A rollercoaster week: food ratios and basal tests.

The main things to have come out of this week are the realisations that:
a) I am challenged when it comes to working out ratios; maybe I need to get some of my kids onto it - I reckon they'd be less stumped than I was yesterday!
b) I have become VERY reliant on my super-duper-whizzy Rapid Calc App...

These realisations began to manifest themselves on Friday when I emailed my week's worth of readings to Lisa. I forgot, that I had given her the wrong ratios when I filled in my pre-assessment form; I changed them to give me slightly more insulin at breakfast time and at dinner time. But it's the form these ratios came in that caused the confusion!

My Rapid Calc App, wonderful though it is, calculates my ratios per gram of carbohydrate so they come as a ratio of Carb:Insulin (in my case, I was taking a ratio of 1:0.18 at breakfast and 1:0.2 at lunchtime).

After receiving my weekly readings (along with some incomprehensibly scribbled notes about having changed my ratios) Lisa emailed back, somewhat confused about my ratios, and suggested I change my breakfast I:C ratio to 1:7 and my dinnertime ratio to 1:8. I had absolutely no idea what that meant in terms of my C:I ratios.

So... I sat down and tried to work it out (on the piece of paper J had used to remind him to take his wash bag skiing!). I then appealed for help on Facebook because I tied myself in knots!

Eventually (and with a little mathematical help from my -disappointingly male - friends, where's a girl who can do ratios?!) I reached the conclusion that the changes that Lisa was proposing would mean my ratios would change from 1:5.5 to 1:7 at breakfast and 1:5 to 1:8 at dinner time. I wasn't sure about this. Since my basal has been reduced, I have found I have needed to up my ratios slightly. 

Yesterday I tried the change, along with lowering my basal from 16 to 14 again after a drop of nearly 60 md/dL (129 to 71) on Thursday night.

But what I found was that I was running consistently high. I haven't had a reading below 233 since Friday evening and it's now Sunday afternoon. Today, I emailed Lisa back and explained that I was going to put my ratios back to 1:5.5 and 1:5. At least then we have a starting point that doesn't mean I'm always high. 

I hope that she won't think I'm panning her advice - I really want to get my levels down - but, today, when my readings have been high, I just really want them to come down.

Overall, my analysis was better this week! I analysed twice, yes, I know, I'm home alone and I have time to play with! First I analysed my readings using my usual setting-myself-up-to-fail parameters. Better than last week: 32.5% of my readings were in range. But then I repeated the analysis using the ranges I agreed with Lisa (90-160 pre-meal and <160 2 hours after eating); this time 47.5% of my readings were in range. I am aiming for 70% and <3 hypoes. I am crawling in the right direction, finally!