it sucks that you stuck between a rock and a hard place... maybe see if insurance would pay for your expenses to go to denver?
I think the biggest problem right now is my daughter is on a fixed carb plan. 60 for meals 15 for snacks. At exact times for the day to go with her school schedule. So I have no idea what 1 unit for 10 even is or for.
We were also told not to worry about highs right now. That until we get her in a normal range and figure out her dosing there will be highs. As well as she was still having glucose toxicity until a few days ago. So I have no idea what high is to high if or when or how to treat it. So that freaks me out as well. So for this christmas its just going to suck for her and me. I agreed to eat as she does so it wont suck so bad for her tomorrow.
I forgot about fixed carbs at the start. Well to start with the terminology. 1 unit for 10 is a calculation for insulin. For every 10 carbs of food intake they get one unit of insulin. 60 carbs you give 6 units of fast acting insulin. Some plans call for 1 unit for every 15 carbs. 60 carbs - 4 units.
I remember they keep you on a carb count so you won't have to make too many adjustments the first week or two.
What we really do now is look at the food intake. My son eats a cookie or two at christmas and takes insulin for the cookies eaten. It does easier to calculate later on.
Cool and thanks. That sounds so much easier than what we are doing now. Well easier to keep her numbers good anyhow.
I just re-read and thought I would elaborate. I mentioned not to look at the numbers as a score card. When first diagnosed that is easy to do. The tendency is to be so exact that there is no room for error but it is NOT an exact science. I mentioned my son takes 1 unit of insulin for every 10 carbs. He used to take 1 unit for every 15 carbs. Now that sounds easy if you have some kind of prepackaged food that you can open and give that say 50 carbs, or 60 carbs or 130 carbs. The world is not like that however, you can get prepackaged food that have 64 carbs and then do the math and end up with 6.4 units of insulin. If your not on the pump you have to determine if you want to go up or down. Do I use 6 units or 7 units of insulin. Right now you can see its not exact. You make a judgement call at that time.
O.K. so your at McDonalds etc and you read the menu and you can calculate just like prepackaged food, you have the book with the carb counts etc and your doing o.k. Your still rounding up or down depending on what your health care people want but then you go out to a restaurant.
Your daughter gets a hamburger, maybe some fries as a treat and a diet soda. All buns are not the same - all french fry quanties are not the same so you estimate again. Is this bun bigger than the average bun I get in a package at home (most likely yes) and if so how much bigger.
Same with the fries. If its mashed potatoes, etc you use the typical rationing like size of hockey puck, size of fist etc. Still an estimate. So you have a meal and you have estimated the bun, the fries and the only consistent thing is the diet soda. You get desert - she has a bite of cake (it's o.k.) but by the end of the meal you have estimated 3 things as best you can with the best estimation tools you have. You come as close as you can with the carbs and divide by 10 or 15 and maybe you round that number up and down to make the math easier and then adjust insulin again up or down.
What you end up finding out is that you did fine. You smile and wait until the next meal and do it again. Diabetes is always an adjustment in the numbers to get as close to normal levels as you can. The meters, pumps, books etc are all tools to help you do that.
My main point is that with everything gong at's sw o