am SUSPENDING my pump for 1/2 hour, hopefully that will keep me steady.
its just another experiment among many.
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What is your number?
at first it was 60, and i drank 1/2 glass juiceā¦ waited 1/2 hour and got it up to 79, but then it crashed again to 72. i was starving, so i bolused for 1/2 amount of carbs (i ate 2 slices of Rye and tuna salad but only gave myself 1.4 units of insulin. did NOT pre-bolus at all) 1/2 hour later (8pm) i had gone down to 55. didnt want to eat more yet, b/c i was thinking i should give my dinner a chance to get into my system. so i am trying to be patient.
my husband went down to the market to buy me some chocolate pudding. he thought it would be nice for me to have something different than Ovaltine, juice, or chocolate bars or malt ballsā¦you know, to kind of change things up a bit.
i just know that this is going to come and bite me in the A** later on. i am all ready with my syringe, my alcohol wipes, my vial of NovoLog, my reading glasses. and this is all after suspending my pump for 1/2 hour (and that was 2 hours ago) as well as being on an 85% TB.
i know that these numbers do not seem so low. but, i can feel myself crashing and dont want to wait till my BG is 23 before correcting (which, as you might remember, happened not too long ago). so i am trying to be pro-active about it; trying to halt the major crash before it hits.
i am keeping a very close watch on it. finger sticking about every 15 minutes to every 1/2 hour, depending on how i am feeling.
needless to say, i am very frustrated.
Instead of hours and hours of 90% basal, you can accomplish much of the same thing with just 30 minutes of zero basal. 
i will remember that for the next time. i did, at one point SUSPEND my pump for 1/2 hour.
something is working now, b/c i just tested and my BG was 124. i turned off the TB and am on 100% basal again.
will continue testing frequently. do you think i will need a 110% basal for overnight? i really dont want to spike to 350 in the middle of the night. or, should i just wait and see where i am at right before bed??? (i ate 1.5 hours ago, btw using only 50% bolus for my meal)
When you do a lower basal for the whole evening AND are taking a bunch of carbs to treat lows, you end up with that 3am spike.
That 90% basal is like poking little holes in the foundation of the house. And when it lasts for several hours, your foundation becomes weaker.
As an approximation - at your basal rates, doing zero basal for 30 minutes reduces your insulin by about the same amount as when you do 90% for 5 hours!
But the 30 minute zero basal doesnāt affect you for as many hours and into the night, if that makes sense.
Anyway, you will get it all worked out. Donāt worry.
If you feel a spike coming on before bed, be bold and take care of it. Trust your instincts.
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On the protein:
How about adding a scoop of protein powder to your milk and Ovaltine combination? Protein helps your muscle tissues recover and repair.
This one would add 25 grams of protein, and it comes in either chocolate or vanilla, depending on which Ovaltine flavor you are using. It does not have a lot of sugar (2 grams).
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at 9:30 pm, i shot up to 180. i did a 2 unit IM correction and by bedtime i was back to 109 BG.
at 3am i was 183; corrected by pump and woke up this morning at 82. it all worked out rather well. but there is MUCH room for improvement 
i dont understand exactly how this works. could you please elaborate ??? if i SUSPEND my pump for 1/2 hour at 5pm until 5:30pm will that prevent the 6pm crash? (i always crash at the same time, btw) and why does the 1/2 hour of 0% basal last for 5 hours?
eric, does this come in chocolate flavor? i only see vanilla. i want to mix it in with my Ovaltine. is that what you do? or do you have another glass of milk with the protein powder alone?
and BTW, i feel great today. last night wasnt that bad at all. i trusted in the Force and made the best decisions i could ( on the fly). i think that my nubile brain is making some progress.
i want to be as pro-active as possible.
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What I am saying is that when you adjust basal for many hours - like if you were to lower basal from 4pm until bedtime - that will last well into the night, and can cause a spike at night.
If your insulin duration is 5 hours, any basal adjustment you do can have some affect for that long after you are done with it.
Basal given now is both basal now and basal 5 hours from now, because thatās how long your insulin lasts. Make sense?
I am just saying that a long duration of lower basal combined with the carbs you take to correct the lows will cause that late night spike. So instead of a 90% basal for many hours, how about a shorter 30 minute zero basal to help you with the low?
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okay, now i understand. so, following my āpatternā of crashing around 6pm - 8pm (about), what time should i turn on the SUSPEND basal for that 1/2 hour period of time?
Weāve started using this SUSPEND feature for EH as well. Why weāve not thought of it sooner, I donāt know. But we just suspend as the crash is happening now for 30 minutes or an hour and it really helps. Otherwise the lows are often pretty severe. Although we donāt always realize itās an option, doh!
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Maybe try 5:00 or 5:30 and see how that works.
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so you dont SUSPEND before the crash is happening? kind of like a pre-crash option? i am pretty much always crashing at the same time after my swim. between 6pm and onwards. its might even start earlier but i dont realize it until it is actually in full swing ahead .
NON-SWIMMING BG NIGHTMARE:
so it was my Bday last week (54yrs old, ugh). i decided to take the week off from swimming and devote myself to eating, being a total sloth, and gaining weight. i didnt anticipate any problems with this plan whatsoever. well, it wasnt the wisest decision i have made.
Everyone i knew wanted to take me out to dinner; no one could coordinate one evening for a party (which i was totally cool about b/c i hate parties) so one night after another, i had to force myself to eat like a pig and try my hardest to enjoy slices of pie. Gosh, that was hard .
during the day i spent my time with friends, my husband and my family. it was lovely with one exception: i could not control my BGs; no matter what i did, i was on a constant roller coaster.
stubborn lows, and highs that refused to come down, despite multiple IM injections . in fact the night of my Bday, my mom and dad took me and my husband out to a fancy dinner at the iconic PALM restaurant in Manhatten. how can you say āno thanksā to a porterhouse steak? creamed spinish, heavily buttered home fries, and delicious bread, and a Key Lime pie to die for???
i double bolused for this meal, even using my dual bolus, extending it for 3 hours. well, even despite the enormous amount of insulin i gave myself to cover the meal, i shot up to 350 by the time i got home. i thought, "well, it was truly worth the spike and now i will just give myself an IM shot to bring my BG down back into target range. i gave myself 5 units. an hour later, i did a finger stick and i had only come down to 300, so i took another shot.
this went on till the wee hours of the morning (one shot after another with no success at all). and in total, i believe, if memory serves, i gave myself about a weeks worth of insulin just to get back into a healthy range. and i am not exaggerating!!! ( i wrote eric about it, and even he was shockedā¦and its hard to shock eric )
and i ate like this throughout the week. (well, not so much pie)but fun meals that i wouldnt normally have in my healthy diet. and, i kept lying to myself about how great i was re-fueling myself for when i got back into the pool. boy am i a sucker for my own BS .
i tried everything with my pump and injections. i suspended my pump, i did TBs, i adjusted my basal profiles, i added extra insulin to what my pump suggested. nothing i did worked without some ridiculous complication. i was eating too much fat, too much protein, too many carbsā¦and, I WASNT SWIMMING. my poor body didnt know what was going on.so, instead of just being a bundle of fun and a great food fest, it was an annoying hell. (well, thats a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.)
FINALLY, TODAY I GOT BACK INTO THE POOL. FINALLY. and it was wonderful, and i am hoping that my body and my BGs will return to normal.
i had a great swim. i felt all of this past weekās tension just melting away. ugh, did i need that. i swam as hard as i could for 1.5 hours, just shaking the toxins from my muscles, like some sort of baptism, purifying myself in the water.
here are the stats:
1:30 BG 115 (took 1/2 Gtab )
2pm BG 123
2:30 BG 93
3pm BG 82 (took 2 units)
3:30 BG 92 ( took 1 unit for chocolate milk )
now i usually spike immediately from the chocolate milk, but then i come down without any correction. so, i just need to be patient. but i am hoping to not crash too low this evening and/or through the overnight hours. we shall see, and i will report back tomorrow after my swim.
signing out:
DM
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Obviously DM, you are only a diabetic when you are not swimming. So no more time off for you.
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