Knowledge required for problem solving

Know:

• Your blood glucose goals
• How to count carbohydrates
• Your Diabetes medications
• How activities affect you

Data required for problem solving

• Blood glucose readings
• Carbohydrate counts
• Diabetes medication doses
• Your log entries (track blood glucose levels, carbohydrate content of meals, medication/insulin doses, exercise, and other events that could affect your blood glucose e.g. illness, stress, etc.)

Managing your Diabetes means maintaining the proper balance between insulin dose, food and activity every day. Put simply, if you are out of balance, your blood glucose will be too. But if you keep good records you will be able to work with your physician to correct any problems.

Analysis of data

• First look at glucoses throughout the day, then look for blood glucose patterns to help you focus on one part of the day at a time.
• When are you in target range? When are you either too high or too low?
• After you identify the problem, look for the cause.
• Connect the dots. Do problems with high or low blood glucose repeat at the same time each day? After you eat? After you exercise? When you’re relaxed? After you take medication/insulin? When you’re stressed?

Minimize the variables to narrow down the cause(s)

General principles

• Make one change at a time
• Verify that what you’re changing fixes the problem
• Talk to your Diabetes team – they can help you analyze your data

If you are having problems with low or high blood glucose:

• Low Blood Glucose FAQs
• High Blood Glucose FAQs