have you ever found that after many trials and errors with food or exercise or anything for that matter, that you have finally found a way to make things work. you know what i mean: you love pizza (or your child loves pizza) and you go to the local pizza place and you try again and again to fine tune how to bolus for this one particular food in this particular pizza joint. you are thrilled. you want to go there more frequently, your child wants to go there more frequently, etc etc etc… then for some reason, you are pre-bolusing for your slice and soda pop; you use your “formula” only to find that it doesn’t work at all.
you are planning on going exercising. you have finally found your preparation work; you know: lower your basal rate for X number of hours, eat this or that, make certain you have no IOB, etc etc. then there is a glitch. your BGs are not in line with what you usually do. for example, typically when you start your prep, your BGs are in target range. but, this one day, not so close. now you must make a quick decision about how to navigate the change in your prep. why now? who knows. YDMV day to day. the nature of this disease.
point being, what are some of the things that you enjoy doing, but have trouble with managing the “formula” for it.
this can mean what it is you do to continue on your mission or how you feel emotionally. what is your frustration level…
remember that this is the Unlimited Site. we persevere .
The problem with using formulas is that everything is always moving and changing.
Like if I gave you a formula for driving to Manhattan. It doesn’t make sense because sometimes you would take the Brooklyn Bridge, sometimes you would take the Manhattan Bridge, sometimes you would take the tunnel. It depends on where you are coming from and it depends on traffic. Traffic and conditions and the time of day and your destination are always different, so you do what makes sense at that particular time. Coming up with a formula that takes in all the factors of traffic and time-of-day and starting place and ending place is difficult. You just use your best judgement on which way you think you should go.
Same with eating and activity and BG.
Rather than a formula for a food or activity, work on a mindset that lets you interpret the conditions and apply what will work for that instance.
Force!
Sorry, you get tired of me saying that. I’ll send you some Sam Smith oatmeal stout.
Being in my honeymoon period, I feel this frustration very frequently. I try not to rely on what worked last time as a guarantee (because then I get even more upset when it doesn’t work!), but it’s hard - I love predictability, and I love rules and formulas. I am SO the wrong person to have diabetes. I would love to hear others’ input on how they keep from getting fed up with it, because I still haven’t figured that part out.
@Pianoplayer7008, with both my wife and I being scientist by training, we love formulas! Unfortunately, when we were using MDI (Pre-CGM) we applied ourselves very diligently for over 6 months to find a formula that worked for our son. As you can imagine we were very frustrated by the end when it didn’t work out like we wanted. Our goals were A1c in the 6’s and predictability around 75% of the time.
Once we put a CGM into the mix, we began to realize that what @Eric preaches is a better way. With that said, you have to keep in mind that Eric is super crazy, so while he represents the “Yoda” we all want to be, his methods are bit too “out there” for many.
Once you have access to a CGM, you begin to see the patterns. And really, the CGM allows you to become a pattern recognition expert and a minimal treatment interventionalist. So when you see a trend to go high, you can hit it with a little bit of insulin and turn it flat. Likewise when landing a high treatment, you can turn a dropping pattern into a flat line with just a few carbs rather than wait until you go low. With practice, you begin to live with your diabetes making many small corrections and being able to just live your life and deal with what happens, rather than try to figure out the big life questions before you become an expert.
With practice you can then tighten the range you live in, and our son even bet our diabetes clinic that he could lower his A1c and % time low at the same time, which he did! Made me a proud papa.
its nice to know that i am not alone regarding this sentiment. however, this super “crazy” man has guided me gently through what has felt like endless turmoil and fears
We all have some basic formulas that can get us within spitting distance of our goals. But what I have found is that the formulas are not ever the definitive answer.
What I personally do after applying the basic formula is also pretty basic. If I underestimated my bolus I just take some more insulin. If I have overestimated my bolus, well that’s what donuts are for.
part of the reason i dont mind the hypos is that they make great excuses for eating my chocolate and drinking my malted Ovaltine shakes (curtersy of eric).
(and btw, donuts are really great dunked into ovaltine & milk
or how you feel emotionally. what is your frustration level…
I would love to hear others’ input on how they keep from getting fed up with it, because I still haven’t figured that part out.
