For instance I have divided my day into midnight to 4am, 4am to 7am, 7am to 12pm, and so on. I have programmed my insulin pump to deliver my insulin at different rates for all of those times.
I perform basal rate tests when my blood glucose readings go a bit mental and persist in being mental. My fasting blood glucose have been acting up for a couple of weeks now and I decided that it was time I figured out why.
So, I tested at 10pm, before going to bed, which is normal for me. My result was 6.7mmol, great! So, I'm all set. I set my alarm for midnight for my next test and fell asleep pretty quickly. The tests followed every 2 hours and results were 5.8, 5,4, 6.3 and 6.1. WHAT!!! I couldn't have wished for better readings.
Initially, I thought to myself that I had just put myself through an interrupted nights sleep for no reason. But the results are telling me that my nights are not the problem and that I need to look at my basal rates for during the day. The thought of doing this is more stressful because it involves skipping a meal and during the day I take care of my children. I'm nervous about both of those things.
However, Joe Solowiejczyk suggested that my husband could help out a little with the driving and the children so that I didn't panic too much about it. I think I'm mostly worried about driving under 5mmols. Then, in the last month my husband has been travelling on a weekly basis.
So, it looks like I'm just going to have to "man-up" and practice lots of deep breathing.
More information on Basal Rate Testing can be found here; http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/articles/insulin/getting_down_to_basals/all/