Insulin pump

After almost three years of using multiple daily injections (MDI) to deliver my insulin, I've updated to insulin pump technology. The pump should provide a bit more flexibility in my doses but the biggest benefit is that the doses can be more targeted and will hopefully help me minimise my 'departures' from the blood sugar target zone. This will help to minimize my chances of getting the nasty complications that result from this terrible disease.

One week into pump therapy and things are going really well. Still some fine tuning to go to get the insulin to carb ratio right and also to have the correct background 'basal' rate throughout the day.

The disruption to training was minimal thanks to some good progress in getting through the fine tuning.  I didn't expect to launch straight back into heavy training but due to good progress, I was able to get out for a 100km ride and 30min run this morning. My settings on the pump worked well. I tried a temporary reduction of my basal rate to 60% of normal for 12 hours and that seemed to do the trick. I did learn the hard way that I also need reduce my post ride mealtime insulin 'boluses' further to avoid some of the low blood sugar (hypos) I had this afternoon. 

During the week I had to endure a 'skip-meal' basal test, which involved waking up and not eating ANYTHING until midday. That was torture! But what it was able to prove was that as my blood sugar level didn't rise or fall during the morning, my basal rate must be pretty close to right for that period. I'll have to do some more of these over the coming weeks, skipping other meals to confirm I have the basal rates correct throughout the day.

I'm looking forward to another solid week of training and maybe two good training sessions squeezed in somewhere over the Easter weekend.