Confidence has been found

Typically I don't make adjustments to Trey's insulin dosages that are set by his care team in Sioux Falls, but I took matters into my own hands yesterday.

After seeing Trey's graphs that we can download from the pump, I see that at 5am his blood sugar rises pretty significantly.  They all this Dawn Phenom.  I call it "Piss me off".  So I changed his temp basal rate that starts at 7am, to 5am, which means at 5am he gets a bit more insulin automatically from the pump.   I also see that no matter how many carbs he eats for supper, his sugar goes up and doesn't like to come down.  I adjusted his ratio from 1:35 to 1:30 for now.  I can also see via his graphs that at 8pm he starts to trend upwards.  I will keep my eye on this for a few days and make necessary adjustments if need be.

We are almost a year into this.  Up until this point I have been afraid to make changes and have always asked the SF team for help.  I feel confident now to make minor adjustments.  I see what his activity level, sleep patterns, and food intake are ... and I can see these amazing graphs that Medtronic has built into the pump (seriously -- amazingly good graphs and technology!).  I don't need to wait for SF to make any changes. I have them all logged into a notebook that I will take to his next Endo appointment in March.

He's been running higher.  Not drastically high, but not really below 200.  I  know that the only fix for this is more insulin.  His activity level and his food has been the same. We haven't had crazy highs or crazy lows which would point me towards an illness ... and it's very possible he could be growing which would raise levels.  Whatever the reason -- we need to get back down into range, which is 150. 

Hard to believe we're almost at a year.  Hard to believe it's taken me this long to make adjustments as I see fit, but on the flip side, too little insulin can kill him and yet too much insulin can kill him.  Diabetes is probably the only disease that a parent is left to judge how much insulin to give their child - several times a day - without a firm dosage from a doctor.  Scary.