We’ve never had his “serious low” below 1.4% (I know, far too high). But the changes over the past weeks/month have brought down his overall numbers tremendously. Liam’s Serious low is now 1% (can’t wait to get under that 1%!), his Low is now at the recommended 4%, and he’s got 136 average BG (~ 6.4 A1C). This is also our lowest A1C to date. Hoping for more success in the future but as always, taking a day at a time!
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Really good numbers, congrats! I am assuming this came at the cost of more than a few hours of sleep. 
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Good job Liam! That looks wonderful.
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Yeah, but sleep is SO overrated. 
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This is really AMAZING!
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Congratulations on such great numbers! Your hard work will definitely pay dividends down the road.
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So fabulous!! Great results and hoping that Liam feels better too – getting rid of all those lows is probably a great help.
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Awesome job! I am envious of Liam’s numbers.
Any strategies to nail those serious lows?
We get a few of those too but they seem to come out of nowhere. I know getting a CGM will help us.
I know we have not yet figured out the whole exercise thing yet. What seems like a short walk to me may be a major exercise event for my little guy.
I’ve posted on numerous threads (can’t find any right now) on my exact methodology that we use (keep in mind YDMV). Definitely a CGM will be the BIGGEST HELP. Not only will you be able to see when he’s low, but you’ll be able to see when he’s HEADED LOW. That’s critical in preventing lows. With the CGM, you’ll see if he’s going up or down extremely quickly (double arrows up and down), when he’s moving up or down (not as fast as double arrows), and when he’s going slightly up (45 degrees up/down) or level. That is critical information that needs to be known in order to take care of them preemptively.
Besides having this crucial device, changing the “low” threshold to 100, from 70 made a huge difference for us. We started out only changing the setting from 70 to 100 during the night, but we’ve since just changed the LOW to 100 24 hours per day. What this does is gives us a warning at all times of the day (it’s hard to be looking at the receiver/phone 24/7 even though I really do try). It amazes me how many times he can be level for an hour or two at 120, then no sooner than I turn my head for 10 or 15 minutes, it’s as if his BG was waiting for me to leave…because shortly after I leave, they CRASH! I come back to 70 or lower BG’s. This drove me crazy…so by changing the low to 100, we’ve been able to “hear” if he crosses below 100. We don’t always treat just because he goes below 100, but KNOWING he’s crossed that threshold has been important for us to stopping the BG’s from dipping low. Because the CGM is behind by 15 minutes, that means by the time he’s 100 on the CGM, if he’s headed downward, he could already be 80 or 90. So, when the alarm sounds at 100, Erin and I just know to keep an eye out and more carefully and treat if necessary.
As far as exercise, I agree…our little guys can just “walk” outside for 10 minutes and it can be like a full 60 minute calisthenic exercise for adults. Mine doesn’t do any organized sports yet, but he does have 3 older brothers that he goes outside to play with and he gets sweaty and his numbers do dip when he’s playing. @TiaG’s son is in actual classes so she may have some definite strategies that work for Samson. I just make sure Liam’s sugars are good (around 150) before he goes outside and I give him snacks during his exercise as necessary.
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Somewhat true in our jurisdiction. I can ask the Doctor for all the records and he will give them to me (if he approves), I just can’t get it online.
I think the rules are set-up to give kids a “safe-space” to be able to talk to doctors about sensitive issues without their parent’s seeing. I am sure then that the doctor has the ability to withhold information from the parents. This seems more applicable to a 14 year old than a 1 year old - but that is my opinion.
Makes excellent sense to me. I have an alert set at 80 which usually allows me to correct so I don’t go below 70. 100 seems to be the right place for the little guys. I know we use 110 as a target for correcting either way.
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hi @Aaron, our son just started with gymnastics and “swimming” so I am a far cry from an expert. We still have plenty of FAILS but have also had some successes. Anyways, I wouldn’t say i have a strategy but the one thing we’ve found helpful really came from @Eric – basically, start exercise with zero IOB. He also eats the same thing every Saturday, so we can at least isolate one variable.
Our son has gymnastics at 10am Sat. and so we try to serve him breakfast at 6:30am – on a good day that means his breakfast will be all digested and with a few hours of zero temping after the first meal bolus, his IOB should be close to zero. Whenever that isn’t the case (say we eat late, or he spikes after a meal and needs a correction) he can start the class at 250 but will crash rapidly towards the 50s over the span of an hour.
With swimming, I unplug him from his pump as he’s getting into his bathing suit, and at that point I will give him a little snack – say a few saltines or Cheezits or maybe even a little chocolate with some nuts. (Depending on his IOB, usually about 5-10g, for him a low correction = 4 g). This modest snack usually prevents a crash.
Once he’s reattached I wait to see a small rise in BG and then give another bolus, usually to make up a little of the basal he lost and about half of the snack, because we find his digestion gets delayed when he’s exercising. Then once he’s done all the food he ate hits him. Swimming is only 30 minutes so he’s probably only unplugged for 45-50 minutes total. That means he’ll usually get somewhere between 0.3 and 0.5 units of insulin just after the swim. I have a second snack ready in the car in case that extra bolus was unnecessary. And if he’s running on the higher side I’ll bolus a bit more knowing we’ll usually go eat dinner soon.
That’s when everything works out. Obviously, many days just don’t cooperate but that’s the basic idea.
Also want to second what @ClaudnDaye said – I just don’t know how we’d manage our son’s BG without the CGM. Every time he has a sensor warmup, he’s usually either low or high! So I am impressed by parents like you, who are managing to keep your kids in range most of the time even without the constant feedback of a CGM.
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OMG, I thought this was just us! It never fails…when his CGM is down for that 2 hour warm-up period he inevitably goes above 250, or lower than 50 nearly every time IF we don’t stick him every 15 - 30 minutes during the warm-up period. We would be dead from stress at this point if not for the CGM.
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Nice work and Bravo to the whole family! It takes a village. 
@ClaudnDaye - I’m curious if Liam had much of honeymoon phase?
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I wish I could give you an educated answer on this. I believe he did, but tbh I was so new in this world that I didn’t even know what the honeymoon phase was fully until probably the beginning of this year (he was diagnosed Feb 29th of LAST year.) I believe he did because of the drastic shifts in BG for inexplicable reasons (body producing it’s own insulin + our injected insulin = lots of lows…which we have had in the past.) But then the other side of me says, maybe his lows were only attributed to us not treating correctly and, as we’ve grown and learned, we’ve learned more about how to dose properly…I have complained a lot in the past on this forum and TuD about hardships we had been having which, as I recall, folks attributed to the honeymoon phase.
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