Ever since diagnosis, if I'm honest, I have preferred to run on the low side rather than on the high side. Lows were quick to sort out and usually involved eating something sweet and tasty, while highs took much longer to come down and, while they did not make me feel particularly grim like they do for many people, they also carried with them the spectre of all those diabetes nasties waiting in the wings. Blindness, kidney failure and amputation vs fruit pastilles seemed an easy choice to make.
Of course running on the low side and 'preferring' hypos is not a brilliant plan. My hypo awareness began to take rather a dent and I spent many years with significant hypo unawareness and the severe hypos that go with it, especially overnight. Looking back I am ashamed that I did not realise the pressure and stress that this placed on my whole family and especially Jane.
Pretty much since we began writing this blog I began to try to reduce my incidence of hypoglycaemia and regain my warning signs, and generally wrestle my diabetes into behaving itself a little better. I have put quite a bit of work in and learned a lot. Thankfully I have not had an episode of Severe Hypoglycaemia for something like 3 or 4 years now - long enough ago that I can't remember anyway. But for all the success there have remained a stubborn few dips under 4 (which may or may not be hypos depending on your definition) that I have been unable to tame.
This video blog examines what effect SmartGuard has had to my results in these first 4 weeks.
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THANK-YOU FOR THIS POST :D Sorry for the slight over-enthusiasm, but I've just started on this pump almost exactly a month ago too. The things i really like about it, over the Minimed veo, is the set change reminder but mostly the precision of bolusing - being able to reduce it down to that extra 0.05 is brilliant at times.
ReplyDeleteYour control is AMAZING - my team would adore you, mostly for the lack of hypos aha. They have that problem with me currently!
Most of all though, it was the part you said about preferring lows that was somewhat of a comfort for me; I am just the same. I have always 'preferred' (if you can call it that?) lows to highs. They always seem far more easily fixable and highs leave me feeling like rubbish! My diabetes team (somewhat ironically, given potential complications) want to see more highs on my downloads - they say my control is "too normal to be normal" for a diabetic, as my HBA1C is 48!
Yet this gave me comfort that reducing lows is possible, it's just changing your outlook. Great post, thank-you.