Hi, I’m new here

[MOB78]

Hello,
I have diabetes type 3c as a result of autoimmune chronic pancreatitis. Since lockdown I have been started on insulin..apidra. I have an amazing consultant who’s helped me loads by email. Unfortunately I also have severe asthma which means I end up on steroids fairly regularly...have just finished my 3rd course in 4 months, but prednisolone messes my glucose levels crazily!

I have a random question...I finished pred a week or so ago and have just had sausage,mash& tinned spaghetti for dinner. Obviously tinned spaghetti isn’t great, but I forgot to take insulin after, so checked my BM and it’s 29.7. Just taken 8 units of insulin but what I’m wondering is, is that a bit extreme for having eaten spaghetti, sausages and mash? I find the whole diet thing really confusing!

Sorry for waffly first post!
Dx

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Pred wont be affecting your blood sugars now as out of your system fairly quickly. But yep whilst on them they sure mess up your blood sugars. (Thank goodness for insulin)

Even though you forgot your insulin this time, I'm a tad concerned that you say you take it after you eat? Your bolus is meant to be taken 15 - 20 mins before you eat and if using Fiasp 4 minutes before you eat.
That meal is also very carb heavy so yep that's a high blood sugar to match. You would be better off either with the spag or the spuds, not both at the same meal. 🙂

Ask your consultant for help in carb counting and insulin adjustment. This way you can match your insulin to what you eat. 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @MOB78

Sorry to hear about your asthma needing steroids - yes that will reelly mess with your BG levels.

Do you take Creon as well for the chronic pancreatitis?

I agree with @Pumper_Sue that it sounds like you need more help matching your insulin doses to your meals, and also need help with some sort of ‘sick day rules’ for when you are taking the steroids so that you have a framework of how much extra insulin you might take when BG rises out of range.

We have a few 3c and pancreatitis folks on the forum who might be able to offer you some hints and tips @eggyg @Hepato-pancreato @mikeyB

Personally I find mashed potato one of the most spike-inducing carbs. So if I were eating it as part of a meal I would definitely want to give the insulin a decent head start. 🙂

 

[MOB78]

Hi,
Thank you for your reply!
Amazingly at the moment, no creon, but I used to. It’s a long story but my pancreatitis is part of an IgG4 related disease...it’s a rare thing & I also have chronic kidney failure because of it. I got sick with pancreatitis aged 19...now 42.

I've been diabetic for a while but it’s been hard for the doctors to find a true Hba1c reading as there’s not often a 3 month slot without prednisolone which like you say, messes the BG.

Funnily enough I emailed my consultant yesterday too& she said too about the mash potato. I wouldn’t have thought about mash potato being different to other means of eating potato so I learned something there!

My consultant had been amazing and I have had regular email contact with her trying tofigure things out...especially with the steroids.

It says with apidra that I can take it within 20mins of starting to eat, which I do, rather than before, but I’m wondering if I should start taking it before the meal.

Thanks for your help.
Mob

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

but I’m wondering if I should start taking it before the meal.

Many forum users find ‘prebolusing‘ (administering the dose and then waiting a while before eating) is a very important and useful part of their diabetes management toolkit - maybe worth some cautious experimentation? 🙂

 

[Squirrel768]

Welcome, Mob, and hope you enjoy being a member here (new myself, and already doing my usual - hold nose and jump in at the deep end LOL).

I now pre-bolus before breakfast, as Libre alerted me to a consistent massive after-breakfast spike. Other meals I do before eating. One time to be cautious, though, from past experience. When in a restaurant, I would never pre-bolus. Sometimes, the service can be slower than expected, and I am very aware of the problem that would arise if the meal was delayed ... !

It sounds like you are working hard to understand all of the various factors that you are faced with, and with a good consultant helping, I'm sure you will very soon be finding it second-nature to work out the balances and effects of the different meds. Well done and keep on being positive through the challenges. We will look forward to keeping up with your progress 🙂

 

[ColinUK]

Can’t offer any wisdom on t3 or insulin but wanted to say hello instead and welcome you to the forum 🙂

 

[MOB78]

Many forum users find ‘prebolusing‘ (administering the dose and then waiting a while before eating) is a very important and useful part of their diabetes management toolkit - maybe worth some cautious experimentation? 🙂

Thank you! The thing is at the moment...because I only started on insulin since lockdown and have had 3 lots of steroids since, is that I haven’t been told how to adjust insulin to what I eat yet...although my consultant has just referred me to the dietician so they can help me with all that. So if I eat something better for diabetes for breakfast then I might not need insulin at all as sometimes it’s in normal range and sometimes it’s crazy...I think it’s to do with the pancreas sometimes deciding to work a little bit & sometimes not at all. It’s all a bit complicated.Thereforeif I take insulin before it could make it drop too low, as now and then without insulin after eating it’s only 5-7ish. I don’t know if I’m making any sense Probably not!

 

[MOB78]

Can’t offer any wisdom on t3 or insulin but wanted to say hello instead and welcome you to the forum 🙂

Thank you! It takes a bit of getting your head around doesn’t it! At least it does mine

 

[ColinUK]

Thank you! It takes a bit of getting your head around doesn’t it! At least it does mine

I’m T2 and really aware of what I ought to avoid to keep my bloods stable but I only diagnosed at the start of the year so it’s still very much a learning curve for me.

 

[Squirrel768]

Thank you! The thing is at the moment...because I only started on insulin since lockdown and have had 3 lots of steroids since, is that I haven’t been told how to adjust insulin to what I eat yet...although my consultant has just referred me to the dietician so they can help me with all that. So if I eat something better for diabetes for breakfast then I might not need insulin at all as sometimes it’s in normal range and sometimes it’s crazy...I think it’s to do with the pancreas sometimes deciding to work a little bit & sometimes not at all. It’s all a bit complicated.Thereforeif I take insulin before it could make it drop too low, as now and then without insulin after eating it’s only 5-7ish. I don’t know if I’m making any sense Probably not!

Adjusting insulin can be a challenge! After 32 years, I still get it wrong quite regularly!

When I was diagnosed, I spent 4 days in ward 1 (he diabetes ward) of what was then Birmingham General Hospital. They were brilliant, and I spent a lot of time learning about carbs, and how to monitor and adjust insulin accordingly. I appreciate that, with lockdown, that was not an option, and especially when levels are so variable.

After diagnosis, within a few months, I went into a 'honeymoon period', where I actually stopped taking insulin. My consultant said it would not last, but was surprised at how long it did go on for. And yes, it did start creeping back - and no, I don't pretend to understand how or why it happens!

All I can suggest is that you persevere, and look for patterns according to health and meds, and start to 'map' out the ouutcomes, until you can get access to the professional health care team to work it out properly.

Best wishes on your new journey - you can do this 🙂

 

[MOB78]

Adjusting insulin can be a challenge! After 32 years, I still get it wrong quite regularly!

When I was diagnosed, I spent 4 days in ward 1 (he diabetes ward) of what was then Birmingham General Hospital. They were brilliant, and I spent a lot of time learning about carbs, and how to monitor and adjust insulin accordingly. I appreciate that, with lockdown, that was not an option, and especially when levels are so variable.

After diagnosis, within a few months, I went into a 'honeymoon period', where I actually stopped taking insulin. My consultant said it would not last, but was surprised at how long it did go on for. And yes, it did start creeping back - and no, I don't pretend to understand how or why it happens!

All I can suggest is that you persevere, and look for patterns according to health and meds, and start to 'map' out the ouutcomes, until you can get access to the professional health care team to work it out properly.

Best wishes on your new journey - you can do this 🙂

Thank you Squirrel
I really needed that encouragement today. I feel really overwhelmed with it at the moment. I’ve always found food tricky anyhow and adding diabetes and insulin has sent my anxiety over it all a bit mad.
Thank you lots for your support and encouragement!...and everyone else too! I really appreciate it!

 

[Annemarie]

Hello @MOB78 I expect you'll find this forum as helpful as I have. I was diagnosed in January 2019 but I have learnt more from this group than in the previous 20 months. I was feeling guilty at not managing my own condition but not sure how to. One thing I have found out for myself is that anxiety/stress/tension gives my blood sugars an instant upward boost. I hope that you too can use this communication to ask questions and off load concerns and stressors. Very best of luck!

 

[Squirrel768]

Thank you Squirrel
I really needed that encouragement today. I feel really overwhelmed with it at the moment. I’ve always found food tricky anyhow and adding diabetes and insulin has sent my anxiety over it all a bit mad.
Thank you lots for your support and encouragement!...and everyone else too! I really appreciate it!

That is why we are all here, Mob - to help and encourage (and in the few days since I joined, I've already found plenty of that.) My experience in life in general is to 'be there' when someone else needs a helping hand, and sometimes to offer a waterproof shoulder to lean on when the emotions hit hard, or a listening ear when you need to let off steam and scream at the world! There have, of course, been times when others have been there to help me through tough times as well. I think in here, we call it 'community' 🙂

 

[Ditto]

Hello. I kept reading your drug as aspidistra, my mother's got one in the kitchen, flipping thing is huge, a triffid. At least I think it's an aspidistra. Welcome to the forum. 🙂

 

[MOB78]

Hello. I kept reading your drug as aspidistra, my mother's got one in the kitchen, flipping thing is huge, a triffid. At least I think it's an aspidistra. Welcome to the forum. 🙂

That’s funny!

 

[trophywench]

Hey ! this is a marathon, not a sprint !

You can't run a marathon without months of training and if you want to keep running them, you also need to keep up the training, don't you?

We are all tortoises and none of us are hares - thus 'slow but sure' is the key to how we get there and stay there. It's not my inbuilt way of achieving things so that method didn't sit easily with me to begin with but eventually once I'd got it through my bombproof skull that it did me no good jumping off a cliff until I'd found out where the ideal landing place was situated and instead just hoping it'd be there and suffering damage because of that - I realised diabetes would limit me lots more than it does, if I didn't study its rules and play along with it!

 

[Squirrel768]

Hello. I kept reading your drug as aspidistra, my mother's got one in the kitchen, flipping thing is huge, a triffid. At least I think it's an aspidistra. Welcome to the forum. 🙂

Just trying to imagine the medics saying you need an aspidistra - latest in diabetes treatment LOL. Takes me back to the sort of antics n 'Carry on Doctor'

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hello. I kept reading your drug as aspidistra, my mother's got one in the kitchen, flipping thing is huge, a triffid. At least I think it's an aspidistra. Welcome to the forum. 🙂

Just trying to imagine the medics saying you need an aspidistra - latest in diabetes treatment LOL. Takes me back to the sort of antics n 'Carry on Doctor'

That took me back!

Does anyone remember ‘The Adventure Game’ where someone’s father? uncle? appeared in the form of an aspidistra in the game?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Found it!