My daughter was diagnoses with Type 1 diabetes in Oct of 2007, at the time I was in Federal Law Enforcement in the Philadelphia area. Earlier in the year, my wife and I had decided to leave law enforcement and return home to the west coast to be closer to family and friends. We packed up our five kids in the spring of 2007 and moved them back, I stayed on the east coast looking for jobs back home. I found a good job in September of 2007 and was at my going away party at a restaurant when my wife called with the diagnosis. She had taken her to the doctor thinking she had a bladder infection, only to find out it was Type 1 Diabetes. Ryann and my wife then spent the next few days in the hospital getting help and support for Ryann.
Now, one year later, I understand diabetes, food, carbohydrates and the human body more then ever before. I spend hours running and thinking about how to make it easier to track and monitor Ryann’s blood sugar level or BSL. However, we still struggles to understand the reasons Ryann would have high BSL in the morning or at varios times during the day. We worked with doctors who suggested her Lantus dosage was to high or low or the amount of Novolog was to high. These suggestions never made sense to me, but I was not a doctor, and I was new at this.
Having a degree in Computer Science and over-whelming desire to solve problems, I began to look into the diabetes more and more. I began reading books and looking into the effect of insulin and other factors as they relate the Ryann’ BSL. What I found was something called the Glycemic Index or GI, this describes the breakdown rate of carbs in the body. What I think I have figure out is why Ryann would go low at 10 pm and then wake-up at 350 or so in the morning. It was not a factor of the insulin dosage but the rate of breakdown of carbs and the rate the insulin works. If those two are out of sync, in relation to the current BSL, it would appear she was headed low, but in fact she wasn’t. You can look at the two graphs below, the first one is what I would call “good’ or that we have selected the right foods so her carbs breakdown at a rate even with the insulin. The second graph is ‘bad’ because the carbs breakdown at a slower rate then the insulin which causes a ‘temporary low’ which would be recovered from later. The green lines are the insulin, the red line the BSL and the black is the carbs…
Now, one year later, I understand diabetes, food, carbohydrates and the human body more then ever before. I spend hours running and thinking about how to make it easier to track and monitor Ryann’s blood sugar level or BSL. However, we still struggles to understand the reasons Ryann would have high BSL in the morning or at varios times during the day. We worked with doctors who suggested her Lantus dosage was to high or low or the amount of Novolog was to high. These suggestions never made sense to me, but I was not a doctor, and I was new at this.
Having a degree in Computer Science and over-whelming desire to solve problems, I began to look into the diabetes more and more. I began reading books and looking into the effect of insulin and other factors as they relate the Ryann’ BSL. What I found was something called the Glycemic Index or GI, this describes the breakdown rate of carbs in the body. What I think I have figure out is why Ryann would go low at 10 pm and then wake-up at 350 or so in the morning. It was not a factor of the insulin dosage but the rate of breakdown of carbs and the rate the insulin works. If those two are out of sync, in relation to the current BSL, it would appear she was headed low, but in fact she wasn’t. You can look at the two graphs below, the first one is what I would call “good’ or that we have selected the right foods so her carbs breakdown at a rate even with the insulin. The second graph is ‘bad’ because the carbs breakdown at a slower rate then the insulin which causes a ‘temporary low’ which would be recovered from later. The green lines are the insulin, the red line the BSL and the black is the carbs…
So by controlling the GI of the meal, we can control the BSL and understand better what is happening with Ryann.
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