Wednesday, February 29, 2012

February Quantified, Compared, Explained,Tweaked...

What are the chances of this kind of sensor-meter harmony?

30 Day Sensor average 132
14 Day Sensor average 122

My sensor data says that I'm staying in range 92% of the time, 5% above, 3% below.
I'll have to check what those limits are, because, while it seems like what I want, I don't think it indicates that I'm staying in the tight range that I consider my "target range" (70-110) so much of the time. Working on it, though.

I feel like things have gotten better since January. For the last 2 months I have shown roughly a 10 mg/dl point drop in the average each month. I have been getting especially consistent results over the last 2 weeks, in particular. I think the improvement relates to more sleep, better hydration and regular exercise. I hate to admit that simple things like that were always available and ignored, but it's what I've come up with. Either way, I'm watching my sensor info like a hawk and am happy that lately it's barely been budging from the 90-100 spot. I've done some studying of my data and tweaked my basal a bit.

For a while there, I was manually switching between my basal patterns all day long. I have 3 different basal delivery levels that kicked out 30, 22, and 19 units. Depending on what I saw going on I was switching to a different basal to address a trend. It worked, but it required TOO MUCH tweaking, and I was losing track of what was working when. Eventually, I found that I was getting lows even when I was using my lowest basal, so I decided that I needed to sort it out better. I looked for the spots where I was regularly seeing a rise or a drop and I adjusted the basal about 2 hours ahead of it. It worked. Today was smooth, and I didn't mess with the basal options all day. Just boluses.

Last month I said my goal was to reach an average of 126 mg/dl. I am not there yet, but it definitely seems within reach. Then I'll shoot for 100 mg/dl. 

5 comments:

  1. Hey! I just wanted to say that I really enjoy reading all these details. I have always been aware that this is such a big part of your life, but it isn't usually dinner conversation when we get to see you. It's nice to hear the inside scoop.

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    1. Bethany, glad you enjoyed it. I started this blog so I could get as esoteric as I needed to without sending my non-diabetic readers into a detail coma. Thanks for wanting the inside scoop!

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  2. Way to go!
    When I asked you for target range before, I forgot that you were using minimed. With minimed, if you are looking at your data on the computer, then target range is automatically 70-140 and, at least back when I was using the software, couldn't be changed, whereas if you looked at the data on the receiver itself, then in range was whatever the high and low alarms were set to at that moment.

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    1. Yes, you have a good memory.
      I was coming to that conclusion about the reciever, and realized that at different times of the day the sensor's high alarms are set to 180 and 200. So, staying in range is kind of an empty triumph.
      I looked at my data on the computer and got way different percentages. 25% in range (70-110), 64% above 110.
      Although, it looks like I did have a day, 2/22, when I was actually in the 70-110 range for 69% of the day.

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  3. I looked at my own data since I got my current receiver (mid October) with your target range of 70-110 because you're making me curious.
    First, changing the target range (from 75 to 189, to 70 to 110) made my mostly green pie charts turn mostly red. Out of 135 days with data, 122 were mostly outside of that range. Percentage of time in the "target range" of 70-110 was 27% for the entire time period, 24% for the past three months, and 29% for the past month. My 1 month average is considerably higher than yours: 136.

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