Finally - Carb to Insulin Ratios!

Thursday, May 7th

Shortly after I started back to work, I spoke with the Safety Director at work. Her Grandson was diagnosed with Type 1 about 5 years ago. She told me about how he had actually gone into a coma because his sugar was so high (it was well over 1,000, but I'm thinking she said it was over 2,000 and Ellee's was 668 at diagnosis). She also said that he does his shot after he eats, figuring out how many carbs he ate as opposed to making him eat a certain amount. WOW... this sounds a lot better than trying to make Ellee eat a certain amount of carbs for a meal and panicing if she didn't eat it all.

When we were at Childrens meeting with Winnie to train Mom, Dad, and Tonya, we also had to meet with Karen, a dietition. I brought up this carb to insulin ratio with her and she agreed that it would be a good thing! She left to check with one of the doctors (because she couldn't authorize it) then came back in and instructed us on how to do this new process.

Other Type 1s have been doing Carb:Insulin for a long time, and when people are on the pump, this is how they tell the pump how much insulin to give... but for us it was a new and exciting adventure! And it was! This took so much unnecessary stress out of our lives. I hate fighting with the girls about eating. I don't want to force them to eat something they don't like and I understand that they go through growth spurts where one minute they will eat like piggies and the next they won't touch an ounce of food. Through insulin on top of this and you have World War III in the Braun household! Up until this point I tried not to make too much of a fuss about Ellee not eating something and found a substitute that she would eat. We had enough other stuff to fight about, I didn't want this to be one of them.

Before, we were instructed to give her 2 units before dinner and have her eat 40 carbs. Of course the number of units may change or the number of carbs may change depending on if she was having lots of low readings. But it was the same concept, give her a shot and make her eat a certain amount. On the other hand, Carb:Insulin Ratio works like this... based on her past sugar readings, the doctor sets a ratio for her, like 1:20 (1 unit for every 20 grams of carbs). We test her sugar before she eats, then let her eat what how ever much of her dinner she wants. If she has 10 carbs, we give her half a unit, 1 unit for 20 carbs, 2 units for 40 carbs. Every so often the doctors will look to see if an adjustment needs made based on if her sugar is too high or having too many lows. It is better than sliced bread! They couldn't send us home doing this because they needed to make sure that we understand how to count the carbs, which makes sense. Still makes me wish that they would have told us about this sooner!