I’ve been a diabetic for 25+ years. In the late 90s I got on the pump (a 507 Minimed). After 6 months I had an A1c of 6.1 and life was pretty good. Then all of a sudden I started struggling with things.
You all know. Up and Down and All around.
Here are some facts about my insulin and what my body does.
One unit of U-100 insulin lowers my bg by 20 (points as I call it). The most (usually) my bg drops in 1 hour is 200 points or less. Which means the most insulin my body uses is around 10 units per hour.
If I have an extremely high bg reading of, say, 500. It will take roughly 20 units of insulin about 2 hours to lower my bg to 100. I have configured my 715 paradigm to give me the proper amount of insulin to handle the amount my body needs to lower bg.
Here is the tricky part: One (1) gram of carbohydrate usually raises my bg by 3 or less points on my bg reading. If I have a pencil in hand and was giving myself an injection, here is a sample: a t.v. dinner has 42 grams of carbs. Those carbs should raise my bg by 126 points within the hour after I eat. If my bg was 160 when I started to eat, I could cover my meal with 6.3 units of insulin. To bring my 160 bg down to the 120 bg I should have I also need to add 2 more units of U-100 insulin for the 40 points I was too high.
I use Humalog in my pump. I’ve also taken R, Nph, Velosulin (sp), in my life and all do the same (lowers bg 20 points per unit of U-100) except for peaks and duration of the types of insulin.
:confused: HERE’s the Big Question: What is my carb ratio?
The one I put into my 715 paradigm to get the numbers to come out is 7. The internal pump program flags me if I put in 3 as the carb ratio as noted above (says range should be 5-50). With 7 as the carb ratio, however, I get the match as above with the paper and pencil. I just kept messing with the pump carb ratio until it matched what my body really does–that’s how I found the ratio number of 7.
:confused: However, when I fill in that ratio at minimed.com website for the carelink program, it does not allow me to put in a ratio of 7. (which I assume is 7:1 — 7points per gram of carbs — though it is really 3 points per gram when I use the pencil). It says ratio must be 15 to 35 or something like that.
I’m just really confused.
Could someone please help?
Al