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Simply put, basal insulin is the insulin you take for your basic metabolic processes. It is insulin that an insulin dependent diabetic must have, even when they do not eat. Do not exercise during the specific times you are testing, that can skew the results drastically.
To test whether you are getting the correct amount of basal insulin (lantus or levimir if injected; apidra, novorapid(novolog) or humalog if infused by a pump), you need to test your glucose in a way that will be not affected by food you eat.
For most diabetics, by 3 hours or so after eating, your glucose has settled down, at least if you have not had a large amount of carbohydrates.
To get a complete picture, you really need testing 24 hours a day, just not in one day, but spread out over several days.
One way is to skip a meal (but only one). If you skipped breakfast, you could test from the time you woke up until you had lunch. Then you could test again at something like 3 hours after lunch until supper, and 3 hours after supper you could start again and test until you go to bed (providing you don't have a snack).
An alternative I find that works well for me, is to delay meals instead of skipping them. If I had breakfast at 6 am, I could test from 9am to lunch. The next day, if I had a 9 am breakfast, I could test from 6 am to 9 am. In this way, you can build up a picture of how your basal rates are at all times of the day.
Night time is a tough one. You need to test at least once an hour, one way would be to stay up late one night, and get up early another.
The best way, by far, is to use a continuous glucose monitor. Sometimes doctors can get you the use of one for a few days. Then all you need to do is vary your mealtimes and make a record of what you eat and exercise.
I use a pump, my goal is to have the basal set so that if I skip a meal, my glucose remains very steady for at least 6 hours or until the next meal.
With injections, this goal would be hard to achieve, but none-the-less, it is what you are trying for. The idea is if a meal is an hour early or an hour late, you can avoid lows due to not eating, if your basal amount is right on.
-Lloyd
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