My birthday was Friday and we are having a family get-together this coming weekend to celebrate a few of our May birthdays.
My favorite kind of birthday cake, that I had every year before being dxd at age 13, is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I ate it the first year being diabetic (on injections) and my bg went on a horrible rollercoaster. I've tried Splenda cake the past few birthdays but it's just not the same.
This year I've decided to go back to the regular, sugar-ful choc on choc cake. We will be eating it mid-afternoon as I thought that would be the best (not putting myself potentially going to bed with high bg). I remember my blood sugar just staying up high for several hours after eating the cake.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with a high-sugar desset such as this? I was thinking about possibly bolusing for the cake with a 1:20 rather than my normal 1:15 and then running a several-hour-long 200% temp basal afterwards...
Let me know if I'm on track or if you have something that works for you...
That sounds delish! Can I come to your party! haha
Anyway, maybe you can do a dual bolus? and take some before you eat the cake and then have it still giving you more during a 2-3 hour period of time? This way it can help prevent the spike?
Gena is right on try taking some around 15 to 20 b/4 you eat it if you BG is not below 100 That way it will start working about the time you start to eat your Chocolate-on-Chocolate Cake. I have sued the square wave bolus also with some better results but still working on that.
Great, now I am going to bed thinking about chocolate cake... Oh well.
Amanda the idea seems fine, just if you change your insulin to carb ratio make a note to change it back later as you could end up dealing with lows later on.
Personally, I would try my best to calculate out the carb for the cake, based on the serving size.
Here are a few options to think about. This is for a choc cake with frosting.This is for just plain chocolate cake, but bigger serving size. Than this is for the frosting.
Although, running a temp basal may not be a bad thing as well. If you are just guestimating and such, I would always err slightly higher on the guessing for the carbs and such. I mean if worse comes to worse and a few hours later you realize you are running slightly low... You can have more cake!!!!
My rule for high carb items like this is measure measure measure.
If your cake comes with a carb count just cut it according to the label for serving sizes and have that size. If it is to much cut in half and measure for that.
From experience- don't let the Chocolate cake scare you, over guessing the insulin needed is easy and you could bottom out in bad way *i did.*
A duel wave bolus is a great idea for items like this. Happy birthday and enjoy!
Thanks for all the help guys! If you all could make it to Maryland by Sunday we'd have a rockin party!
I am so sorry that I forgot to mention--- it is homemade cake so we will do a recipe analysis (if I remember correctly it is 60g/piece). I should have put that in the original post, my bad!! But thank you Brian for putting the information about cake w/ and w/out frosting, that will be helpful when trying to figure out how much to count a store-bought one for! And thanks stilledlife for the 'overguessing' warning, funny but I frequently do that. I'm not a very good guesser yet :-(
I think I will end up doing a dual wave with some up front and the rest over a few hours as Gina and Joe suggested. I may bolus a while before I begin eating but only if my bg is over 100 (Thanks Andy for mentioning).
I actually don't set my ratios in my pump, I just use a calculator. I guess it's weird but that's what I like to do. So I won't have any problems doing a different ratio than normal.
Glad I have a plan! Thank you so much for the suggestions!
You could always get your family to go for a walk after cake to bring your sugars down a bit if the weather is nice. Exercise brings it down really fast. I am legal here so I always go out dancing after cake on my birthday haha.
Sports is always a fine option to get your sugars down. The idea with chocolate cake frosting is also nice. Sometimes you just can't avoid consuming some sugar and then you just have to find a way to bring it down. It's up to you to choose what's the best and most comfortable option for you.
You could always get your family to go for a walk after cake to bring your sugars down a bit if the weather is nice. Exercise brings it down really fast. I am legal here so I always go out dancing after cake on my birthday haha.
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I know what you mean-- excercise brings my bg down by sometimes over 100 points! Thanks for the idea :-)
Sports is always a fine option to get your sugars down. The idea with chocolate cake frosting is also nice. Sometimes you just can't avoid consuming some sugar and then you just have to find a way to bring it down. It's up to you to choose what's the best and most comfortable option for you.
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Yeah this year I just decided I didn't want another Splenda cake, so I'll go for it and "cake sera, sera" haha.