before getting the pump.
Before I get on with the ‘back to school” story for me, I will briefly explain why we need to count carbs. This is for the sake of our family and friends who might not already know the relationship between blood glucose (sugar) and food with carbs.
It is simple: you eat carbs = you need insulin
And now for the balancing act
If you do not have diabetes – you are lucky since your body does all these calculations for you and keeps your blood glucose level always in the correct range. So look after your body and your pancreas. It is worth ;)
Once you know your I:C ratio, all you need to do now is to figure out how many grams of carbs are in each meal you eat, then divide that number with your I:C ratio (in this case 15) and voila – you get the amount of insulin you need to give for that meal.
If you do not count carbs, if you guess, the chances are you’ll make a mistake with one of the following outcomes:
give less insulin than needed
your blood glucose will go high
(above the range)
Scenario 2 You overestimate the carbs and
give more insulin than needed
your blood glucose will go low
(below the range)
Honestly, I do not know how we managed insulin for food before that, when Mr T was on pens. Yes, we adjusted the amount of insulin depending on the amount of food eaten and were aware of the exchange system (one slice of bread = 1 medium apple =1 units of insulin, kind of thing), but now, understanding carbs counting I can see how rough and inaccurate that system was. However, it was better than “stabbing in the dark” or just keeping the doses constant while food varies.
I suppose it was good that our diabetes team did not insist on accurate carbs counting straight after diagnosis. At the time you are so shocked and overwhelmed with all the new procedures, advice and things you must do, that it was easier to follow a simplified system.
I do remember, later on, making a note to go and research carbs counting and learn it, but I was always too tired for the BIG maths, I thought it was. When I finally did it, with the help and guidance of our dietician from the diabetes clinic, I realised I was fussing about nothing. I always thought: “Oh I have to memorise the amount of carbs in ALL the foods in the world, and I’ll have to weigh everything before each meal, and… and…”
The truth is, you do not actually eat all 57 kinds of fruit or 7 kinds of rice, so you memorise the food you eat regularly and that is not a huge number of different foods.
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Now you must be asking, why am I going back to carbs counting school, since I already learnt it, used the system for 3 years, know my no-carbs food and, as a result, Mr T does have a very good HbA1c (a parameter indicating that his blood glucose is in good control). Well, I think I got a bit rusty with time and may be a bit complacent, too quick to round off a few carbs, too lazy to weight new sized portions.
I also noticed that I keep correcting higher BG’s more often and although Mr T has a good average, there is a significant swing in a day.
I kind of forgot that not all the bananas are the same, so I have been counting medium bananas as 18 carbs but when I weighed one yesterday and looked it up properly I realised it was 26 carbs.
And I suppose it all adds up.
I will keep you posted.