Bolus options for your Thanksgiving feast

As we all begin to prepare for a Thanksgiving feast, you may be thinking about the best ways to manage your mealtime (or bolus) insulin. So, if you’re looking to learn more about the basics or just need a refresher, you’ve landed on the right page!

Bolus options

Thanksgiving meals tend to be richer in fat and carbohydrates. For that reason, they tend to break down more slowly in the body, which may lead to unexpected highs post-meals. The good news is, if you’re using a MiniMed™ system in Manual Mode, there are advanced bolus features like the Dual Wave or Square Wave bolus that can help. And, if you notice post-meal highs in SmartGuard™ Auto Mode, you may consider splitting the recommended bolus in half, and then delivering half at the start of the meal and the other half at the end of the meal. This may help to match the insulin action with the delayed digestion of the meal. Regardless of what route you prefer to take (perhaps you’d rather not use these at all), we’ve outlined other options below. As always, we recommend discussing your bolus options with your health care provider (HCP).

Bolus Wizard™ Feature

If you’re comfortable estimating the amount of carbohydrates in your meal, the Bolus Wizard^TM can come in handy during Thanksgiving. It allows you to enter your current blood glucose (BG) reading, or have it come directly from a linked BG meter, and the amount of carbohydrates you will be eating. 

Once you’ve entered this information, the Bolus Wizard™ will consider what your current BG is, the amount of carbohydrates entered, and how much insulin you might still have active in your system, also called active insulin, before recommending a bolus dose. You can access the Bolus Wizard™ feature through the Bolus menu in your pump. 

Some insulin pump model settings may vary. For system specific resources and more tips, select the page for your model of insulin pump: MiniMed™ 770G, MiniMed™  670G, and MiniMed™ 630G.  

Manual (Normal) Bolus

Not comfortable counting carbohydrates? No problem. Instead, deliver a set dose of bolus insulin. Although this method doesn’t consider the personalized settings calculated by your HCP, the Manual (Normal) Bolus option allows you to decide the amount of bolus insulin you believe you will need. You can access this bolus option through the Bolus menu on your pump.  

Easy Bolus

What if you’ve bolused for your meal and then spot the cranberry sauce across the table? This scenario may call for the Easy bolus feature. This allows you to quickly deliver a Manual bolus using only the UP arrow (your pump must be in sleep mode to use this feature) on your pump. This means you can add additional insulin on top of what you previously bolused without going through all the steps. See? Easy. 

Whichever way you prefer to bolus during your upcoming festivities, know that you have options. As always, this is a great conversation to have with your healthcare team so that you feel prepared. Having a plan may help make some of the season’s mealtime challenges a little bit easier to navigate. 

We’d love to hear from you. Please let us know in the comments which way you will be bolusing on Thanksgiving. And, from all of us here at Medtronic, Happy Holidays!

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

Medtronic Diabetes insulin infusion pumps, continuous glucose monitoring systems and associated components are limited to sale by or on the order of a physician and should only be used under the direction of a healthcare professional familiar with the risks associated with the use of these systems. 

Successful operation of the insulin infusion pumps and/or continuous glucose monitoring systems requires adequate vision and hearing to recognize alerts and alarms. 

Medtronic Diabetes Insulin Infusion Pumps 

Insulin pump therapy is not recommended for individuals who are unable or unwilling to perform a minimum of four blood glucose tests per day. Insulin pumps use rapid-acting insulin. If your insulin delivery is interrupted for any reason, you must be prepared to replace the missed insulin immediately. 

Please visit www.medtronicdiabetes.com/about/safety.html for complete safety information.