BACK TO SWIMMING, EXPERIMENT #1:
I had a perfect uneventful afternoon and night and overnight. Halayulah! no alarms at all overnight. (and this was my first day on this sensor.) like Marie, may first day is usually wonky, but everything seemed to work ok.
12am, BG 96, 2:30am BG 100, 6am BG 76.
I think @TomH has the perfect name for it. The Schwartz
@daisymae I endorse the others comments on overpatches and also have read and heard of success with things like SkinTac. Some people report they are very helpful. Iām lucky Iāve only had one pod become āun-hookedā (BTW, it happened after using a cruise ship pool with salt water and a Jacuzzi), and caused me to ask for a test set that I take with me on vacations and otherwise stay in a drawer with my other supplies. Glad youāre trying them out and can let otherās know your thoughts on them!
@daisymae I know you try to maintain very tight controls on your numbers and wandering off even 10-20 points seems to cause some distress. While I appreciate and laud your control (even envy at times), perhaps it would provide some relief if you gave yourself a little more leeway, enough to lessen your anxiety and not make you feel bad? I say this as someone whoa, like you, wants that āperfect spread,ā but I often donāt succeed; I also used to regularly āfly off the handleā (sometimes still do) when I donāt feel Iāve done it ārightā and drive myself to depression, but have become more accepting of slightly higher numbers in exchange for an improved mental state, while still striving for that ānormalā range. I believe our mental health is as important, or more so, than keeping our BGs in a ānormalā range. My Endo says my numbers are and have been very good, better than many other patients, but that doesnāt keep me from sometimes thinking Iām not doing well nor striving for better, and your reports most often seem much better than my own. That said, Iām no doc, youāre a different person, and you need to do whatās right for yourself! Hoping for and wishing you the best!
Thank you so much for your input. I am completely neurotic about my numbers, and just the thought of my BGs running in the 130s horrifies meā¦That being said, when I do go as āhighā as that, I feel frustrated, as if I have failed myself. Yet, like you, my endo believes I would definately be much healthier emotionally and psychologically if I increased my A1c for the sake of mental sanity. Also, he said I would not b putting myself in any danger with physical complications (my fear comes from my uncle dying very young with amputations, blindness, and pancreatic cancer. None of which I want to invite). Of course he weighed 600 pounds and never attended to his blood sugars or changed his diet . (Ho-Hos, Candy barsā¦etc) I, watch my diet, I exercise, and I am careful with managing my sugarsā¦so what on earth is keeping me from changing my A1c a little? Absolutely nothing. My husband and my endo BOTH feel like I should allow myself the wiggle room to avoid the depression and frustration. I entertain it, and am kinda getting there closely, albeit slowly.
But thank you a million zillion. I appreciate your caring share and suggestions. 
BTW, BACK TO SWIMMING AND BGs:
My evening last night went so smoothly, and I slept like a dead person. No alarms from the Dexcom, good numbers throughout the night. slept later than usual (6am), and woke up feeling well rested and with an appetite for my favorite meal of the day.
I didnt mention this earlier, but I had a really strong swim yesterday. I am so Charley Horsed today 
VERY HIGH BGs AND TRYING TO SWIM THEM DOWN. EXPERIMENT #1:
Lately, I have had to do TB of 85%. Its working. but my mistake came when I changed my ICRs for bfast time. I thought it would b prudent to give myself less bolus at Bfast time too, but I was mistaken. Everything started out well this morning, but then by around 9am my BGs started climbing. it was a slow climb, but a high rise nevertheless. I went from a moderate BG of 130 to 196 by 9:30am. and then I just hovered there. I would have done a bolus correction, but I wanted desperately to go swimming today, so I let it go. no correction boluses. I figured I could just swim it off. This wasnt very successful.
However, I decided to take advantage of the high BG by swimming for 45 minutes instead of just 1/2 hour. I felt strong, despite having a lot of back pain. but I did it! I increased my swim time. Maybe this was a message from some higher power that my body was ready to increase my swim time. Even if it were only for another 15 minutes, its progress. Especially since I couldnt even walk without my walker and a health aid just 6 or 7 months ago.
typically, when I am just about to jump into the pool I do a finger stick. If my BG is around 100, I give myself enough glucose which would normally bring my up to 140. I swim this off easily within the 1/2 hour. So, for example, I go into the pool at 100, and I would come out at 80. So, today, I figured if I went into the pool at 180, I should come down to about 140 after 1/2 an hour. So I figured that I would swim an extra 15 minutes and that should bring me down another 20 or so points. Unfortunately, not the case. when I finished the 45 minutes swim, my BG was still on the high side (137). SO, when I bolused after my swim, I tried my best guess at how to replace my insulin while I was not only off the pump at zero basal, but also how much I needed to correct the 137 BG and get it back into my TR. I think I gave myself a little too much insulin. I was rather wet-brained after the swim, and my thinking wasnt that clear. **ALSO,**there is no formula for the replacement insulin bc each swim is different. I just have to take my best guess. And my Dexcom is not exactly reliable after a swim bc it loses its signal while I am in the water and then takes a while (and usually a calibration to get it back on track).
Anyway, now that I am writing this, my BG is 82 and going down. I dont want to preemptively correct a crash bc I am still drinking my shakes and perhaps they just need to kick in. Who knows?
a few stats:
6am BG 73
6:20 BG 86 bolus for 12 gms of Goat Milk Yogurt
9:30am BG 186 (Dexcom read 191)
11:15 BG 180 swam for 45 minutes
12pm BG 137 (bolused .7 u/h for 0% insulin plus over-zealous correction)
12:30 BG bolused 3.2 u/h for refuel shakes
waited till 1pm to do a finger stick bc Dexcom was reading 135, but then I did a fingerstick and my BG was 101.( Drank my shakes immediately)
Who knows what this afternoon will bring. Its always a surprise.
I am utterly exhausted. I took one of my muscle relaxers earlier and my back pain now is only minimal. Yahoo But Iāll b back in the pool on Thursday and Friday. Hope I am not too Charlie Horsed later.
signing out,
DM
A friend of mine who is an early morning daily swimmer gets muscle cramps. He told me that yellow mustard will stop a cramp nearly instantly. It is not a preventative. It really works. I carry little packs from fast food places in my go kit.
@CarlosLuis While Iām skeptical, strange things happen and Iāll give it a try. My PCP said to use CoQ10 (OTC type) to counter leg cramps from one of the pills he had me taking. I still get them from time to timeā¦if mustard works, itās better than another drug I have to buy! Hey, itās not a lie if you believe it!
does he eat them or spread them on his skin?
I find what really helps are deep tissue leg and foot and body massages. And they also have been a great help for my neuropathy (which is why I started getting them in the first place)
Muscle cramps are something not well understood. Some think itās electrolyte imbalance and taking them before strenuous exercise can be helpful.
The mustard only works when the cramps are active. This link is about it. If you donāt want to read it all scroll down to the bottom.
POST SWIM BOLUS EXPERIMENT #1:
Just to report back, .7u/h was WAY TOO MUCH. my BGs went crashing down to 45 just 2 hours after bolusing.
corrected now, but Phew. Scary. Wont b doing that again.
DM
In the past, when I was feeling my salt intake had been low or Iād had a few cramps come on (usually at night painfully waking me up), Iād just take a little (a shake or two) normal table salt and ingest with some water to dilute it a bit. Iāve always thought mustard had salt in it, but a quick review of common contents doesnāt list salt as a standard. The article you list points at sodium and potassium, both common salt components. Most mustards have turmeric as a primary ingredient (gives American mustards their bright yellow color) and has a lot of potassiumā¦so that may be how it helps.
Sorry @daisymae, didnāt mean to hi-jack the threadā¦
@daisymae I know youāve suffered with significant pain issues and would never make lite of themā¦but could it be you also just like deep tissue massages? (Honest officer, I didnāt even knowā¦) Hey, if it makes you feel better and isnāt immoralā¦
I heard that pickle juice is another remedy (take a sip, not as a skin rinse.)
I think it was a high-school football team that used it for instant relief.
USING ZERO BASAL BEFORE MY SWIM EXPERIMENT #1:
This morning I had a really difficult time bringing my BGs up. I drank juice, I ate Skittles, I ate Glucose Tablets.Nothing seemed to work. When I finally got up to 96, I decided to just turn off my pump for 15 minutes and walk to the pool. This worked wonderfully. By the time I got to the pool, I had been on zero basal for 40 minutes. My sugars were 110. I took 6gms glucose and jumped into the pool. I swam a little over 1/2 an hour, and when I got out my sugars were 95. I felt very satisfied with that, and very relieved that I was able to enjoy a strong swim after so much frustration beforehand.
(last evening after dinner I had a similar problem. My sugars went low, and no matter what I ate, I just couldnt bring them up high enough to go to bed safely. And then, in a few hours all the sugar that I had eaten piled up and my sugars swelled to 134. I did a correction, but then at 2:30am my Dexcom went off and when I did a finger stick my BG was 174!!! I did another correction and went back to sleep. When I woke up all was well and everything was as it should be.)
This seems to happen to me on occasion. I dont know why. It happens more frequently than the times that I spike. Cāest la vie.
Anyway, it was a great swim. I bolused .4u/h afterwards to make up for all my time off of basal. But later on I went low (54) and had to eat more than I really wanted to just to bring my BGs up. Oh! Poor me. Chocolate chocolate chocolate. Hopefully I wont spike later. Thank God for my new Dexcom; I didnt even feel the low.
Im planning on swimming again tomorrow Hopefully I will have a better evening, a better nights sleep, and a better post swim BG.
ohā¦and btw, there was hardly anyone in the pool today. So I am definately keeping this new schedule of Tuesday, Thursday and Friday as my swim days. Its easy to get into the groove when its empty and quiet.
DOES ANYONE HAVE A SIMILAR PROBLEM WITH STUBBORN LOWS? I am very curious how others handle this kind of situation.
signing out,
DM
SWIMMING WITHOUT MY METER,OOPS, EXPERIEMENT #1:
Well my meter was working just fine when I left the house. My sugars were on the high side (for me) this morning (127) and I guessed that they might come down a bit on my fast paced walk to the pool. but I always test before I jump in, so I was kinda flying blind. I jumped in anyway. No tabs, nothing. I just tried my best to use The Force, and hope for the best. 
It was my first day on my Dexcom, so its been wonky and unreliable, so I couldnt depend upon its reading. (Ugh, I hate these first 1-2 days waiting for it to calibrate properlyā¦the longer I wear it the more accurate it gets.)
Anyway, I had a good, strong swim. The pool was almost completely empty. Nice, quiet and peaceful.
I have been having a really rough time with my BGs lately, and have been talking it over with both my Endo and my Gastrointerologist. I have Gastropareses and it makes it a challenge to match my insulin peak time with my bolus time and when I eat my meals. I tend to go low two hours after bolusing (every darn time). This is not a basal issue. If I dont bolus, I dont go low (at least not on a regular day). So, how do I fix this?
Today is the first day (in a while) since I last tweaked my pump settings. I changed my ICRs. I truly dont know what to expect. For lunch, I am typically a 1:10 ICR. Today I am trying out 1:12 ICR. perhaps this will help.
anyway, since I was only off my pump for about 45 minutes (swim and shower, dry off and dress) I only bolused .2 u/h as opposed to my usual .3u/h . and instead of bolusing 3.2 u/h for my refuel shakes, I bolused 2.6u/h. (1:12)
I also changed out my pump when I got home from there pool ( day 3) which I think may have been on its last leg bc my BGs were so wonky. My overnight was excellent. I was stable between 80 and 93, woke up at 69, rose slightly to 82, then bolused for Bfast. Iāll just post the stats. it might b easier:
stats:
12am BG 93
3:30am 92
5am 84
6:15am 69 (got out of bed with that FOTF thing)
6:30am 82 bolused for Bfast
7:25am BG 68 (after finishing eating) took 4gms of glucose
(then Dexcom was reading 126 with arrow straight up, so I did a finger stick, and sure enough, my sugars were rising quickly. By 8:30 my sugars were 152!)
11:05am BG 127 left for the pool
when I got home, and was able to test again (on a new meter with a working battery) my sugars were 105. Phew.
It never dawned on me to bring a back-up meter. Now, for the future, I will bring 2 of them with me to the pool. Vital!!!
as far as the Gastroparesis goes, there is a DNP in Texas who I have known for years and is probably the best in the country. I am going to email her and see if she can offer me any help as I havent gotten much from either of my doctors. Hopefully, all of this will get figured out, and then I can share it with you. Im certain others on FUD must have to deal with this issue also.
signing out,
DM
If the basal is right, then either the meal bolus was too big (which you are sensibly testing by weakening your ICR from 1:10 to 1:12) or the insulin was too fast compared to the food digestion. (You could slow the insulin speed by something along the lines of square wave / dual wave / extended bolus / split bolus.)
You can tell which case it is by seeing what happens with your ICR 12. If you donāt crash at 2 hours but do go high at 3 or 4 hours, this shows you really did need all the insulin you used to get from the 1:10 ICR, but it was just too fast compared to your digestion, so try extending or splitting the bolus.
Thank you for your comments and insight. They are greatly appreciated. This morning I seemed to nail it. I didnt go low or high. I just finished my lunch, so I am waiting to see what happens with my sugars and at what time they are happening. I am hoping, with fingers crossed, that the lowering of my ICR will do the trick. I cant stand doing dual boluses for simple foods or simple meals. If its a special occasion (going out to a restaurant or to a party, I dont mind as much. I think I just dont like all the guess work involved and having all that insulin floating around in my system for hours. But thats just me.
Thanks again.
NOTHING SPECIAL BUT A GREAT SWIM AND LOVING MY G6 DEXCOM EXPERIMENT #1:
I have to say, right off the bat, that I had little hope for this current Dexcom to work for me. I tried the G4 and the G5 without ANY success whatsoever. And I really gave them a fair try (over a year in total, despite body placement) It was such a disappointment. I couldnt understand how almost everyone was raving about it, sharing how they extended the life of it, the accuracyā¦blah,blah,blah.
So I switched for a couple of years to the FreeStyle Libre. It was the easiest to insert, half the warm-up time, and lasted 2 weeks as opposed to only 7 days. Only thing was that it was constantly inaccurate, always reading about 20 points lower than a finger stick. Just not reliable. But I didnt feel conspired against as my Endo was telling me that most of his patients (both T1 and T2) had the same complaints. Either too high a reading or too low a reading, but never accurate.
Now I am using the Dexcom G6 and the accuracy is incredible. Nothing seems to work on my tummy (cant pinch even a quarter of an inch of skin for insertion), so I wear it on my upper left arm beneath my shoulder and towards the back of my arm. I am blown away. It has helped me immensely . Last night, for instance, it woke me up twice with its vibration and loud alarm to tell me I was low and going lower (50). I was able to take in some glucose and go back to bed without any insidences.
For swimming, unfortunately, I dont get this kind of luxury. I have to leave it in my locker while I swim, which causes a loss in signal. But, as soon as I am back near my locker, it comes right back on. I admit I did have a batch of 3 sensors that came from the same box which all failed. But, I called up DEXCOM Technical service and they apologized, replaced them, and sent me some over-patches. My next box worked perfectly, so I just count that up as a bad batch and nothing to do with my former Dexcom Curse.
As I said, I woke up low this morning, and it took from 6:15 till 7am to come up to 72.( I ate quite a few Skittles, which,btw, I dont care for, but they do the job and they do it quickly; within a 1/2 hour everything is as it should be.)
I have been posting lately on my low BGs after mealtime, my poor absorption of insulin and food, and going low and not being able to get my sugars back up for (sometimes hours). I am going to start a new thread on this, because this thread is about swimming and that is a different subject entirely. I hope some people will check it out, and that we can have a good discussion and help one another on the matter.
stats:
6:15am BG 56 6 Skittles and back to sleep
7am BG 76 bolus for Breakfast
11am BG 96 Turn Off Basal , wait 15 minutes and dash to the pool
11:30 BG 110 6gms Glucose and jump in
12:15 BG 85 bolus .3u/h for time off pump, showered, got dressed and walked home
the Interesting part (and this happens all the time, but I have neglected to mention it) when I get home, my BGs have spiked (or swelled) to 145 after twenty minutes of my previous bolus. So I wait approximately 1 hour before drinking my refuel shakes, which is when I am back in TR.) I dont know if this happens to others who exercise intensely (or moderately). I would love to hear from you about your experiences and how you may have resolved the issue I dont understand it at all. I am suspecting that it has to do with some cortisol reaction or possibly adrenaline thing, but I dont know.
back to stats:
12:40 bolused 2.9 u/h (new ICR I am trying out) took 2 10mg Domperidone
1pm BG 145 waited till 1:30
1:30 BG 95 Drank Shakes
weāll see what happens later.
signing out,
DM