Diabetes Blog Week 2012: One thing to improve

Wednesday 05/16 Yesterday we gave ourselves and our loved ones a big pat on the back for one thing we are great at.  Today let’s look at the flip-side.  We probably all have one thing we could try to do better.  Why not make today the day we start working on it.  No judgments, no scolding, just sharing one small thing we can improve so the DOC can cheer us on!

So I could probably write a list as long as my arm about things I could do better - I'm not perfect, and while I muddle along fairly happily with my diabetes management, there are lots of things that I could do just that little bit better.  


If I were to pick just one thing though, I think it would be basal tests.  I hate basal testing, as I'm sure everyone does, but it's not so much all basal testing as those in the afternoon/evening - the ones that cover lunch and dinner times.  I'm pretty good with the overnight ones, and the morning ones I'm generally fine with - it's just a case of waking up and not eating breakfast.  But there's something about the other ares of the day that I just find...difficult.

I'm not sure what it is - I think part of it is that it's generally when I'm up and about, and I'm hungry.  Lunch ones are harder because I'm at work, and I generally need something to keep me going, not from an 'I need carbs' perspective, but purely from needing fuel to get me through the working day.  Added to that, there's the whole thing about people asking why you're not eating lunch, and then the well-meaning sympathy that you get because you have to fast for a few hours.  The evening ones tend to be a bit the same - I'm aways hungry in the evenings, and it's hard to make dinner for Stu and then not have anything myself.

I do keep and eye on things in other way - I can usually tell if things are needing tweaking by looking at my levels around meal times, and I have a few ways of figuring out if I need to alter my basal or my bolus (and I love temp basals), but I know that I could always do better by doing a couple more actual fasting tests!