Rules For Control

Select Your Target Blood Sugars

With your health care provider's help, select a target range for before meals, 2 hours after meals, and at bedtime. Constantly aim for reasonable target ranges for your day to day blood sugars. Your target range covers the numbers you would like your blood sugars to stay within at least 75% of the time. This starting range can be tightened and improved gradually until you are ready for a more ideal range.

How Much Do You Need?

Although there are no perfect answers, almost all Type 1s, and most people with Type 2, on insulin find their control is best when their long-acting insulin (Lente, NPH, Ultralente, or the basal rate on a pump) makes up 55% to 60% of their total daily insulin dose. This level lets you skip meals, and still keep your blood sugars relatively level.

A great advantage of frequent injections and insulin pumps is the convenience of giving additional insulin any time a need arises. A bolus can be given for dinner then again more for an unplanned dessert and more for the high blood sugar that follows.

The 1800 Rule For Determining Your Correction Factor

The 500 Rule (aka 450 Rule) from Using Insulin and the Pocket Pancreas is a great way to estimate how many grams of carbohydrate will be covered by one unit of Humalog or Novolog insulin. This is your insulin to carb ratio or your carb factor. Once you know this, you can count the grams of carb in the food you want to eat and divide by your carb factor to find how many units of bolus insulin are needed to cover the carbs.

Carb Factor

The 500 Rule (aka 450 Rule) from Using Insulin and the Pocket Pancreas is a great way to estimate how many grams of carbohydrate will be covered by one unit of Humalog or Novolog insulin. This is your insulin to carb ratio or your carb factor. Once you know this, you can count the grams of carb in the food you want to eat and divide by your carb factor to find how many units of bolus insulin are needed to cover the carbs.

Learn to control your diabetes with flexible insulin therapy (FIT). Why flexible insulin therapy? Think for a second and the answer is clear---that's what everyone else's pancreas is doing. Insulin is given in varying amounts depending on the need at that moment.