Hi all. Volo, Sydney Australia. Diagnosed at 29 so about 6 years in now.
MDI, no pump. Libre. Sitting around 93-95% in range lately which sounds better than it feels - breakfast still gets me a couple mornings a week and I’ve kinda made peace with it
Software engineer by day, and at some point I got tired of logging meals after they’d already gone wrong, so I built myself a little app around my Libre data. Happy to show it if anyone’s curious, just didn’t want to walk in waving it
Found this place looking for somewhere a bit slower than Reddit. Here to read mostly.
6 years in and I still feel newish at this - is that just how it goes, or do you eventually stop second-guessing yourself?
I think eventually you can learn to trust yourself. Don’t expect perfection. Just know that you made the best decision with the information you had. And you learn from each experience.
We learn most from our bad decisions. I am pretty good at it now, but that’s only because I have made so many mistakes! As long as you have learned something, it’s okay.
I don’t go by formula, because there are too many factors. We don’t really have a formula that takes everything into account. So I use the “Force”.
Welcome @SangraMate this is a great community of caring people.
As to Reddit subreddits I will go over there occasionally. My problem is Reddit seems to attract some people who think their snarky comments are helpful.
@Eric that’s kind of the answer I was hoping for and also didn’t want. The Force is exactly the thing I don’t have yet - I’m still doing maths in my head and getting it wrong, and I think I’ve been trying to shortcut my way to something you got from 20 years of mistakes. Probably doesn’t work like that. That app helps me like Jarvis from Iron Man a bit, though The best thing out of my head is carbs and insulin absorption, always forgetting it…
Thanks CarlosLuis and yeah, fair. Reddit’s been decent to me so far but I know exactly what you mean - fast rooms, some people just there to score points. Slower is kinda why I came looking.
Also first time anyone’s called me Mate on the internet, and I’m Australian now, so I’ll take it
My only claim to use it is watching several Australian police shows, not to be confused with Kiwi shows. Now if an Aussie calls you Mate that’ll be time to buy a round all round.
I’m ruined for US TV now because of Britbox and Acorn.
Welcome, and it will be interesting to learn about your little app!
As to your question of “do you eventually stop second-guessing yourself?”…my take on it is the more tech-dependent your insulin regimen becomes, the more second-guessing occurs. Lately I have been second guessing the algorithm used by the pump, or my inputs to the tech, or possibly the hardware (infusion sets, etc.), or maybe my insulin is weakened by heat, old age, ??? Some day soon I will blame a high BG on sunspots.
Ha, got it now honestly your Australian might be ahead of mine, I still say things and get a look. Which shows are they? Sounds like I’ve got homework.
And that’s a slightly uncomfortable answer for me, because the thing I built adds another layer of tech to argue with. It looks at where I’m heading rather than where I am - “could go high in ~79 min” sort of thing. So possibly I’ve just swapped second-guessing myself for second-guessing a forecast lol.
Does it help at all when you can see why the tech did something, or is it more that there’s just more moving parts to blame now? Genuinely asking, because that’s the bit I keep going back and forth on.
There’s not a lot available here but I really like the ones I have watched. Murder Call is fairly old but with a lot of shows. City Homicide is newer. Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries is a lot of fun, It takes place in post WW I Australia staring Essie Davis as an iconoclastic, fashion bending woman dectective. 800 Words is sort of a mix as the main characters are an Australian family moved to a quirky NZ town.
Season 1 of My Life Is Murder staring Kiwi Lucy Lawless is in Melbourne, but the following seasons are in NZ her home. Mystery Road
Yeah a lot of these shows are murder investigation type stories. I must be channeling my late Dad who was an aficionado of the murder genre.
I got to watch a few from NZ and was intrigued with Kiwis’ interesting using alternate vowels in their speech. Perfectly understandable but noticeable different from other English speakers.
Welcome @shellyj48, @Yve65 and @SangraMate. It’s a wonderful place with lots of great options from others who may have been dealing with the same issue.
Hey, Volo, welcome aboard. I’m 4 years post-diagnosis (god, is that all? it feels like eons). I minimize surprises through extremely regimented eating but I’m still thrown now and then, mostly when it comes to complex dishes that mix fiber, fat, and carbs, or multi-course meals. I’m doing this on MDI, so figuring out how and when to split doses for those is a challenge. But I’m finally at a point where I don’t bother with exact carb counts. Once I was able to let go of obsessive data-logging, and allow myself a little grace for occasional errors, it got a lot easier. Now I just watch the CGM line and vibe it out based on a million factors I’ve learned to tacitly keep track of (tiredness, stress, physical activity, rate of digestion, etc.). For me at least that’s helped to stave off burnout, which was a serious issue when I was more rigorous about tracking and logging everything. Hope you find the community here useful!
Thanks, needlesandmath! 4 years feeling like eons - true. I feel like I was born with it - so much space occupied in my brain since I was diagnosed. I take it as an optimist - easier to adopt, easier not to miss, just gotta balance on the verge of burning out
Fat and fibre is probably where it gets complex; I do everything “right” and then 3 hours later it’s climbing(before dipping if I didn’t time it well, like having pizza haha) and I’m sitting there wondering where that came from, and by then it’s kinda too late to do much. So accounting for extra variables apart from carbs was a real job.
And burnout thing - you’re third person this week telling me that so I guess it’s real. I quit logging like 5 times myself, always same reason, I put data in and nothing comes back out, felt like homework I gave myself
The million factors you keep track of is the bit I’m curious about though. I love seeing people never surrender and just build a better system for themselves, and I always wonder how they did it. I’ve captured my own approach in the app, but I’m sure I’m missing things - activity I know for sure I don’t capture, but that one is quite hard to make accurate. What else would you say sits in that list for you?
Yes of course but the device manufacturers have a habit of telling the user almost nothing. Just to give you one example…today I experienced a “mechanical failure” of the Sequel rwiist pump. But the pump software never told me that. The only notifications the user sees are “Pump error” with a menu of two options to correct the error. Both options bring the pump directly back to “pump error” mode, presenting the same two options again and again. No “error number”, no description at all of the seriousness of the pump error. I had to call the company tech support to hear a diagnosis 30 seconds into the call (the pump apparently sent an error log to them). (But not to me). “Yep, we can see it right here, pump error started at — o’clock and it is a mechanical failure of the pump, can not be resolved.” Now I wait 2 days for a replacement. I know of no good reason for the pump software to withhold that vital diagnosis of the error from the user.
Sorry to hear that That’s one of the reasons I can’t switch to pumps. Being software engineer - it’s too much of a risk to entrust software such sensitive trigger pulling… I need info, insight, guidance but the decision I will make myself. Kinda being CEO with a great team but not just a chairman
I was very resistant to pumps for quite some time, as I was “fine”.
Once I started pumping, no sensor, just a pump, I realized a huge benefit of pumps is how they keep track of things. Both for you and your MDs. Once I figured it out, I just do it. I don’t need to call, appointments, all of that. It’s way easier for me to have a “droid” gather my data but it’s pretty set these days
though the % flatters me a bit, mostly because I eat like a boring person on weekdays 
The best thing out of my head is carbs and insulin absorption, always forgetting it…
That’s one of the reasons I can’t switch to pumps. Being software engineer - it’s too much of a risk to entrust software such sensitive trigger pulling… I need info, insight, guidance but the decision I will make myself. Kinda being CEO with a great team but not just a chairman 