The great milkshake and banana split challenge!

Yeah, I’ve felt like that many times :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Based on my experience, for reasons that are unclear to me, fat increases the required insulin substantially beyond the value obtained from I:C ratio calculation. It also extends absorption considerably, which makes dosing even more difficult. If you’d be willing to share actual bg values starting before the meal and ending with the eventual return to target range, all bolus insulin doses given during that time, as well as ISF and I:C parameters, I could compute and give you back an approximate absorption profile for the banana split. We can then discuss possible dosing strategies you may try next time.

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I will gladly do that (on PM)!

I am not 100% if there wasn’t interference from a hormonal peak though: his original dose was about 9 units, and it took him an additional 16 to come back down to range :frowning:

The calculation is pretty simple and is based on the assumption that a change in bg equals the difference between insulin activity and a combined effect of whatever is pushing bg up (most notably carb absorption, but this could include other factors such as exercise (in the opposite direction), or hormones, etc). I think we now have reasonably accurate insulin activity curves, which do vary from person to person, but probably not as much as people think. So, given bg and insulin data, we can compute a profile of the combined effects of food and whatever else was going on during that time. I agree, 16 extra U seems to imply processes beyond just food.

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If you are using an IC ratio that is based on the complete length of the duration of the insulin dose, those numbers don’t work well for fast acting carbs.

The way to do it for something like a milkshake is use an IC for roughly the first hour of insulin activity.

The ratio to work with is how much insulin do you need now that will allow enough insulin to come in within an hour to cover the milkshake.

The first hour ratio is of course much higher. For example, if your normal IC is 1:20, your “first hour” IC ratio might be 1:10 (it’s a ratio, so 1:10 is higher than 1:20).

Of course, if that’s only for the first hour, then you would have extra leftover insulin for hours 2-4. But it’s much easier to fix an impending low with a glass of juice 90 minutes later than it is to chase a high with insulin all day.

That ratio really could only work for you, @Eric :slight_smile: Insulin activates in 45 minutes for us, so what we use as an IC ratio is what it takes to correct in about 2 hours, which we find works well tactically for us. What we do, though, is that we stack within the next 60-80 minutes if we don’t see strong impact by the correction. That happens to us a lot since my son’s regular IC works well for glucose peaks but not well at all for hormonal peaks. For these, we just never know what will work - except that is more (sometimes much more) than a regular peak.

For instance, this peak should have taken 4 units of correction - but it took 16. We have had peaks that take 30 units to correct (if my son has a really good day he may only use 30 units that day…).

I don’t think I am the only one for which this type of thing would work.

You don’t see any activity for 45 minutes?

Your total today was 25 units, right? 9 up front, and 16 to chase it down.

Hypothetically, if you gave him all of the 25 units 45 minutes before, and then he had the milkshake, do you think he still would have gone high?

Yes. We see very faint activity after 25 minutes, then strong activity around 45 minutes post (somewhat variable of course).

Yes.

No - but he might have gone into a huge low though. 9 units is a lot for him. 16 units is huge. The most he has ever taken in one shot is right about 15 units – and I was nervous when he did (it was a huge correction plus a big bolus). I think there is a chance that this peak was mostly hormones - although I cannot be sure.

Sure 25 units would be too much, that was hypothetical. It always takes more to bring down than to prevent.

But if 9 is too little, and 25 is too much, that’s a 16 unit window you can tighten up to figure out. Somewhere between 9 units and 25 units. 12? 15? 18?

What would you predict if you did 12 units 45 minutes before, and another 5 units right when he started the shake?

Your two hour time for IC ratio sounds good. Much better than the 4-5 hours of total duration many people use.

Another thing to consider for this is IM.

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For round 2, I was thinking 9 units prebolus followed by 4 units right before starting: I can’t imagine that I could be more than 40% off in calculations - but who knows, maybe I am! As @Pianoplayer7008 wrote earlier today, it looks like I need more experimentation :slight_smile:

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You guys will get it figured out!

Consider holding off until the last possible minute. Not an emergency urgent low, but just to the point where K feels low enough that he let’s you know he should start eating.

Having a kinda low BG before you start eating makes it much easier. But obviously not the horrible low where it’s unpleasant.

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You’re on the pump now. Have you thought about extended bolus? You could do x units over y hours with additional boluses as required during the experiment. We use this for most meals but especially for meals that don’t begin processing immediately, or cause BGs to go up immediately (and in some cases the BG’s could go down if bolus is all given up front.) Extended allows slow injection over a long period of time in any amount you want. You could choose 0 up front and the entire amount over the next 3 or 4 hours if you want. Or you could do 5 or 10% up front with the rest coming over x number of hours, for example.

If you haven’t tried or considered this, I would say this would be a great opportunity to dive in and try this function out. Also, if you need even more insulin in addition to an extended bolus, you could create a temp basal for ice cream…adding even more insulin into the mix. All these methods allow for more fine tuning and “stopping” something as necessary, in the event of a crash.

Good luck! We’re all learning a lot from your challenge acceptance! I may get brave enough to try this with Liam…some day.

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Or a super bolus for the up-front carb load followed by an extended bolus for the fats?

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You might be tempted, but I think the sundaes there won’t hold a candle to that work of art @Michel and @Kaelan have crafted!!!

I noticed that when you posted the ingredient list! Good work!

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@CatLady, how did the coffee syrup turn out? Did you use it on a banana split?

After seeing your pic I badly wanted to use that on MY banana split :slight_smile:

We went out for Thai food last night so I didn’t do my coffee milkshake yet. Maybe today after lawn mowing…

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Thai food and BG

Hagen Daz Rum Raisin with a few shots of Rum and creamy whole milk ( additional raisons and more rum optional ) :wink:

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Just lose the raisins after 3 drinks or you may end up choking on them. :laughing:

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but the raisins are such a good source of healthy fiber, protein from the milk, and rum for fun…

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