The Simple Act of Logging

I have logged pretty consistently lately. I’m using the “Smart Charts” or “My Other CheckBook”. The upper part of the page is a line graph, where you can plot your BG’s for each hour, and there are spots for basal rate (or lantus dose), carb bolus and correction bolus.

The bottom half of the page has spots to record food and carb grams for breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning snacks, afternoon snacks & evening snacks. The space is tight, but workable. There is a place for the day of week, the date, your weight and a couple lines for notes/comments. Again, the space for notes & comments is tight, but workable.

I’ve found it difficult to pay close enough attention to my boluses enough to separate the carb and correction boluses. For the most part, I plug in my BG and/or my carbs, and let the pump figure the dosing for me. If the situation ever dictated, I can go back through the pumps history to nail down details of how much the bolus was. I’m not sure if getting the exact insulin dose is very important or not – or if just counting on my insulin to carb ratio and correction factor is enough. I suppose if I have any suspicions on any scenarios I would certainly look at that more closely.

I do track when I run temp basal rates, such as for basketball, but again I don’t track the real units/hour, but the percentage of my normal basal rate. That is just because that is the way I program my temp rates – in percentage and not units.

It’s been around one month, and I think that the simple act of logging has helped my control. I believe that this is true for many people – but it’s really such a PITA (Pain In The Ass) that it gets neglected often.

Maybe it keeps me honest, maybe it keeps my control on my mind, maybe it’s the internal conversation of “how the heck am I going to log this?!” that helps me make good decisions – who knows for sure.

I have been consistently logging for about a month. There are pockets of time where I’ll miss a couple days (mostly weekends), but for the most part, it is every day.

Of particular value to me is the line graph that’s built in. It is helping me to better understand what my food choices do to my bloodsugar, and to spot things that don’t seem to make sense (like that dang set change).

I plan on continuing to log consistently, as I feel it is beneficial for me. Over time it will help me find problem areas, or confirm suspected problem areas.