Just thinking about this lately...because my worst thing is often trusting my instincts with temp basals. Increased temp basals still just make me nervous. I always go too conservative...even if experience has told me that a certain food requires more. My other constant mess up is, I'll use a temp basal, then check him maybe 2 hours later and see a BG on the lower side, but not low..just good, and then get nervous and cancel the temp basal. Inevitably, I'll check him later and he'll be high. I KNOW I should have kept that temp basal on longer....but the lowish BG always gets me. I tend not to trust my own gut and experience that I know his bolus insulin has peaked and I need to keep that basal high for a while...I cave to the more immediate worry of a low. I just need to trust myself more. Also...I hardly ever use increased temp basals at night...but don't get nervous using a bolus correction. What is with that?? More insulin is more insulin! I think it's because I trust the pump to figure the bolus more than I trust myself to pick the proper temp basal. My best trait in managing D? I guess it's the emotional side of it. I think I do a pretty good job at keeping D on the back burner for my son as much as possible...and never let a "woe is me" attitude fester for too long. D management is as low maintenance and low fuss as we can make it...no big drama in daily management...no "this is ruining my life" kind of thing. So what do you guys do best? Carb counting? Fastest site changer? Psychic about your child's BGs? Great sick-day manager?? And what is your Achilles heel?
Well I know this is for parents of kids with T1 but I'll give it a shot.... I guess I am best at finding patterns in my numbers and predicting what will cause spikes/drops. One thing I have to work is not over correcting my highs. My dad is great at carb counting; he can tell the carbs in something just by glancing at it. My mom is the one who advocates for me (super important skill!)
I am good at SWAG-ing. I don't like having to do it, but there are so many occasions where it is necessary and I always surprise myself when I check her BG a few hours after a swag and she is almost always in range, woohoo!! This skill is really going to come in handy during our Disney vacation next week. I struggle with over/under correcting highs, not terribly, but it seems like during the day it never fails that 3 hours after a correction she feels low, and then overnight, I'm worried about her getting too low so I knock a little bit off the corrections and then she wakes up, not high, but not where I'd like her to be. Like this morning she woke up at 151, I'd rather her be closer to 100. If I'd just given her the 1.55u her PDM suggested last night, she might have been a bit closer to 100, but I pulled back *sigh*
I'm very good at checking BG regularly. Almost too good. Kind of sucky at logging, even though I know it would help I've just got about 10 million other things to do.
Strength...sick day management Weakness...letting anyone else take over, though I'm getting much better at it! Actually I'm pretty good at carb guesstimating.
the worst is logging. I can't seem to record every day sugar log so I just do it month ot month. I am pretty good at carb counting.
My worse: Logging, logging, logging....I was writing all meals, bg #s and insulin doses down just before summer started. Now I just write down school lunch carb counts, review meter for trends over the last few days and makie basal rate changes accordingly. If things look really wonky I download pump to diasend to see where adjustments are needed. My dd would say I'm really good at guessing her bg before it pops up on her meter. But really I am good at keeping diabetes on the back burner. I am much more confident dealing with the day to day highs/lows, carb guessing and over all d care. Such a better life than right after dx. :cwds:
Embarrassed to say I have no idea what "SWAGing" is!! Explanation please!! I didn't even think of logging...I found another thing I am good at!! Hardly ever miss a BG on his log...unless we are away or on vacation.
I guess I'm good at estimating carbs. Especially when we are out or do not have a scale handy for fruit. I have been very lax at logging. I also try to let DD have as much control over her D as she is willing to take.
Carb counts are my strength, I'm pretty awesome at them.... I don't often go high cause I screwed up carbs..... my weakness is totally over eating for lows=( I get feeling like I'm going to die and nothing can stop me from eating everything in sight!
Worst: finding patterns - especially of highs. Also, need to start downloading the pump. I never have. Hana uses the POD and the software isn't compatible with MAC. I bought my son a new windows based notebook for his bday. I am going to start using it to downloading the reports to be better able to spot trends. Best: Emotional. I think we take it all in stride. Yeah there are some really sucky times but I don't let it get me down. I don't make a big deal out of it. We move on. I think Hana has taken on the same attitude toward it. It is all just part of her life now. SHe rarely complains - if ever. Not that I would ever blame her for complaining. I'm sure there are times that just plain stink for her. But she just seems to deal with it and move on.
