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It's my time...to change my habits.

Numbers have been consuming my life in the past two weeks. Every time I turn around, a number pops up that leaves me feeling out of sync, exhausted, and completely burnt out. Averages like 241 or even 301 are consuming my logbook. Seeing numbers below 170 are a rare occurrence, with most riding in the upper 200 and 300 range.

The other side of the numbers is the insulin levels. I've raised my Lantus to 32 units in the evening now. And from that, I've had my first low in a week (and it was only a 72 after not eating for quite some time). I've also almost doubled my Humalog, which seems to be the biggest deterrent to those pesky 300's that I was seeing so regularly.

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My averages are definitely down in the last three days. I'm having a lot more lows, but far fewer highs. And the highs I am having, I can pinpoint generally what caused them (which is a heck of a lot different than last week where I was bouncing around for no apparent reason).

Moving the evening Lantus dose up by a few hours has stopped those evening highs, which I'm extremely grateful for considering those highs are the same ones that start my day off. And beginning and ending my days in the 200's is not my idea of good diabetes management.

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Saturday night, I raised my evening Lantus dose to 16 units and kept my morning dosage at 13 units. I also moved the evening dose up by about three hours, hoping to stop those highs that sent me into sleep at 218 and 241. I also took the plunge and decided to do a trial run of boluses with the pump instead of pen or syringe. And I'm still as perplexed, but this time for the opposite reason.

Within a few hours of bolusing with the pump, I saw a 55 that bounced up to 114, 131, and back down to 93. Several snacks throughout the night left me at a morning number of 130. For most of Sunday, I stayed under 150 with a brief spike after working out. After dinner on Sunday night, I dropped to 84 then 69. And after about an hour, I was 146. But at 4am, I woke to an unexpected 47. I also lowered my evening Lantus to 15 units since I'd seen a rise in lows after the 16 units.

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Right now, I'm staring at my logbook trying to decide what changes I need to make and what else I want to try with all this. This past week has been a bit rocky so my averages are all over the place. Mostly, they're high. At least higher than I want them to be. So while I'm staring at my book, I'm trying to piece together this last week and figure out what is going on with these numbers.

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For the past few years, I've gotten into the bad diabetes habit of skipping boluses. Not food boluses. But blood sugar boluses. I have the habit of foregoing boluses when my blood sugar is 160 and under. I'll see a 140 or 155 and skip the bolus instead of bringing it down to 100. But above 160, I'm good about bolusing to bring the number down (something about those 180s and 200s scare me into submission).

I know that this extremely bad habit leaves my averages a little higher than they should be. And I'm not sure exactly why I do this...maybe over the years, a 150 doesn't seem so bad. Maybe I just get tired of so many injections a day so I leave off the "unnecessary" ones. Maybe it's some habit that I started in my childhood.

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It's Turkey Day. A day full of family, gratitude, and carbs. From the sweet potato casserole to the pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving Day is filled with carb-laden goodies that can wreak havoc on blood sugars.

This year will be my second Thanksgiving with the pump. I don't even remember handling last year's Thanksgiving challenges. However, I do remember Christmas very vividly.

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It's 10 p.m.; three hours post a high-fat, high-carb meal. At three hours I'm 122. That's an almost perfect place to be at three hours post-meal and right before bed.

But the problem is that I'm headed to bed and I know I'll wake up wicked high. Why not use a square-wave bolus, you ask. I just may, but the real problem for me is that I'd like to be able to use a dual- or square-wave bolus up front so I can sort of fix and forget. But I can go almost low around two hours post a high-fat, high-carb meal. Even at three hours I'm in a decent place, but by four hours I've skipped right over the high 100s and am square in the upper 200s.

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I started out at 192. I did a correction bolus and a carb bolus. The carb bolus was for four slices of pizza. I used the square bolus over 3 hours, hoping that I wouldn't end up too high.

I ate my pizza slices, enjoying every bite. By the time I finished eating, I had about two hours left on my square bolus. That should be perfect, I thought.

An hour later, I was 87. I still had almost half the insulin to deliver, so I suspended the bolus and drank a juice. I planned to check my blood sugar again within the next two hours to watch for the peak, then bolus the remaining insulin.

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I spoke with my pediatric endo today about my new diabetes community venture. First, I want to give a great big thank you and shout out to him. He is doing amazing things in the diabetes community. Thanks for being the best doc and putting up with me, Morey!

We talked about new treatment options that are coming into play. One of the ones we discussed is using the hormone amylin to control postprandial blood sugars. Amylin is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the beta cells (the ones that produce insulin). The body gives amylin with insulin when glucose is consumed. They have found that low levels of insulin are typically accompanied with low levels of amylin.

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